A most ridiculous NAS

[Tozmo]

I'm going through old parts and the like.

I was going to create a DAS by using old SATA drives, an old PC case, and then connecting the drives to this port multiplier card, connect them via esata to my microserver (or usb to mac mini), and use this to turn on the drives

I have an old ASUS WL-500GU router (ddwrt/openwrt/tomato capable) with a usb2.0 port.

What if I connect the port multiplier card to the router via USB and then use the DAS as an incremental backup device in a different area of the house? The Microserver is the true NAS, but I would use this "DAS" (which now has wireless...) as occasional backup, so performance isn't needed day to day. I have all of the above parts, so everything is a sunk cost.

 

[HICKFARM]

Your idea seems like it should work. The only hitch is to make sure the port multiplier card will be identified by your Asus router.

 

[Tozmo]

Update:
I have the DIY JBOD working with the above components. The USB3.0 is connected to my mac mini.

Over the next week I will configure my asus 520 router to accept smb. One issue I will have to deal with is disk spinning and idle. Ideally I would want pretty quick idling. I am not a linux guru, so working within ddwrt will be a challenge