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looking for external enclosure

QueBert

Lifer
This might belong in the peripherals forum, is so sorry mod please move it, but I think here would be appropriate also, and maybe get me better help 🙂

I'm building a HTPC, the case I got is pretty small, it can hold 2 HD's, I've been going ape sh!t and ripping all my cd's to FLAC (300'ish) and want to do all my DVD's (movies + TV Shows) I suck with math, but my estimated calculation is I'll need a lot of storage, maybe 4 or so TB's when all is said and done. Here is my dilemma , my HTPC can't hold close to that much. I was thinking a few external USB enclosures would be fine. I also thought about building a 2nd, small file server, but that would still be on the big side as I don't have a lot of room and I already have a HTPC. I'm not really wanting to run Ethernet to a different room to a full sized PC and wireless I'm not thrilled about either. Anyone have a recommendation for a NAS unit or something similar? I know at Fry's I saw a couple that can hold 5 HD's, they're expensive and somewhat excessive for what I want to do. But they would fit the size I'm looking for perfectly.


Right now my budget is about $500, I was going to go cheap and just buy a few USB ones but I thought if I can find one of the NAS units, even if it ran me a good chunk of my budget right now. I could always add HD's later. Something that could hold 5 HD's in a limited amount of space would be perfect. Since they'll be used for movies and music for my media center, I don't care about speed, USB is fine, don't need RAID either.

If I end up going with external USB, what's a good stack able unit that cools reasonably well?
 
I'd go with eSATA connections for external HDDs. Check out the Vantec thing I suggested over in the Peripherals section in a recent thread. Allows using HDDs like flash cards in a reader.

.bh.
 
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