Network Storage Suggestions?

[bX510]

I have a lot of multimedia files that I want to share accross my network. So my laptops can access it. I've seen some of netgear's storage solutions and they are very expensive. I already have my own hard drives, a mix of IDE and SATA.

What are some low costs but effective ideas?
Optional: It would be nice if my network storage can be a printer server also. So all my computers can print.

 

[phatrabt]

Well, depends on how you want to set it up. Do you want a RAID? If so, you should get a hardware RAID card. Either way, you can use an old PC (if you have one lying around) to do both of those roles.

FYI, I use an old Athlon 2100 beige box PC as a server. It has a RAID1 array using a HW card and is also a print server for my old laser printer. It also offers the flexibility to run an SNMP monitor of my router (WRT54G) using PRTG Traffic Grapher.

 

[JackMDS]

Windows Home Server.

You refurbish an old P-III 1GHz computer with 1 GB memory. Or buy, find, whatever, an mATX mobo with CPU of a similar class or above P-III 1GHz.

You buy WHS (about $180).

You stick a Giga Network card in.

You install your drives.

Depending on the old parts that you have (or not) you can get a NAS. and much more (HTTP, FTP, Mail etc.) for $200 to $400 and it would work much better than any of the dedicated NAS' with their Quirky firmware Puny propriety processors and few 100K of memory.

On the other hand you can gey a good comertial NAS if you spend more than $1000.

 

[bX510]

NAS are expensive, but what are some recommendations do you have? I don't have any old PC lying around. I won't be raiding it, I have like a mix of IDE and SATA hds.

 

[JackMDS]

I do not want to push it, but WHS actually do not need RAID it would use what ever combination of Drives, and has Software mirroring capacity.

The problem is that the dedicated NAS to go for few hundred $$ are not really good, and if you have to spend more you are better off spending it on some thing more comprehensive than just a RAID Box with NIC.

If you are familiar with Linux you can do something similar, I.e. using old computer and FreeNAS.

Otherwise log here and read the clients' feedback may be you would like something there.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...0150124&bop=And&Page=2

 

[bX510]

I know there are some that allows drag and drop torrent files and it starts downloading, like synergy. Is there software like that for custom built ones?


Do western digital drives fit in these? From what I believe, they provide their own sata cable, I think it is a bit different or somethingm.
http//www.ewegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994027

 

[Old Hippie]

If I got your link correct, that's internal storage.

 

[Madwand1]

If you have the time and inclination, design and build a desktop around the number of target drives and the OS of choice. Building a file server is nothing special -- any desktop can handle that role, and typically much faster than a consumer NAS box at the gigabit level.

Even Vista can be a decent OS for a home file server (notwithstanding random bleeding-edge issues, which are declining), and actually unmatched for Windows file transfer performance, Vista to Vista.