NAS or SAN

[T.Tashi]

Any PC guys around here have a NAS or SAN device? I have 2 PCs and a laptop and I'm needing a centralized location for about 40G of stuff. If anyone has something they like or can recommend I'd appreciate it.

[Mochan]

What the heck is a NAS or a SAN?

[silversparrow]

With a NAS or SAN device, you're looking at an awfully expensive network storage solution for what I'm assuming is a home LAN setup? If that is the case then your money is probably better spent on another hard drive in one of your computers and making it shared space on the network. But if you absolutely must get a separate storage server then take a look at Iomega's products (http://www.iomega.com/direct/products/family.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=27327087&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=63191&bmUID=1135973064791) (the cheapest they have is 320GB for $1,299).

[T.Tashi]

NAS is network attached storage and SAN is storage area network. Actually a lot of companies are offering these devices for a lot less than $1000 for home and small businesses. Depending on how many gigs you want you can get networked storage for between $200 and $700. I'm not looking for an enterprise level device.

[Mochan]

Why not just get an external harddrive that you can attach and detach to the units? If not pile in a raid array on one PC and leave it on. :)

Heck if you bought a really cheap barebones PC to use a server you could set it up with RAID and use it as a LAN Server to boot (keep all internet firewalls and utils stuff on it so your 2 other PCs are free of icky software) and it would be under $400. It would be RAID as well for that added security! If you build it with the right parts you would get minimal power draw and noise/heat, would cost really cheap all you'd need is el-cheapo mobo with video, some RAM, a cheapo budget processor just to get it to run and two harddisks to be put in RAID.

[Mochan]

Hmm that link Silver posted to Iomega has a Network Harddrive for $200. Sounds good to me.

[T.Tashi]

Why not just get an external harddrive that you can attach and detach to the units? If not pile in a raid array on one PC and leave it on. :)

Heck if you bought a really cheap barebones PC to use a server you could set it up with RAID and use it as a LAN Server to boot (keep all internet firewalls and utils stuff on it so your 2 other PCs are free of icky software) and it would be under $400. It would be RAID as well for that added security! If you build it with the right parts you would get minimal power draw and noise/heat, would cost really cheap all you'd need is el-cheapo mobo with video, some RAM, a cheapo budget processor just to get it to run and two harddisks to be put in RAID.Yep, I'm considering that too, (I was thinking with a DMZ) though it's more work. If I wanted an out the box solution that did all that yeah I'm sure I'd be looking at over $1000. I had a 160BG backup drive (Hitachi Deskstar) that died after 6 months. Software recovery was impossible, a hardware recovery was going to cost me at least $400, and more realistically close to $600. I put an old Maxtor 40GB drive I had in the external case so that's what I'm using now. So I decided to cut my losses and invest in a SAN or NAS setup. But these low end NAS units caught my eye and seem very attractive. Iomega has some nice low cost solutions too.

Check this thingy out.
http://netgear.com/products/details/SC101.php

The thing I don't like is it's first generation and it's buggy so it's not for the faint of heart, but I read Netgear's forums and I'm confident in my network skills to get it installed and working. If I got this and 2 Maxtor 300GB drives, I could have RAID 1 protection for about $350.