I've been looking into setting up or getting somekind of nas storage/backup capability lately so thought I'd ask about it here since I'm sure some of you will be using something or will have built your own.
After looking at a few on google .. I'm a little surprised at the high end pricetags and even the midranges for a factory made setup. Makes me wonder what if anything I'd be missing, functionality wise, if I were to build it up myself. I see these storebought things are mostly running a small embedded linux os. The lowend stuff like WD `mybook 1tb world Edition II' advertises gigabit throughput but I see many reviews that report way less in practice. In fact it started to look like that particular one is way below its advertised capability. I ran across many complaints about dreadfully low write speads. Also apparently has some sorry thing called Mionet for (secure) remote access. I'm thinking of doing something like a semi-minimal regular (not embedded) install on a P4 I have with asus P4C800 mobo and some 2 gigs ram. Maybe add an extra sata controller (the mobo has one) so I can put up to 6 or so sata disks on it along with one small IDE disk for the OS (just to head of any problems related to installing on sata) Maybe start with 2 500 sata disks and build up as I need it. Or more likely `if I need it'... I kind of doubt I'd need more than 4 anytime soon so maybe wait on the controller part too. I guess I'd connect to it mostly thru samba/cifs for windows XP machines that have lots of biggish graphics and video type stuff to backup/store. And nfs for my main gentoo desktop. I wondered what the downsides are compared to a medium range storebought rig? A few I can think of are space and noise.. but having never been around our run a nas setup... I'm not sure if that is really true. Anyway, a few thoughts on what I might be running into doing it myself, or missing compared to storebought. Maybe maintenance considerations.. or whatever, would be welcome.
