Need to Centralize Storage

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Wrathh

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 23, 2004
Messages
180
I've been running a nasty setup here and need to get my storage centralized.

I'm running 3 systems with storage ranging from 750 gig to 1.2 Tb between them. Systems range from as little as 2 drives to 7 drives (250 gig to 500 gig drives) giving me an overall storage of around 3 Tb. Total drives would be 10. One system has 7 installed with a PCI-IDE controller installed.

(Many of the drives were purchased for additional storage over the years as it was cheaper to do this than to build a new system I couldn't afford at the time).

Drives are predominately IDE with one system running 2 SATA drives (one small drive for boot and a 500 gig). Drives are all under Xp Home (I know, I know) and formated as NTFS.

I'd like to get away with reusing drives and placing them into a single chasis.

I've looked at the HP Home Server but, with being SATA, I'd only be able to install 4 of the IDE drives through the USB. With minimum reusage, the HP Home Server, coupled with new drives, would run me around 1200 CDN to build similar (if not somewhat expanded) storage (I'm thinking I could reuse 1 SATA drive and 4 IDE externally to the usb - this would allow me an overall storage in the 5.5 Tb range).

I'm looking for suggestions on how to resolve this in a budget concious fashion.
 
If you are on a strict budget you should be able to reuse one of your computers and install Windows Home Server (WHS) which is the OS that the HP servers use. This way you can get away with mix-n-match hard drives since you already have a controller for your IDE drives. I had doubts about WHS when I first heard about it, but after 3 months of testing, it really is good stuff.
 
Build your own WHS that way you can put some of the IDEs internally.
WHS sounds like a good solution for you considering your drives are of different size.
 
  • What IDE controller do you have?
  • What cases are you using?
  • Can you please list out all the IDE and SATA drives that you have for storage? How many and which of those drives are just OS/boot drives that are more than likely not reusable for the server?
  • Whats your max budget for this new server?
 
Run down is as follows:

PCI-IDE Controller Card: Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card (VIA Bus Master)

Drives (mostly WD):
Main Rig: 40 (boot), 60( program install), 200, 120, 80 (didn't remember that one), 300, 300
Second Rig: 60 (Vista boot, SATA2), 80 (XP boot),500, 500 (SATA2)
Third Rig: 120 (boot), 250
Fourth Rig: 20 (boot), 200

I've got no issue redoing the third rig with a smaller boot drive (such as the 80 I didn't remember) snagging out the larger drive.

I've got an older liteon 52x burner I'd like to also throw in.

Ten total possible IDE drives (including cd), 1 SATA2 (which, at this point, may as well stay where it is) . . . 1,990 Gig (280 gig in smaller drives, 500 in SATA2).

Cases I've got are standard crap ATX cases.

The only spare mobo is in rig four - it's an old Asus A7N266-VM (I said it was old - I tend to keep stuff if it still works - even have some old Del POS P3-800 in the kitchen for some reason) with an XP1800+ (no o/c) @ 1.53 Ghz and a gig of RAM on it. Mini-atx system so only 3 PCI slots available but that would be enough. But it won't run the SATA2 (nor do I know if the unit will recognize larger drives for sure).

I do have access to Windows Home Server 2003 (initial release) with legit product keys.

I'm hoping the max budget would be a case and a new PSU - so maybe a cpl hundred bucks tops (I'm going to go look for a server case - I might know where I can find an old one for free). If not, c'est la vie.
 
Hmmm, well I definitely recommend reusing that Asus mobo, XP 1800+, and 1GB of RAM as that will be enough for WHS, Server 2003, or a Linux server. How many ports does that Maxtor controller card have?

How many HDDs can your spare ATX case hold? How many 5.25" bays does it have?
 
I dont know the deets on them but I think PC299 has some IDE mobile racks for sale.
May or may not be of interest
 
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