Cheap NAS project

[Dubyahjay]

So I have a copy of Server 2003 and have contemplated the linux route, but I just stumbled on what I see as the holy grail for media storage.

Have any of you heard of unRaid? http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/

Security of raid 5, with fault tolerance in case two drives go down at once. Plus, if you remove a drive from the array you can load it into a linux comp or a windows machine with some freeware soft on it to recognize reiserFS.

Here is my build:

Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133154

PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153028

CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819104005

Memory http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211064

Mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128056 *I love this board, its also in my HTPC*

HDs x2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136178

HD cage http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-in-3%2bDevice since unRaid doesnt support hotswap anyway.

Plus another 500 gig drive that I already have, so that gives me one more sata slot before I have to buy a controller card. Plus, I can run the free version of unRaid first to make sure it is going to fit my needs as I expect. That is a 1tb (usable) NAS with awesome expansion capability (up to 16 drives) for less than 500

Any thoughts?

[Somperson]

I'll tell you what. I have an AMD Sempron @ 3400+ and that is never touched more than 25% 99% of the time. The only problem I have had and this is with win2k3 server is when a drive gets disconnected... To resync the raid-5 on a 3x500gb Seagate perpendicular drives takes about 2-3 days with 100% processor load. The drives are useable and accessible, but they failed to play a 1080p x264 video during some high megabit peaks.

I would look into the unraid system before trying to do raid-5 in windows. Linux/freebsd def. has the upper hand in file management. I wouldnt mind trying to migrate to a linux setup, but because of raid-5 (software) it becomes complicated.

Only advantage windows has is full driver support. Since the server runs 24/7 as much power can be saved is essentially in my mind. win2k3 allows amd chips to run at 1000mhz when idle. - Although many motherboards can control power to the processor - dynamic switching.

[Dubyahjay]

I would definitely loose flexible power management on the CPU, but the drives are another story. Since unRaid doesnt stripe the drives, all but the accessed drive can be spun down. As long as my directory structure is sound (ie i dont have movies spanning multiple drives) the power usage should be extremely low. Plus I can underclock through the bios if need be. True that it is not as feature rich as some of the other linux/windows alternatives but it is very light weight (which means less to break!) and has the main feature that I am looking for, filesharing.

I have been researching storage for quite a while now. It is the only thing that has kept me from ripping all of my dvds and getting into HD. I wanted cheap expandability, stability and GigEthernet. This has all of those covered. In fact, the more drives I add, the less per GB the cost is. Fantastic!