NASLite Network Attached Storage

I want to us 4 x 250gb HDD's. Which is a preferrable config: 1 PC with all 4 in it or 2 PC's with 2 in each?

I could be wrong..but why would you want to run to pcs a servers if you could do it all with the one? Cant see any benifit at all from running two.

Its two systemst that would need to be maintianed. Two systems that would need to be booted and shut down. Its a hassle I would say..but as I said..I could be wrong

Personally I cant wait until you can run 8 hdd from the one server.

Its great fun messing with PC's, And I have to stop myself building another server I got two spare pc's upstairs. i'd stick the 4 HD's in the one pc, like Adrian said you only have to maintain the one server.

I to want to put more Hard Drives in my NAS.

But if you really want to mess have the two running!
My house is like a mini internet Cafe. and i love it.

Eden

I have a spare dell optiplex that I paid 30 bucks for on ebay but nodrives to go in it. Just sitting there waiting...

My current NASsystem has 4 hdd in it. 1x 320gb and 3 x 40gb. Two of the drives are sitting in caddies and can be removed. I want to set up all four drives in caddies ( I have them as well courtesy of ebay).

I want to build my own box from the ground up. I bought a mb on ebay again for 20 bucks so now I want to built a box around it using the size of the mb as the basis for the footprint of the box. I want to have all hdd in caddies in the front of the box. Possibly 2 high and side by side so as to reduce the height. Ideally I want the box to be no higher than that necessary to accommodate the power supply and the height of the hdd sitting just above the mb. Using on board networking and usb I want need any cards on the mb so Im hoping to keep it very low. I understand airflow is an issue but with all caddies being independently fan cooled I can keep the temps as low as 33-35 deg. My other concession to cooling will be a 12 cm fan to help suck air through the system. So allowing for that it will be not much higher than that. The case will all aluminium. I need more stuff to store on the box when its built...its addictive...

Ive never built a system of anysort before...

Is there any where to post pics of such a project here?

I have three caddies with drives in, each having a fan its makes a fair amount of noise. infact my main pc makes far more noise and only has one HD.

How about this for a project! buy a old XBOX case off ebay stick in a suitable MB and you got a nice compact NAS server sitting under the tv.




You can insert pics!



Eden

Nice!

eden hi mate,

That looks very cool, are those removable drives in caddies? C'mon where from and how much?

I can't post pics of mine, its in an old case on top of the beer fridge in the garage and looks like er an old pc on top of a fridge in the garage

Cheers

Dave

Hi Wilbur,

There are drives in the caddies, I got them a few weeks back from a computer fair here in Birmingham, cost was £6.00 each they are plastic, I prefer metal ones as they displace heat better but my drives dont get to hot, i have a few 40gb maxtors and these run really hot but my higher spec drives in the nas dont get half as hot so i went for the plastic ones.

I will be going back this weekend as I have to return one as the LED died on one. and it dont look as pretty also I will be buying another caddie, I just upgraded to naslite USB, so out comes the CD rom and floppy.
I got sent a free MP3 player with something I ordered and I am using the MP3 player to boot the NAS. Works great. So I will be sticking in another drive.

I love your description of you Beautiful Nas! made me smile.

Mine is plugged in next to my xp pc with a KVM switch and powerware UPS.

Oh and I tested the USB Kicker floppy and it does in fact boot up a USB pen i tested it on a Abit KT7A which does not boot from USB.

right I am off out with the missus, to see if i can convice her that we need that 300GB HD lol

over and out

Eden

Would that be the bike museum computer fair?

Just about everything I've bought for computer in the past year has come from there

Hi,

Not been to that one, this one is in Cocksmoor in Kingsheath.

its only a small fair but i picked up a 200gb HD for £61.00

Eden

Just bought a couple of these there £4.00 each+p&p I'll put em in the NAS tomorrow and see how they perform. Good way of making offsite back ups if you have a NAS at work and one at home.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=72253

Installed and working fine, no problems,

My NASlite sever looks nearly as good as eden's now

LOL Wilbur,

My Nas looks sick! all the leds in the caddies have died except one. plus the noise from the fans drives me mad, when I turn my NASBOX on i get a downdraft! enough to power a Hovercraft. My Nas deserves a new case, But I can't find one that says buy me. going to surf now and look at some goodies for my NAS.

Eden

The Enlight 7250 cases are pretty tough to beat for durability. Just a basic square case with plenty of room. You might give one of those a eyeball!

JSykes

To the original question.

There is a trade off to your choice. If you have all the drives hanging off of one box then you are limited to the pipe to the network you have. If it's 100TX then you will only get around 8-12MB/sec. That is the bottle neck for you. If you're moving files around alot then you would get a boost from splitting the load between two machines. Your better choice is to get a Gigabit card and Switch and have one NAS box. Less to go wrong and easier in the long run. All things being equil, it's about 10 times faster as well as opposed to just 2 times faster with a pair of 100TX servers. Also the drives become the bottle neck, not the network.

Mike