Storage Mass Storage Device Needed

Hey guys, not been on here since my last build.

Basically I store all my video files on an external hard drive and play them on TV through a WD HD TV 'box'. Thats been full for months now and files have been building up on my standard rig. Yesterday the external died, and panic ensued as there is no back up and some of them are irreplacable. Luckily the hard drive was fine and it was the enclosure that had gone kaput so new caddy and we're all good.

However it has made me realise now is the time to create a permanent mass storage solution. What I want is:

- Simple storage ~4-6Tb to start
- Easy to move files on and off so I can use it as a base for all my files but easily transfer them to the external hard drive for when I take it round friends houses etc
- Preferaby cheap
- Doesn't need to be accessable from anywhere in the world or stream files etc

I've looked at NAS boxes and micro-servers and considered a very slow basic PC with lots of hard drives but not sure which is the best option. Any help please

 

If you already have some spare suitable hardware, building a cheap system with a few drives and FreeNAS might be a worthwhile option.

Bad time to be looking for 6TB of storage though, IMO.

 

No spare kit lieing around at all (several house moves have seen to that) so would all have to be purchased. It is a pain in the arse that storage now costs so much, wish it would drop back down to old prices!

 

id get as little as you can for now, perhaps a 1 or 2TB and then wait for prices to drop some more, the 2TB seagate (green version or normal) is £100 on aria, so you are gonna be looking at £300 minimum, but if you wait, you can probably get a 2TB for about £70 (i think thats what it was before)

 

Looking at http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/hard-...uad-bay-esata-usb-2-0-external-enclosure.html and then could add hard drives as and when I can afford them/they come down in price

Anyone any experience with these?

 

I believe that this is your best bet and you get £100 cashback!

http://www.ebuyer.com/281915-hp-proliant-turion-ii-n40l-microserver-100-cashback-658553-421

 

+1

 

The only possible issue is the transfer speed on & off if the OP wanted to move 100/1000s of GBs of files...

...part of the reason why i moved to DASes.


Personally, i've been umming about taking a punt on this USB3/eSATA DAS (for even more storage) as it's about 35 quid less than the cheapest other USB3 one i could find...

 

Wow, that's quite a bargain.

 

He may do at first but not once it is set up.

 

The Proliant is as fast as anything I've seen for file transfers. I copy to it at around 90 per sec over a gigabit LAN, far faster than my old NAS which maxed at around 10 per sec.

 

Fair enough... i've just seen some really awful speeds on NASes, but if that's what it'll do then i stand corrected.

Though there'd still be a bit of a speed (depending on how you set the box up of course), cost & (probably) electricity advantage by going the USB3/eSATA route.

 

Having had a look around I prefer the idea of http://www.hornettek.com/pcaccessory/index.php/35q-four-bay/enterprise-4x just because it is very simple to set up and I can expand storage as and when I can afford it. The only problem being I don't know how good transfer will be be over USB 3/eSata - will need to move 2 Tb the first time but it would be 1-2 Gb a week after that.

Problem with microserver shown above is I don't entirely understand how to set it up or what I need, e.g. is 2 hard drives minimum to set up RAID or can I run it with 1 HDD at first.

 

are these using software RAID? if so, is there any advantage in using one of these over spare motherboard SATA connections (if you have them of course)?

 

You need 2 HDDs to run RAID but you can use a single drive in the HP Microserver I linked to.

 

They're not raid, its JBOD. I could fit 1-2 drives max into my computer and It will require completely stripping it down to get the cabling from PSU sorted etc. Bit of a pain in the ass.

Longweight - what is the idea behind the microserver, do you connect via network or USB/eSata and why is having essentially a small computer running an OS a better idea than a large external gard drive. Thanks

 

Yes the HP would sit on your network drawing around 20W I believe when idle. The advantage is that you can run it as a torrent box and you have more flexibility with the OS, some RAID software has issues and pre-installed software can be pants!

 

Does it need to be ethernet'd into the network. Problem there is that I live in shared housing and the router is a piddly one in communal area.

 

It does but you could buy a cheap router / switch for your room

 

I see. Ok fair enough, have to have a think.