Trying to find a good and cheap NAS.

S

SkinnyBones

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 1, 2005
Messages
197
To put it more in detail i want a cheap NAS enclosure. One that i can get an internal ide hard drive and add it. Does anyone know any good ones that are at the most 100 dollars?
 
Linksys NSLU2 can be purchased for about $100 on ebay, it uses EXTERNAL hard drives, but the idea behind it is the same. Great little unit for the money.
 
For $100 you are probably better off digging up an old system and putting Linux on it. The home "NAS" devices are usually pretty expensive when you consider you can get the same functionality and performance out of an old PC.
 
MorfiusX said:
For $100 you are probably better off digging up an old system and putting Linux on it. The home "NAS" devices are usually pretty expensive when you consider you can get the same functionality and performance out of an old PC.
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and take up tons of room, create unnecessary heat, waste power not to mention have this fugly thing sitting in your room... as opposed to having a little NAS device stashed on the shelf that you never worry about once it's setup and running as you want it.

Is your solution cheaper? sure, but that's about it.
 
EaTeR said:
and take up tons of room, create unnecessary heat, waste power not to mention have this fugly thing sitting in your room... as opposed to having a little NAS device stashed on the shelf that you never worry about once it's setup and running as you want it.

Is your solution cheaper? sure, but that's about it.
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He provided a solution to the problem, just like you did, I'm not sure why you feel the need to bash it, and FYI, "NAS Devices" are nothing more than glorified PC's in the first place...


Edit: It can be had HERE for less than $100...
 
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SkinnyBones said:
These are what i am looking for. If any one has any experience with these or any other would be helpful.
Click Here
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Personally, I have never used any of those, but keep in mind you get what you pay for. The functionality of those devices will not be very great... Are you looking to do anything specific with this device or simply store data?
 
I'm doing it this way becuase it would be cheaper for me to just buy and NAS enclosure and just put in a internal 250 Gb hard drive or more. TO me it seems alot cheaper then buying an external hard drive.
 
PHUNBALL said:
He provided a solution to the problem, just like you did, I'm not sure why you feel the need to bash it, and FYI, "NAS Devices" are nothing more than glorified PC's in the first place...


Edit: It can be had HERE for less than $100...
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no one is bashing anything, no need to get all offended, but a cheap, slow, loud, big and unreliable system dug up from the attic should never be considered a good NAS solution (no matter how little you want to spend). That's just the reality of it.

As a matter of fact that is a recipe for disaster and while anybody can afford to fry a video card from overclocking it beyond its limits or just about destroy anything not that many people can afford to lose their data (which as I'm sure you'll agree is what NAS does). Whether you have backups, offsite backups or whatever it's never a pleasant experience as most people do not do nightly full backups and even if might lose few files that they wish they had. In most cases they will lose few months worth of data since the last time they had few spare hours to do some dvd backups was in july etc... Reason #765 why that old P3 from your attic is not a good idea. I've seen few old power supplies fry entire systems, one even went up in flames, guess what, they were all from ancient systems :rolleyes:

""NAS Devices" are nothing more than glorified PC's in the first place..." lol! :rolleyes: I won't even write a rant about that assumption of yours, not worth my time.
 
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EaTeR said:
""NAS Devices" are nothing more than glorified PC's in the first place..." lol! :rolleyes: I won't even write a rant about that assumption of yours, not worth my time.
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Go for it, I would Love to hear you explain to everyone how a "NAS Device" running a version of Windows, Linux, proprietary OS, etc. has no similarities to a PC/Server performing a similar function. Network appliances (what most NAS Units are) are just specialized versions of their PC/Server counterparts running OS's without all the bells and whistles...

P.S. - Sounds to me like this is just a guy looking for an inexpensive solution to use at his house not something along the lines of an EMC Clariion for a majot corporation...
 
PHUNBALL said:
P.S. - Sounds to me like this is just a guy looking for an inexpensive solution to use at his house not something along the lines of an EMC Clariion for a majot corporation...
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Thats exactly what i'm looking for.
 
