Alex Dean wrote:
> Hi all.  I'm helping my father-in-law set up some network storage at his 
> house, and I am looking for some recommendations.
> 
> They currently have an iMac with a 300GB drive.  They want to add some 
> capacity, and the ability to fully backup both their iMac and the new 
> external storage.  I've been looking at an enclosure like this : 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822155009
> 
> I was thinking of getting a 500GB drive (for extra primary storage) and 
> a >800GB drive (for backup).  Configuring the NAS as JBOD rather than 
> RAID, I think this will suit all their needs pretty well.  We'll also 
> get a gigabit ethernet switch to keep things moving quickly.
> 
> Any other configurations you think might be better?  What should I look 
> for in the drives themselves?
> 
> thanks,
> alex
> 

I would heed the reviews. I personally like to use old desktop/towers 
that have been retired for applications such as this. Many of those 
older cases can easily hold 4+ drives. Put in a PCI SATA (or PATA) card 
along with a GigEthernet card, and you have decent enough (for a 
backup/file server) performance with the latest drives. Should cost you 
a bit less than the $100 enclosure. Throw your Linux distro of choice 
on, and you have maximum flexibility and reliability. Personally, I 
think I'd start with a couple 1T drives in a software raid-1 
configuration (how important are your backups?). Choose whatever 
configuration suits your fancy.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'

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