[Aka]

OAC_Sparky,Mar 30 2007, 09:48 PM Wrote:This:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0026Small.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0025Small.jpg
250GB Plextor NAS with print server. Price $210

As opposed to this:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0024Small.jpg
Spare PC with Ethernet card and 250gb hard drive. Current price $300 
*Mouse, keyboard and monitor not shown.
[right][snapback]232568[/snapback][/right]

That's not a fair example given it's only a single harddrive. Look for a 4 or more disk box, then compare sizes. Yes the PC will be bigger, but not too much so.



I guess I'm just looking to reduce the number of PCs and appliances I have, instead of getting one to do a specific job, I want one to do as much as possible.

I understand that having hardware RAID is better, but to get 4 or more SATA drives on hardware RAID5 starts adding up REAL fast. So I was just mentioning alternatives that I thought could be a better idea, since they were cheaper and would put you just about in the same place as if you bought one of these devices.

I was recently researching RAID5 for 8 250 GB SATAII drives, so I could protect my data a bit more. But for such a card it was going to set me back $700 for a decent one. So I came to the conclusion that software RAID, while not supporting online capacity expansion was probably my best option. And given that all I needed to buy to do that was a $120 addon card* for my motherboard, it made more sense for me.

I just thought I'd voice an alternative solution. The NAS devices will almost certainly be a much much simpler solution to work with than my idea. But I believe you will be paying for that added simplicity.


*Yes, the motherboard that supports that is expensive, so perhaps my argument is somewhat flawed in that respect. Also the board has 4 SATA ports already, and that adds 4 more, the SAS part would cost more to use. Just thougth I'd clarify before someone pointed out that 8 drives on SAS would require more hardware or expensive breakout cables.

Unrelated Q for NOS2Go4Me, what folding project/client do you run? I recently stopped running ClimatePrediction.Net, the WUs are just too big now. So I'm considering other projects.