SkinnyBones said:
Thats exactly what i'm looking for.
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If you do a search in the forum on NAS you'll find a couple old threads from this section and a couple from the Disk Storage Systems section.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=986836&highlight=NAS
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=969043&highlight=NAS
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=965424&highlight=NAS
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=972233&highlight=NAS
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=934440&highlight=NAS
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=885863
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=903183
[some of this are a bit old and the links are showing the age]

People seem to be general split on buying a small appliance verus building your own. There are pros and cons to both. It will basically depend on what your options are on money vs. time.
 
PHUNBALL said:
Go for it, I would Love to hear you explain to everyone how a "NAS Device" running a version of Windows, Linux, proprietary OS, etc. has no similarities to a PC/Server performing a similar function. Network appliances (what most NAS Units are) are just specialized versions of their PC/Server counterparts running OS's without all the bells and whistles...
...
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Using your logc then Boeing 747 is just a glorified Cessna.

Your statement makes no sense, I did not say it's not close to the truth, but often the most subtle differences between two things can mean a lot. I Listed a few somewhere above, build me a PC based NAS that takes up the room of a router, eats up less power than a hub, is virtually silent, produces little to no heat and can be grabbed and moved if need be.
 
EaTeR said:
Using your logc then Boeing 747 is just a glorified Cessna.
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Yes, they are both airplanes, one is of course bigger and clumsier than the other, but they serve the exact same purpose, to move people or things from point A to point B.

The same goes for a PC based NAS vs. an Appliance based NAS, one is bigger and clumsier than the other, but they both serve the same purpose...

I agree that one solution is cleaner than the other and in an Office environment that would definately be a factor, but at home???
 
PHUNBALL said:
Yes, they are both airplanes, one is of course bigger and clumsier than the other, but they serve the exact same purpose, to move people or things from point A to point B.

The same goes for a PC based NAS vs. an Appliance based NAS, one is bigger and clumsier than the other, but they both serve the same purpose...

I agree that one solution is cleaner than the other and in an Office environment that would definately be a factor, but at home???
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for the $100 that it will cost (as lets say opposed to $0 spent on a system from your attic), I think a LOT of people would choose the more expensive solution. Run them for a year or two and your electric bill alone will make up most of the initial purchasing difference.
 
I hate to drop in on the beginnings of a flamewar, but I've gotta throw in my $0.02

First off, Eater's got a very valid point about the power consumption. I cut my electric bills by $80 A MONTH by simply turning off my computers when I'm not using them at home. That means that in one month I've paid for the Linksys solution. Now let's look at something even more significant...

A while back I had all my data on what is now being referred to as an attic PC. This was an old PII I'd resurrected from spare parts and had running in my office next to the A/C (window unit). At some point my CPU fan had stopped running (heard it growling, didn't really care at the time) , which caused the CPU to, of course, overheat. The bad thing happened next. The rig caught fire. Luckily, I was home, but I didn't get to the fire extinguisher before the fire had burned up a $500 adaptec SCSI raid card and demolished the 3 drives I had running in RAID-5. I had been archiving my data on an external drive that I kept at work, but since then I've been 100% against the SOHO (read: poor man's) NAS box cobbled together from spare parts.

Every option has its ups and downs, but just because you've got old parts that could serve the purpose doesn't mean it's the "best" solution for the money.
 
To quote the thread starter he wanted a "good" solution that cost "at most" $100. Not once did he mention concerns about his electric bill, noise, heat, etc.

I understand where he is coming from, I was just pointing out that neither of these solutions is better than the other, one is $100 and gets you a pretty package, one is FREE and it's not so pretty.

Also, where do you live that a single PC consumes $80 worth of electricity per month???
 
PHUNBALL said:
To quote the thread starter he wanted a "good" solution that cost "at most" $100. Not once did he mention concerns about his electric bill, noise, heat, etc.

I understand where he is coming from, I was just pointing out that neither of these solutions is better than the other, one is $100 and gets you a pretty package, one is FREE and it's not so pretty.

