Find me a good NAS external enclosure please!

[proxops-pete]

Ok... so I find it too much of pain having too many HDDs inside my desktop to act as storage. Now, I want to look into NAS type but don't wanna spend several hudreds of $$ (or more!)...

Here are my needs...

1) 100 Mb/sec connection
2) Pref. SATA HDD connectability
3) Active cooling (it will be on 24/7 to be used by desktop or laptop)

Is there one for under $100?! Thanks guys... :D

[Case]

*NIX Only solution that can be less then 600 dollers with decent features... just that simple... DIY NIX box as far as gettign over the limiting of 4 drivers or buy a raid card... start buying SATA/IDE to Firewire adapters mount the drives in the case....

My server is now just hottign 5TB's and its all HD's internal on a nix box that is all conected via firewire.

[proxops-pete]

Read my OP please... I asked for under $100 and not a computer.

[Case]

don't know what a OP is this isn't irc... but ill say it again...

If you have the HD's scrounge up a old system and some aluminum scrap and buy the IDE/SATA to Firewire converters thats the only way you will get REAL options under 100 bucks that is fully computable over the network people chuck old systems all the time.

It wont be in your existing desktop but in a BOX on the side... you don't need a 1ghz system to run a slimmed down version of nix just to be used as a file server hell you can get a old eMachine and use it as a file server...

And guess what? All systems will be able to access it from OSX to Windows to Nix what ever and you will have all the administrative and security based options you could ever want... in fact i believe theres a distro out there thats a meet 10mb that is meant for NAS use alone

Other wise you have no options specially if you need the HD's


NAS Linux (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nas-linux/)
NAS Lite (http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php) This ones neat as you can load it onto a floppy disk and boot from it
PizzaBox (http://www.jrcs.co.uk/)

Like i said ANY old system can be made into a NAS server its the CHEAPEST way to do it... Ive ran *nix off of old 486 systems for simple uses.

EDITED by Keith

[micsaund]

The Linksys NSLU2 is pretty popular, largely because it can be hacked to run your own Linux setup.

Tom's Review (http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2004/07/06/linksys_network_storage_link_for_usb_2_nslu2/)
NSLU2 Linux page (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/)

Like you, I'd like a "plug and chug" solution for NAS that's cheap. My kink in the process, though, is that I want to run RAID1 (mirror) as I use my NAS for backups and holding stuff that's waiting to be burned to a more permanent media. I'd love to find something like a NSLU2 except that has room for two drives internally and will do the mirror RAID without hacking other OSes into it.

Currently, I run FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/) (FreeBSD) from a CompactFlash drive with a pair of drives in an old mid-tower case. This is pretty close, as it has the web-GUI to configure, but it does have a few rough edges around RAID as the volume manage they chose to use in FreeNAS is generally considered to leave a few things to be desired. It works great, though, and does everything I need. Plus, with it running FreeBSD, I was able to install a couple little shell scripts to do things like update my dyndns/etc. I know this isn't exactly what you are looking for, as it's technically still a normal PC, but it is more of a "packaged" type solution than installing Linux/etc. yourself, so maybe an option for you.

Let me know if you run across anything that has the two internal drives and will do RAID as I described above :D

Mike

[Case]

NSLU2 is pricey if you think about it

http://shop.resellerratings.com/pid-21870113/SB-2

Than a HD than enclousure... like i said to buy some thing with drives is not gonna be under 100

but the NSLU i dont like to be honest... i have one and its really well yeah linksys its gone downhill

[Nisei]

xxx.raidsonic.de/en/pages/products/external_cases.php?we_objectID=4707 (change xxx to www, sorry I'm not allowed to post URLs)
No SATA support but very cheap, around $75. But it's from Germany and I don't think it's being sold in the US. The power supply is 100/240 volts though so you could safely order one from Europe.

[mike007]

You can not find that in only a $ 100 ....

[keltinator]

Look on Newegg (.com)

They have a pretty wide selection of computer parts, and should have a NAS with Linux embedded for under $100.