Ok chaps

Since i upgraded my system a couple of months ago i have been wondering what to to with the 12 x HDD I took out of the old system. the disk drives vary in size from 80GB through 300GB, a couple of WD 320 GB and 6 x Hitatchi 500GB and a couple of Seagate 1TB. They vary between IDE and SATA. Now i have a couple of big cases and the bits n bobs that would make up another 2 computers (mobos, gfx cards, memory etc)

So my question is whats the best way to make use of this storage. I want to put these cases away somewhere and just have them linked by Gigabit LAN. Not interested in RAID as the discs are old a maybe prone to failure, JBOD will be fine.

What sort of NAS storage OS should i employ or should i just stick a copy of Linux on. I dont mind using a web based server on 8080 as long as it is easy to set up and can cope with samba shares. I am look at FreeNAS at the moment. Does anyone have any other contenders?

Opinions?

 

Vortexbox (more focused on media)
WHS (original 2008 one with Drive Extender)
UnRAID (think it does non-raid JBOD)
FreeNAS

 

Head over to Avforums - there is a thread in the NAS section of the forums of a NAS build (something like 40TB) - might be useful?

 

Freenas & shoehorn Serviio in on the install

plays anything you have


Mart

 

that is a lot or **** !!!!!!!

 

i deleted it all

 

WHAT - have you found god or summat?

 

look up drobo mate, you can mix and match drives in them, I have one, its great.

 

Ahhh, the missus been sniffing about eh


lol. You could always play shot-putt with them....

 

be serious chaps, deleted my porno collection? i would rather stick pins in my eyes

 

**** ya's - It's ****, not ****

Read it before you hit post!

 

now that is a real NAS setup. pure geeksville.

 

i changed it just for you sweetie

 

Thanks dear

 

using a lot of little hard drives to make a big NAS drive will be a waste of cash, probably cheaper to buy a case that does a few 2tb drives and just add them as you can buy 2tb drives for £50. I just find it easier to have a hot swapable dual hdd Icybox.

 

But you only get JBOD, & or raid 1 with an icybox

and you cant run Serviio with the install

Freenas V8 can runs any number of drives, mix raid types across drives

If you get V7, you can shoehorn Serviio in at the same time, that's then a

powerful system.

Mart

 

i have a 5 bay icy box. i have also installed 3 x 2TB hitachis in my big rig and will add more as and when i can afford them as you say. if i make up 2 extra machines with all the HDDs in them will i need only one copy of freeNAS of will i need a copy on each machine. I am hopeing to stick these towers in the bottom of a wardrobe and forget about them.

 

FInd an old usb B stick and downlaod and Install an embedded copy to the usb stick ..


boot from the usb stick and have a play


Mart

 

Surely the cost of running the boxes will be more than buying another couple of bigger drives. I used to run a couple of machines all the time, but noticed a big difference in the electric bill when I started turning them off.

I keep thinking about getting a NAS box to have something accessible all the time with a couple of 2TB drives.

 

Ive got an old Thecus Nas unit knocking about somewhere, not the fastest or easiest to configure, but.....



Mart