Thinking of Building a NAS

[LuigiCo]

OK, so first off, new here and if this is in the wrong area, feel free to move it.

Lost a 2TB hdd on the weekend (Most of it backed up, all the important stuff), and am now looking at building a NAS. Never worked with RAID before.

Mainly will be using it as storage, and playing music and 1080p media files over the network to either my PC, or to my WDTV.

Looking to do it on the cheap, sub $300 (Without HDDs) would be ideal. Main question I guess is would an older board/processor combo work, say a couple years old. Would like the ability to be able to RAID the drives obviously, but also be able to add different sized drives further down the road. Currently looking at the FreeNAS OS, just because its what I've read most comments on about it so far.

I looked into say a Drobo type setup as well, but what scares me is if say the Drobo dies, then do I NEED another drobo in order to get my info off of those drives, or could I hook it up to any Motherboard and at least get the data off.

[ZZLEE]

Look at PCI raid Cards. That way if the computer has isues you can drop into your main system.

There are some half decent older systems showing up on places like KIJIJI and USED(your citty)

I saw a I3 340 fore 300 fore a bare bone cuople of weeks ago. Hunt a bit never know what you will find.



Welcome to HWC

Edit: Somthing like Gaming system w/ Everything you need - Halifax Computers For Sale - Kijiji Halifax Canada.

Need some work but quick starting point.

[LuigiCo]

Yeah was planning on checking out Kijii, never heard of USED though. I've also got my co-workers on the hunt if they hear anything.

That does seem like a good starting point for sure. When looking at a RAID card, would it be better to do PCI or PCI-Express. Wondering how fast a expansion card would do for transfer speeds.

[Perineum]

Consider Windows Home server, it's the cheapest easiest way of doing this, just a bit hard on HD space.

[ZZLEE]

Have you herd anthing about these Guys http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source...F9xOig&cad=rja

e-Warehouse In Dartmouth

PCI- Express is capable of 64 Bit so If your running a 64 Bit OS ait will work with it.

IF the CHip and chioset are capable.

[LuigiCo]

Originally Posted by Perineum

Consider Windows Home server, it's the cheapest easiest way of doing this, just a bit hard on HD space.

Yeah, but isn't it kind of pricey?

@ZZLEE, Can't say I have heard of them, but I am in that area a lot so I might have to check them out on the weekend. See what they have laying around.

Also just found a guy on Kijiji that lives close to me, with a PC for sale.
"2.66 PC with 2GB of memory that is configured to serve movies, music, pictures to a XBOX"

Had to ask him some questions, like what kind of processor/board and stuff like that. But he wants 150 bucks for it. Which might also be a good starting block. Would you guys suggest a Dual Core at least?

[scruff]

NCIX.com - Buy Acer Home Server Intel Atom N230 2GB 1TB GBLAN 4 Bay Hotswap Windows Home Server *Refurb 1 Yr Wrty* - Others - AH340-UA230N - in Canada bought one 2 years ago and they work great for backups etc. I also use it to stream movies , I also love the hot swap bays . Great bang for the buck IMHO.

[LuigiCo]

I really like the idea of hot swappable drives, I don't know much about WHS, but reading a bit, I see that it doesn't do RAID. My question now is, what happens if my OS goes for some reason, am I able to still access that data by reinstalling WHS?

[Perineum]

You can plug each drive into any other computer and see your data just fine. Not doing RAID is a bonus at times - for that reason.

[scruff]

Originally Posted by LuigiCo

I really like the idea of hot swappable drives, I don't know much about WHS, but reading a bit, I see that it doesn't do RAID. My question now is, what happens if my OS goes for some reason, am I able to still access that data by reinstalling WHS?

Not sure what raid you would want to run but with whs you can pick file duplicaion (which files to duplicate) etc . The acer comes with install disks and PC,Server recovery disks . They work great I found out when I had to tinker with stuff I knew I shouldn't tinker with. The only hard part with this server I've had was getting rid of Macaffe anti virus , I run Avast for WHS now. I found that setting up accounts , folder acess etc was really easy.