Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

Hi Scott,

I'm building up a large library of music files, videos and photos and would like to offload these onto a centralized storage solution such as a NAS device or home server. I would like to use something like Squeezebox to access the content for streaming the music to my Stereo system.

I can't figure out whether a solution like an off-the-shelf NAS box would work or whether a home built PC running 24x7 would be preferable. I already have experience building PC's so that is not a problem.

Of course a home built PC has the option of different software options such as WHS, Linux etc but even within say Linux there are so many choices that may or may not be suited for a NAS setting.

I'm a big fan of DIY solutions where possible. So thinking of a basic case with a mobo that support RAID and 3 or 4 Seagate ES drives under raid 5.

Any suggestions and hints would be much appreciated! <g>

-Paul

I've used some of the Intel and USRobotics NAS units in the past with good success. These days for a dedicated NAS I'd consider something like the Drobo. But for low cost, ease of management via Remote Desktop (and headless operation), familiarity, and overall power and control, I find it hard to beat using an older retired PC with an XP Pro license in a server (NAS and print server) role. XP Pro can function extremely well as a server OS for up to 10 or more users (it allows 10 concurrent connections, the same as Windows Home Server), and the price (free) is right. Plus I consider it an act of recycling to take an otherwise retired PC and redeploy it as a perfectly functional NAS/print server. Scott.

Thanks Scott, I don't have any XP boxes but I'm thinking of putting together a low cost Linux Debian box as a learning experience.

Also when raiding together hard drives is it necessary to have the same make and model of drives or is that really not than important? I have a single 1TB Seagate ES.2 that I'm planning to put together with a couple of newer 1TB Seagate Constellation ES drives in a RAID 5 setup.

As always your thoughts are greatly appreciated

-Paul

People throw away perfectly good systems all the time, and those make *excellent* NAS boxes/servers. I know a guy who runs the electronics recycling at a local town, you wouldn't believe the systems that people toss out! In some cases he sees brand new systems with nothing more than a malware infestation, being dropped off as scrap. If you put feelers out to your friends and family, in many cases you'll find yourself awash in perfectly good systems suitable for redeployment rather than traditional recycling.


Matching the drives is not important, but it would of course be best if they were all Enterprise/RAID class (which they are in your case). Scott.