homemade NAS

[roadtrash]

hi guys, I have been looking into extra storage for my home network, for streaming music and video. At this point I really can't afford a nice NAS. What I would like to do is, build one out of an old computer. I have a old HP, Pentium 3. It's 550 mhrz with 128 RAM. I also have two 320 gig IDE hardrives. Is there a way I could set up a RAID 1 on this thing pretty cheap. I would be hooking it up through my router. The old comp has windows xp, as do all my other networked comps.


Thanks in advance

[Ob1]

you would need a hardware RAID card to implement RAID 1 as win 2000 and xp don't support software RAID.

i saw at Office Depot awhile ago they had an empty external USB case that was actually for NAS. all you had to do was install your own drive and connect it to the network via ethernet. i think it was around $50-60.

[roadtrash]

Would a card like this work? I noticed alot of them get mixed reviews

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815104214

Does anybody have any suggestions on a good card. It has to do RAID 1, and be IDE.

Will a old comp like this, running XP, be able to handle the load?

I may have to upgrade fans and power, but I think the chip and ram will do.


Thanks

[glc]

That card should do what you need, but 128mb ram is not enough to run XP properly. Win2K will run better, but that's still not enough ram to do it right - and I would NOT trust Win98 to do that job. I'd upgrade the ram (256 for 2K or 512 for XP) and make sure you have a good hardware NIC card in it, such as a 3Com 3C905, to maximize the network throughput.

[roadtrash]

yea. this unit came with 98. It was my first comp, 1999. Do you think I could update the ram? I don't have this comp in front of me. Do you think a 8 year old, 550mhrz has ram expansion. I'll have to go get it and see. It does run xp failly well, if i recall. I upgraded to xp and a DVD-R. It would network and burn DVD,s.

It was really a hellof'a system for its time. It should be, considering what I paid for it. At the time napster and CD-R was all the rave

[glc]

Good chance it will take generic PC100 or PC133 SDRAM - what's the exact computer model?

If you don't put more ram in it, it will hurt your network throughput - it won't stream well at all.

[mojo]

If you're up to it, you'll have much more success using linux to run the box. Samba is incredibly flexible if you dig into it, and will give you excellent performance on low end hardware. There are many many distros out there, but Ubuntu (http://www.pcmech.com/show/os/903/) is very friendly to the uninitiated. Once you get Ubuntu up and going, you'll use Samba (http://www.pcmech.com/show/network/952/) to do the file serving.

[hobey19]

like mojo, i would recommend linux, but might i suggest FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/). i have found it to be perfect for these types of jobs

it takes a little configuration, but it does the job perfectly

craig

[glc]

What about Linux drivers for a cheap raid card like that?

[hobey19]

i didn't think about that, and after googling, i couldn't find much except for this (http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php/product/3160) which mentions it works fine on mandrake 10. granted, thats not across the board, but seeing as how FreeNAS is free and made to do the job, it might be worth trying

craig

[roadtrash]

I know nothing about this linux you speek of

I'v been wanting to learn something about it for a while now, but just haven't taken the leap. I do enjoy reading and learning these type things. ALL my computer "training" has been sitting here in front of this screen.

can somebody, maybe give me some links to some of the most basic linux guides. I have read some stuff, but is seams really complicated. Sorry to say all of my comp experience has been windows.

/off to google

[Ob1]

look in the Alternate Operating system portion of this forum. there are a few sticky's with an explanation and links for Linux.