Direct Attached Storage Reccomendations

[fool_10]

Hi,

I recently bought a Infrant ReadyNAS NV because of the great things and my desire to have lots of redudant data storage with only my laptop (no other computers). I intsalled 4x 160gb Seagata SATA drives. However, I should have investiage the system further. As far as I know, you can't hook up the NV directly to the computer, meaning you have to use the network (IE - Network Attached Storage ). I guess I didn't realize how slow it would be. It took 2 min 30 secs to copy about .75 gb, which seems pretty slow to me. Furthermore, I don't think I need to have it on the network, as I only want it hooked up to my laptop.

So I was investigating Direct(ly) Attached Storage so I can hook it up directly to my laptop (firewire/USB). I found the Maxtor OneTouch III that is a RAID 0/1 setup and comes with drives, however, it only has a one year warranty. I tried searching but I couldn't really find many other direct attached storage devices that would suit my needs. I'm basically looking for something very similar to the NV (4x SATA drives trays, RAID 0/1/5, etc.) but can be directly connected to a computer with USB or Firewire. I would like it to be "driveless" (without any hard drives) so I can install my 4x Seagate 160s, but it is not essenital. If need be, I could simply buy an all-in-one solution and sell my Seagates.

I'm looking to pay around $500-800 depending on the configuration. Do you have any suggestions/reccomendations for my current situation? I found this: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/das/psrv2600.asp , which looks decent, but I'd much rather have 4x SATA drives.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

-fool

 

[brycejones]

Check this out then:

4 Bay Firewire/1394 USB2 SATA enclosure at FWDepot

 

[fool_10]

Check this out then:

4 Bay Firewire/1394 USB2 SATA enclosure at FWDepot

Bryce, that looks great except that while the title says SATA, it doesn't seem to be SATA itself. Also, it doesn't look like it has RAID, or does it? Thanks.

-fool

 

[unhappy_mage]

Well, the site I'd usually recommend for this kind of thing is Cooldrives. However, you seem to be one step ahead of the market. There are some things that come close to the requirements, though. This is firewire/usb/sata (!) connected, takes IDE drives internally, and does Raid 5. This is a firewire->sata device, but with no raid capability.

So if you could get IDE drives instead of sata ones, you might be set. I imagine you can find a person on the FSFT forum here who'd be glad to trade.

 

[fool_10]

Well, the site I'd usually recommend for this kind of thing is Cooldrives. However, you seem to be one step ahead of the market. There are some things that come close to the requirements, though. This is firewire/usb/sata (!) connected, takes IDE drives internally, and does Raid 5. This is a firewire->sata device, but with no raid capability.

So if you could get IDE drives instead of sata ones, you might be set. I imagine you can find a person on the FSFT forum here who'd be glad to trade.

Mage,

Hmm...thanks for the help. Part of me is surprised that it hasn't been created yet and part of me isn't. Oh well. Instead of swapping SATA for IDA, I think I might just buy the Maxtor thing I was talking about (http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...eTouch III Turbo Edition&productview=Overview). Even though I've had some bad luck with Maxtor's internal drives, it looks like a pretty good and simplistic product.

Last try: any other ideas/tips? Thank you for your help.

-fool

 

[unhappy_mage]

I like single-drive enclosures a lot more than double-drive ones, myself. 3.5" drives are fragile enough; drop two at once and one is very likely to break. I'd personally look into either a single 500GB backup drive, or a full-blown backup storage server. But it looks like a decent piece of work for what it is. Be careful with it, though

 

[Zamboni]

Ximeta makes a NAS enclosure that will do RAID-1 if you have two enclosures on the network (and has USB direct connect).