ok i know if your geek like me you got few hard drives layin around your house.. and now with more cheaper hard drives you can afford to have 3 easily. i did google and searched and i found some nice boxes/ storage system but its too expensive or lack some of the basic features like no FAN etc.. so i was thinking if someone has build a hard drive box with used case and some controller card and on off switch + fans. yes USB or FIREWIRE i like to make it so i don't have to stuff 5 hard drives in my pc and bring the performance down i can have massive gbs without wasting a performance and power. you can turn it on when ever you need any ideas?
do you know how he made it.. i mean the lowest price box i just found is 120$ some with 4 Hds and -3 TB total . which is good but being cheap sag. i was thinking if we can build one at home.
If you fancy doing it yourself, look at FreeNAS(.org). Then find youself something very low power like a VIA EPIA and load it up with harddisks and a Gigabit NIC. It's a lot more "on you" but that also means it's very customisable.
AC Ryan is a company, link I have found that it is easiest just to build a mATX for a file server. Building a storage array is something that would be very difficult to do yourself. That is if you could find a controller for them.
A storage array? What's the difference between that and a NAS box specifically? A dedicated controller with ROM?
From his initial post, he wanted a box with a controller card to do it, I took that as an external HDD caddy for multiple drives. But hey, i am just confusing myself and everyone else here.
For a sort of DIY effort... You could find/build an enclosure to hold your 3-4 drives, then buy several cheap IDE/SATA to USB converters/enclosures (one for each drive), rig that all up to a common power supply with some electronics know how and soldering, don't forget to also also use a common data cable by running them all through a USB hub. I don't know how all that would work exactly, but I'd like to see it tried. (Though I think a NAS box would be more worthwhile and fun)
That's what I made with my NAS box. You can buy specific stuff, but it costs a fair bit. Freenas, EPIA board, Gigabit card and plenty of harddisks works.
well this looks like too much work and if the things don't work out than ishh.. well i think the 120$ is worth for 3TB and 4HD if you just buy 1 single HD Enclosure right now it cost around 20$-30$ but than its cheap ones. not good durable. So 120$ is not bad investment. thanks everyone i might just save me some time and may be spend few bucks to get that box. but i was just wondering if people are building their own TERA BOXES heh with few hard drive loaded. but i guess its too much trouble and time consuming. anyway thanks.
I'm sure I've seen some multiple hard disk enclosures that you slap your own disks into. Then you'd just need 2X 500GB drives for a technical 1TB storage (less after formating of course) I still think it would be interesting to build your own enclosure like I said above. I don't know where you're looking for disk enclosures, but I got mine from Newegg for $13 each. Even at $20 each, for 3 drives that's only $60 as opposed to your $120. Don't know what you mean by durable either. My point was that you can slap together a fibreboard or aluminum case, put the disks and electronics in it, and DIY up a decent storage for less than those pre-built boxes. Probably not a lot less though. And without the nice backup software and such. Still, NAS is the only way to go if you've got multiple machines on your network or are trying for an HTPC setup as a frontend.
yes i have 4 hard drive 1 hard drive in enclosure, 1 in computer[c drive is extra] and 2 more laying around house. so totally i have 4 hard drive which i can put in to some enclosure or box if i find some cheaper box with 3 it would be great too since i have the 1 hd enclosure as well. if you can tell me where did u buy the 3 HD box it would be nice. and for 60$ thats cheap. i mean i can order it today. but i was thinking is it good for any kind of HD i mean SATA and ATA/IDE whatever type there are. plus is it got the fan to keep them coo?? if yes than you must tell me where to buy these. Thanks.
No, not one box holding 3 drives and the controllers in a retail package; I'm talking about buying 3 separate cheap enclosures and tearing them apart for their controller circuitry. A DIY effort, not retail. Honestly I'm not at all interested in finding a retail multiple drive (usually RAID) enclosure as I've got the spare computers to just set up a NAS. As for mixing drive types...I doubt there will be any retail box that will let you use both IDE and SATA drives. I only have experience with IDE to USB enclosures.
i am not interested in NAS and i don't want to do it for network its for my own collection. and i don't want to run whole computer like set up just to get 4 HD runing. i want only 4 hd in box by it self and some small crkt to run them all. with usb and if possible firewire. i saw few not cheap but reasonable boxes. from $120 - 170$ so i think in few months it will go down more. http://www.addonics.com/ check this out. "Mini Storage Tower Comes with 4 standard 3 1/2" drive bays for 4 Serial ATA or IDE hard drives. Build a high performance (up to 3 Gbits/sec using SATA II) external storage system with various RAID configurations or a terabyte storage farm...mix SATA or IDE devices and convert them to USB 2.0, eSATA, Multilane connection." so thats some perfect combination.
wow found some cheaper way i think. can you use this product http://www.addonics.com/products/io/ad4ideu2.asp its only 50$. and u can modify ur old box or buy a cheap GOODWILL box and turn it in to a TERA BOX
Yeah, that looks like exactly what you're looking for. Good find. Be sure to look into JBOD to make sure it is the kind of setup you want. All you'd need then is a box to put everything in and a PSU.
