OK, brain trust…
I have two dead systems at home and need to increase my storage capacity… this leaves me a few options…
Option One
Try to piece together a single working system with parts I have from the two I have, plus duct tape etc. The newest of these systems dates back to 2006 and has a sempron processor – not a big deal as I am primarally interest in storage, but its old tech.And a fair bit of work as I try and figure out whats working and what isn’t not to mention unknown expense.
Option Two
On CraigsList I found a Buffalo TeraStation Home Server NAS, with four drive bays and two 250GB HDDs already in it. I have two 320GB IDE drives that can be pulled from the dead systems and put in the new system. This would give me just over 1TB of storage. However, its old tech still using IDE drives, that particular NAS does not have that great reviews, and I will have filled up all the open bays.
Option Three
New Egg has the D-Link DNS-321 for $120 with a $30 mail in rebate from D-Link. It is only two drive bays, but they are SATA. I can get a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB drive for $84, making final cost $174 after the mail in rebate. And this would give me an open bay for further expansion.
EDIT: This NAS has excellent reviews and is apparently extremely hackable. Also, I found a SAMSUNG EcoGreen 1TB drive for $80 brining the overall cost down to $170 after rebate.
EDIT 2: A good summary of how to and the hacks is here.
Option Four
Build a new system. Really, this is the same as option one, as I want to keep costs down.
So, thoughts?