Creating Large, Safe, and Cheap Network Attached Servers?

davco9200 asks: "I am looking to create a large data server for all my digital media files. The usage is the 'pro-user' category, to use the media from multiple stations in my house and at work. I value space (150+ gb would be nice), accessible from multiple platforms (Win, Mac), but perhaps most of all, some security (e.g. RAID 0 doesn't cut it). Total write or read access isn't that high of a priority. I have looked at things like the Snap 4100 that offer 160 gb or 300 gb and good raid options but the price seems high ($2,700 and $4,500 respectively). Has anyone had any experience making their own low-end NAS? Has anyone looked at the Adaptec IDE RAID Controller? This seems like a reasonable way of getting data parity so if one drive goes down your entire collection isn't lost. I figured Slashdot readers would have some good solutions. Information on specific cases, drives, and other pertinent facts would be helpful."

Comments

Well...

[cmowire]

Well, if you don't care too much about performance, don't even bother with a 'real' IDE RAID card, just do software RAID. The reason why people use the hardware RAID cards like the higher end IDE RAID cards and the SCSI RAID cards is because it's faster.

So you can cut the cost of a good IDE raid card and just put an extra IDE controller card in your psuedo-NAS box so you can have 8 drives. Or you can put that off until later.

You should also consider getting a DAT drive and a bunch of DAT tapes, to back things up, just in case something massively bad happens to your system. RAID 5 is not perfect, and if your system catches on fire because of too much dust in the power supply, it'll be helpful.