Also, where do you live that a single PC consumes $80 worth of electricity per month???
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I guess the much higher chance of having your house burn down does not matter any to you. I hate to be the negative one here, I've also had an ancient rig go up in flames, it happens. I would hope you would agree with me that a small brand new NAS has a much better chance of being reliable than some old junker, not only to protect yourself but also your data. If that old power supply has a fit and shocks the system you may be looking for a replacement controller board for your HDD's which is never as much fun as it may sound.

you are right, he asked for a good solution, I can't agree that an attic system belongs in that category though, when you add it all up there are just way too many negative aspects of this


PS: He said "turn off my computerS" , which is funny because I do the same thing, I'm very much against having systems running at home 24/7 when no one is around.

I think we're beating a dead horse now, lol
 
EaTeR said:
PS: He said "turn off my computerS" , which is funny because I do the same thing, I'm very much against having systems running at home 24/7 when no one is around.

I think we're beating a dead horse now, lol
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Agreed, we are both saying the exact same thing, just in different ways.

He did say computerS, but we are talking about one small computer which may consume $10 worth of electricity each month equating to a 10 Month ROI, that is a hell of a long time for 100 bucks...

P.S. - How are all of you catching your computers on fire? I can not even begin to count the number of PC's, Servers, Routers, Switches, Load Balancers, Firewalls, etc.. I have either had at corporations I work for or Home and not a single one has ever caught on fire...
 
I don't know, I didn't sit there with a lighter or anything, stuff just happens. Most often it's a power supply that shorts out (granted a cheap as hell power supply to begin with). It was pretty neat though, good 10" flames shooting out of the still running power supply & fan just helping the flames get bigger :D I probably couldnt' reproduce it even if I tried

But that's 1 burned pc from probably a thousand that I've administered, servers, networking gear etc... it's a small chance of it happening for sure.
 
yes, computerS.

I should have been more clear. I save $80 a month by turning off 5 computers in my house. That's still not going to net $80 per computer, but it's significant enough to consider.

Next on the fire issue:

Don't go starting a pissing contest on how many computers you've seen in your lifetime. I too have managed a bunch of computers. In my life I've seen computers go up in smoke, wether it be a bad stick of Crucial memory (ran fine for 3 years) that catches fire right in the memory socket, or a controller (IDE/Serial/Parallel) card in a 486 that spiders... I guess you would say "nested" in, causing leads to short. By far the wierdest one was the computer that was full of queen ants (and their eggs!)

Your point of "best" not including all aspects (like overall cost to run and reliability issues) is rediculous. The OP is asking the opinion of people in this forum. Ask most IT professionals what they would consider a "NAS" to be and I doubt you get many answers that suggest just cobbling together an old PC. A good solution that isn't the obvious "build a PC to do it" is the answer provided. What's next, someone asks what a good switch is to buy and you tell them to fill an old computer with NICs and install Linux?
 
DarkOne_BW said:
yes, computerS.

I should have been more clear. I save $80 a month by turning off 5 computers in my house. That's still not going to net $80 per computer, but it's significant enough to consider.

Next on the fire issue:

Don't go starting a pissing contest on how many computers you've seen in your lifetime. I too have managed a bunch of computers. In my life I've seen computers go up in smoke, wether it be a bad stick of Crucial memory (ran fine for 3 years) that catches fire right in the memory socket, or a controller (IDE/Serial/Parallel) card in a 486 that spiders... I guess you would say "nested" in, causing leads to short. By far the wierdest one was the computer that was full of queen ants (and their eggs!)

Your point of "best" not including all aspects (like overall cost to run and reliability issues) is rediculous. The OP is asking the opinion of people in this forum. Ask most IT professionals what they would consider a "NAS" to be and I doubt you get many answers that suggest just cobbling together an old PC. A good solution that isn't the obvious "build a PC to do it" is the answer provided. What's next, someone asks what a good switch is to buy and you tell them to fill an old computer with NICs and install Linux?
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Pissing contest? I was merely putting "machines catching on fire" into perspective (and when I refer to equipment/machines it is either at home or in a data center so Queen Ant's are not really an issue). You made it sound like this kind of thing happens every day which is not even close to the truth, that's all...

