I have a 3 desktop computer room along with an Xbox360 and PS3 all wired into a linksys wireless router and D link network switch... I currently use a go flex 2TB network drive for all my media which is accessed by my xbox and PS3 for watching various videos and using other media using Wild Media Server running on one of my 3 systems... We also have various laptops that access the wireless also....
I am in the market to expand my network storage and while I've pretty impressed by the go flex, one of its flaws is it cannot really be expanded on by buying another unit...
I have been looking at enclosures and reading about freeNAS, but i'm left thinking enclosures are very expensive, a little confused on freeNas and just not really sure which direction to go!
I'd like something expandable, that I can throw drives in when I see a good deal and something that's pretty easy to setup or at least an idiot guide so I can git er done!
Any thoughts or comments are appreciated... I'd like to spend 2-300 bucks initally and then have the ability to expand the storage at a later date.... All of my systems are new enough to have SATA harddrives and I am not totally against dedicating one to storage....
If you have a spare system that you want to turn into a NAS you can take a look at unraid. I use it and I find that it's pretty easy to setup. FreeNAS is a good alternative too, so is Windows Home Server. The benefit of a DIY NAS is in the amount of drives you can hold. Sky is the limit, assuming you have enough sata ports and space in your case. Also you can use your DIY NAS as whatever else the system can handle such as ps3mediaserver or virtual machines, etc.
Most all-in-one NAS units have like 4 drive bays only so if you think that'll serve your needs then maybe take a look at something like a Patriot Javelin S4 but it doesn't support JBOD as far as I can tell so your best bet is to fill it with drives and use RAID5. If you're looking at more than 4-bay support then it starts getting really expensive.
Are there any tutorials for how to set this up? If I can get my hands on windows home server is it better then the others?
I appreciate the reply! I see what you mean about the drive bays and this system will be perfect for this p4 3.4ghz decent asus board and decent ATI video card, lots of space in the case!
I wouldn't go with windows home server because it lacks the one thing it was good for, drive extender. So it's not really a good NAS OS anymore.
There's a bunch of setup help for unraid. Also in their forums. Basically you just get a computer and a usb flash drive. Make the usb drive bootable with the unraid files, then make sure the computer can boot from usb. You're then able to access unraid using your browser and the web configuration.
In theory, you shouldn't need to use a command line interface for anything but if you're able to navigate with text-commands then you'll be set.
I like unraid because it's easy to use and comes with a nice parity feature like a pseudo-raid5.
Unraid isn't free (but there's a free version that supports 4 drives) so if you're looking for an actual FREE solution then maybe unraid is not for you.