I need a file server: something simple, running Samba, that I can throw files into. 200GB would be enough... for now, but I being expandable to a terabyte would be nice. Does anyone make a NAS device targetted for at home use?

Is my best bet to throw up a headless Linux box stuffed with some 200GB drives?

Yea, I could have googled this... or, I can just post it on my blog.

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Linksys makes a nice NAS, with USB2 ports for plugging in N USB2 external drives.

Got rave Ars/Gizmodo reviews a few months ago.

Of course, now you're buying a hard drive, a USB enclosure, AND a NAS. But, $75 for a NAS is a lot less than a reuirement for a desktop computer to act in its stead.

I've been trying to purchase an enclosure for a spare 250GB SATA drive, but 95% of all the enclosure's I've found are straight IDE, the SATA versions are not nearly as commoditized.

Need to bite the bullet and just get one anyway. And one of those Linksys NAS devices.

Posted by chuckie on February 22, 2005 08:21 PM

Well, I wound up getting a dual PIII that was once a rack server. I popped in half a GB of memory (I'll probably populate the rest of it in a few months) and a semi-cheapie 120GB drive. Since it's loud, I got a 802.11g game server (no hassle wireless bridge) and stuffed it into my garage. All tolled the setup cost me around $300 (the game adapter was the pricest item in that mix at around $100, but it's also the most reusable, and I really didn't want to dork around with trying to configure a USB adapter), with lots of room for future expansion. It's running Knoppix Debian and Samba, so it's plenty fast for what I need. Plus, it gives me a Linux workspace I can go dork around in, but you don't need that.

Figure that your network speed is going to be slower than your USB2 speed, so that's where your bottlneck is.

I'll agree with Chuckie that getting a dedicated NAS is probably the best option for you. Plus if you ever want to expand it into a raid, you could always get a couple of USB hubs.

Posted by jr on February 22, 2005 10:23 PM

I just picked up a XIMETA NetDisk recently (http://www.ximeta.com/products/network_drives/netdisk/index.php). They're a little bit expensive ($300 for 200gb) but you can access it via a network connection (using propietary win and beta linux software and protocol, NDAS) or a usb connection. The software also allows you to aggregate or mirror disks...

Pretty sweet solution depending on your requirements!

Posted by Damon on February 23, 2005 12:11 AM

Check out PUG Servers. Remember the little server on the shelf in my office in Crawford? That was one.

Posted by Amitai Schlair on March 13, 2005 04:38 PM