My mediasmart 470 just crapped out - sending me on my search.. my needs are as follows in order of priority
Ability to serve my sizeable HD movie library
Ability to serve my sizeable music library (iTunes)
Automatic backup of 2-3 home PCs (ideally Mac and PC)
Some data redundancy in case of single drive failure (raid 5, ZFS etc)
Ability to automatically backup specific folders to the cloud (photos)
Ideally be able to use hard drives of different sizes
Based on my research I really like the synology 412+ but don't love the price and the fact that it can't be expanded.
Synology 1512 is an even better solution but price is an even bigger hangup especially given my needs are relatively modest
homebrew solution using N54L MicroServer. - would probably go the nas4free or openindiana solutioin
thoughts on my game plan, anything else I need to consider?