Get a NAS or a nice dedicated RAID card?

[pood]

I'm going to pick up 3x 1tb drives and 2x raptor drivers today.

I only have 4 sata ports on my mobo so I'll need to pick up a raid card. A decent one with RAID 5 will set me back $300-$400.


For another $200, I can pick a NAS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16822122010).

The HDs will primarily store movies, music, and pictures.


What do you guys suggest?

 

[Gooberlx2]

When you say NAS, are you saying a diskless system populated with your drives? Or forgo those 1TB drives and buy a populated NAS? Seems to make a substantial difference in price.

You might consider buying a barebones/diskless WHS system (like an older hp mediasmart) from ebay and putting your drives in that. ...or...you could possibly buy some older discarded system at an outlet or local computer store for like, $100, and throw FreeNAS or Openfiler on it.

 

[JackMDS]

For storage of Media and other NAS is always better than putting it on a workstation computer.

Here is an example for a very good NAS/Server for files and media.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16859105503