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Really cheap NAS using USB drives

N

NCguy

n00b
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
18
I live out in the sticks where I can run CAT5 between my house and a neighbors.
Would like to set up a cheap NAS so that we both can have off-site storage in each other houses.
Would love to be able to incrementally grow using cheap USB drives.
Would like to avoid the headache/upkeep/power cost of a small PC-based server on each end.
Want to avoid hanging USB drives off each others primary PC's to provide more of a firewall between our data.

Is there a NAS type device that can hang USB hubs off it for limitless additions of USB drives?

Found a linksys NAS200 (moderate cost of $130) with two USB ports but I haven't got an answer if it can support USB hubs.
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...nksys/Common/VisitorWrapper&cid=1175233152539

Anyway/anything cheaper?
 
Well I've written to Linksys help desk and user groups today. Since its sunday I'm not expecting anything soon.

Thanks for the link
 
As someone who loves his storage, ;) after much experimentation and implementation, I can tell you, you get what you pay for, for storage needs. Just saying is all.
 
You don't have an old computer laying around?

I bought a $20 4-port SATA card and a $20 gigabit ethernet card off Newegg and brought my old AMD K7 500 MHz out of retirement. I'm running Freenas with 4 250 GB SATA drives in RAID 5 and a 250 GB IDE drive for the OS/scratch disk. If I need to expand I can buy another SATA card, but I imagine it would be better to upgrade to larger drives.

It seems to me that if you bought a NAS router and a bunch of external drives you would have drives and cables all over the place.
 
Just got a NAS200. . .it does its job.

Has a nice web-based admin manager and an HTTP "file-viewer." (can't figure out how to manage files on the drive from the web-based client) However, accessing the NAS from Windows Explorer is pretty easy. Setup took about 10 minutes (much more if you have RAID 1 mirror the 2 disks)

Let me know if you have any questions. I'm transferring files now. :D
 
I was running a separate server for my shared storage needs for the last several years, and after the major price jump in power this year in Illinois, I am going to retire the server for a Nas solution. I initially looked into going with a cheap 1 or 2 drive BYOD nas box, but after much research, I came to the conclusion you get what you pay for in the NAS world.

Most of my research was on Smallnetbuilder.com, but I also looked at some of the other hardware boards and review sites, and settled on the Hammer Storage Myshare 1 TB setup. As my current "Big drive" is only 320 gig, I will prolly mirror the new drives and just backup the important stuff to my current big drive in a USB enclosure.

I just ordered it today from Newegg for $400 delivered. It's a bit more than I was looking to spend, but I hope it pays off in trouble free performance down the road.

Personally, I would avoid hanging multiple USB drives off of a box. All of those cables and separate power supplies leads to unnecessary complexity and increased possibility of problems. In my research I did not look into how many usb drives a particular device could accomodate, but be careful because some of the cheaper devices have limits on file systems and drive sizes imposed by the file system. For instance, many only support Fat32 on USB, and a few actually reformat the drive into a proprietary file system that cannot be moved between systems. Do your research carefully before ordering something.

Don
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Just got a NAS200. . .it does its job.

Has a nice web-based admin manager and an HTTP "file-viewer." (can't figure out how to manage files on the drive from the web-based client) However, accessing the NAS from Windows Explorer is pretty easy. Setup took about 10 minutes (much more if you have RAID 1 mirror the 2 disks)

Let me know if you have any questions. I'm transferring files now. :D
Click to expand...
Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I have read it's faster to set up the NAS200 without using the included software. More importantly, the performance is apparently much faster.

Virtually every review and user experience I have come across mentions the abysmally slow performance, but almost everyone configures the unit with the included software. If the Linksys software is responsible for the less than stellar performance, wouldn't it be better to do without it? I figure the only drawback would be no RAID, unless one resorts to a third-party solution.
 
I bought a Buffalo Linkstation a few months back. Comes with a 320gb disc, all under $200. Gigabit, transfer rates are pretty decent for a standalone device.

It also serves as a print server too, and has an extra USB port for adding more storage.
 
If it were me I would avoid the linksys products - They dont get very good reviews or at least speed wise. If it were me I'd check out ebay and look for something a bit more enterprise grade (if speed is a concern).

Heres a full rack 1T NAS (buy it now) for $130.. pretty awesome compared to a linksys (with no drives). Granted its used but.. probebly more reliable in the long run.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Centera-SN2-2GHz-512MB-RAM-1-25TB-SAN-NAS-Server_W0QQitemZ270219232921QQihZ017QQcategoryZ106274QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 
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