Also, a Linux machine filled with NIC's would be a router/gateway not a switch so if you are going to attempt to insult me please post some accurate facts, thanks...
 
Stellar said:
Using a PC as a NAS appliance adds a lot of unnecessary points of failure.

Take your pick..

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/results.aspx?grp=NSS&filteredsortorder=PRICEASC

Personally I'm a fan of the Maxtor enclosures on the home end, and Snap servers on the business end, they have a nice guest OS.
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Thanks for the site, but i'm not looking to spend more then 100 dollars. And i already have a 200 GB maxtor NAS. It works great but i'm filling it up and i would like get another one and get and enclosure and put an internal hard drive in it.
 
consider purchasing a snap NAS off ebay...you can sometimes find them for around 100-120 for the 2 drive version with no drives or small drives and just ghost the os onto ur 200gig drive and install...even leaves room to add another drive.
 
If you keep an eye out you can probably find the Netgear SC101"sotrage central" for just at $100 shipped.
 
I have seen two or three computers that went up in smoke over my years. I am a firm believer in leaving all PCs on 24/7...feel it's much better for the life of them. Power management set to never turn off. I just lock workstation and turn of the monitor when I'm done. The monitors used a greater percentage of the juice anyways (the big old CRTs).

However as for using older PC guts for a NAS box...I'd be wary. For one...you're storing files, you want some reliability. Unless you're replacing the hard drives with all new ones, I'd probably not look forward to using one with 3 or 4 year old sluggish 5400rpm 2meg cache drives that are already on their last leg well past their MTBF rating.

Is backup critical? Plan on backing this stuff up?
 
Just to look at your needs more...in a larger network, a NAS box is good because it's independent, users can access it based on share permissions, with equal performance. If someone acts as a server, and someone else pulls files from them...you get a performance hit.

But on a home network..esp if under a handful of computers.......just taking a computer with the largest hard drive may work fine, and sharing it out. Or...sling a USB2 external drive off of it, stick a 300 gig drive in that. Share it across the LAN if you have several users. ...just some other option to think about.
 
cburwell said:
If you keep an eye out you can probably find the Netgear SC101"sotrage central" for just at $100 shipped.
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Personally not a fan of this machine, for some reason it was much slower than a traditional NAS device when I tried it out.

On a seperate note if you do have an extra PC, instead of linux try FreeNAS www.freenas.org . It's really easy to set up and only takes up like 35MB on one partition of a drive and the rest you can use for storage. You can also connect many other drives and run them seperate or in a RAID configuration. Cool little app and doesn't take much for resources. Just a suggestion.
 
I have read bad things about that Netgear storage central.

I can also tell you the netgear router with usb port on the back is a hunk of junk so dont get that for NAS. It worked okay for the one usb thumbdrive I had but failed to work with a card reader and a 512cf (not to mention that it kept crashing and killing my netwrok but thats besides the point)


I really wish NAS was cheaper. I wonder if theres a power efficiency guide out there to make say a celeron 600 run efficiently and not waste power... guess nothing can beat a EPIA or those mini sbcs in efficiency though.
 
I don't have an extra pc to run anything off of thats why i'm looking for an NAS enclosure. Plus i don't want to have to turn on a computer just to get a file when all I have to do is press one button and i can access it.
 
I was in a similar situation to yours and I ended up using a Ximeta enclosure. It came with a hard drive which I switched out with a 400 gig seagate. I believe Ximeta sells the enclosures empty now for around 100 from their website. The only mod I would do is add a fan in the top of the case as it gets a little warm, but other than that it's been great. I use it to stream audio. It's extremely easy to setup. If all you are looking for is data sharing/backup it's worth looking into. I should note that you can use whatever file format you want...I formatted mine in my computer and then just switched it out.
 
The XIMETA drive enclosures, it *looks* like you need special software to use them over the network (looking at the requirements of Windows or OSX) - any insight on this?
 
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