Blanketing the Airwaves

[c9]

I've asked Facebook, Twitter, and an email list, so I might as well complete the job: anybody have a good recommendation for a NAS? My budget is low, otherwise I'd just get a Drobo and be happy about it of course.

Problem: four laptops storing low-to-medium-importance stuff all over the house.

All advice welcome!

Comments

[petele.livejournal.com]

Define "low".

I just sold my drobo, and am super happy with my home build Windows HomeServer. Hardware cost me just about $300, for a Shuttle PC, 2x1T hard drives, 2 Gig RAM and all the little stuff (fans, etc). You can get the software from MSDN to test :)

Super easy to use, Vinny would be happy with it, has automated Windows machine back ups nightly if you so choose.

If you've got a good net connection at home, you can also set it up for remote access pretty easily, so you can pull content down when not at home. I can TS into my home machines or into it as I need.

Happy to provide more details, but that's the easiest/best thing I've found. You can get some pretty sweet pre-built ones these days too, check out the one from Acer and the one from HP. If I were to do it over again, I'd just pick up the Acer one and call it done.

PS: I called mine \\BigBackpack

[c9.livejournal.com]

bbp - of course you did. :)

Not interested in home server - 24/7 power consumption is not on my wish list right now. I know I'm stuck with that almost no matter what, but a tiny integrated SATA controller and basic NIC would be less electricity, so I think that's where I'll end up for now.

[petele.livejournal.com]

there's a little add-on you can get for WHS that will automagically turn on your WHS and turn it off at specific times, so you're only on that hours that you choose.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Just FYI, my Drobo (with 3 1TB drives an a 750MB drive), all the networking gear (Airport Extreme, D-Link WRT-G router, Aliant ADSL modem), and the EeePC that provides the "server brains" of my network -- draws 100 watts when busy (note that's not including the fact that the EeePC is its own UPS -- it would be slightly higher if the battery were charging). Not bad, considering. I've not seen stats on how much one of the WHS boxes draw, but it's probably less than my cobbled together solution.