Comments on: Cheap Home Network Storage http://blog.gtuhl.com/2009/07/03/cheap-home-network-storage/ Development, IT, Gadgets, and Startups Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:57:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Joe http://blog.gtuhl.com/2009/07/03/cheap-home-network-storage/comment-page-1/#comment-3708 Joe Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:35:08 +0000 http://blog.gtuhl.com/?p=297#comment-3708 Cool man, glad it might be helpful. I unfortunately don't have any solid recommendations on an enclosure, just did a quick browse of newegg and didn't see any big winners popping out. I am familiar with some good options for big servers but don't think that would be helpful at all with a home setup. I would say that if you get a multi-disk enclosure (lots of cheap single disk enclosures might work alright too) its probably best to get one without onboard raid or one with JBOD (just a bunch of disks - aka non-raid) mode as an option. Onboard raid isn't a bad thing, but even at the enterprise level linux software raid can generally hold its own against dedicated low to mid grade hardware raid controllers. I imagine a raid controller on a home enclosure would be pretty weak. All that just to say I wouldn't pay a premium for a device because of its built in raid capabilities if you are planning to hook it up to a linux box that can run software raid. That'd be awesome to re-purpose an old eMac like that. Take a look at http://www.archlinuxppc.org/, a PPC port of Arch if you wanted to check it out. Looks very active (news updates in the last month) but don't know how complete of a port it is. Cool man, glad it might be helpful. I unfortunately don’t have any solid recommendations on an enclosure, just did a quick browse of newegg and didn’t see any big winners popping out. I am familiar with some good options for big servers but don’t think that would be helpful at all with a home setup.

I would say that if you get a multi-disk enclosure (lots of cheap single disk enclosures might work alright too) its probably best to get one without onboard raid or one with JBOD (just a bunch of disks – aka non-raid) mode as an option. Onboard raid isn’t a bad thing, but even at the enterprise level linux software raid can generally hold its own against dedicated low to mid grade hardware raid controllers. I imagine a raid controller on a home enclosure would be pretty weak. All that just to say I wouldn’t pay a premium for a device because of its built in raid capabilities if you are planning to hook it up to a linux box that can run software raid.

That’d be awesome to re-purpose an old eMac like that. Take a look at http://www.archlinuxppc.org/, a PPC port of Arch if you wanted to check it out. Looks very active (news updates in the last month) but don’t know how complete of a port it is.

]]> By: Alex Rudnick http://blog.gtuhl.com/2009/07/03/cheap-home-network-storage/comment-page-1/#comment-3707 Alex Rudnick Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:24:36 +0000 http://blog.gtuhl.com/?p=297#comment-3707 I've been thinking about setting up something similar for media sharing and backups -- thanks for the writeup, this will give me a good starting point :) Do you have any suggestions for external drive enclosures, for those of us who have some spare IDE drives hanging around? My server may end up being an old eMac that I've got hanging around. I just have to figure out a way to make it not turn on the giant built-in CRT, and we'll be set! It's run Linux (Gentoo, woo!) in the past, so I think we'll be set. I’ve been thinking about setting up something similar for media sharing and backups — thanks for the writeup, this will give me a good starting point :) Do you have any suggestions for external drive enclosures, for those of us who have some spare IDE drives hanging around?

My server may end up being an old eMac that I’ve got hanging around. I just have to figure out a way to make it not turn on the giant built-in CRT, and we’ll be set! It’s run Linux (Gentoo, woo!) in the past, so I think we’ll be set.

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