Help!? setting up server box for a mac? or another storage solution?

[xbenjix72]

Hi. Im having an issue trying to figure out a problem for a friend. Well lets start off that im a PC guy so this whole mac thing is going to bother me. You see she has a mac laptop and about 30000 pictures saved on external HD's. The problem is that firewire/usb 2.0 are too slow to access. She is using a program called Aperture to access her picture files. Down to the point.... I'm thinking that the best solution for home would be a server box networked to the mac? well thats my first issue then theres:

1) What OS (unix based/windows)
2) How to configure
3) Hard wire or does wireless work just as well
4) Is this Mac thing going to be a pain...
5) Do i need a powerful setup or will a 1Ghz or so with a gig of ram in raid be suffice

Thanks to the replies in advance.
If there are any links out there as well....

[glc]

Firewire is faster than Ethernet unless you use Gigabit Ethernet and a LOT faster than any wireless. Building a server for this use is a waste of money, where Macs excel is the use of Firewire and external drives. All the Firewire drives can be daisy chained.

[xbenjix72]

thanks glc, how much time would you say? cause over a usb 2.0 a couple thousand pics took 8 hours which i thought was kind of rediculous.

so youre saying that firewire is a better option then NAS as well?

[xbenjix72]

im thinking 2tb of storage is good enough till the next bump up in tech

[glc]

How many gigabytes was that load of pics?

Firewire is faster in the real world than USB 2.0, and on paper, 4x the speed of 10/100 Ethernet.

ESATA is the current hot ticket for external storage.

[ArtBest]

One easy solution might be to use one of the "network storage systems" that the network companies like Linksys and D-Link make. Typically they hold 2 SATA-2 HDs, and have gigabit ethernet connections. They come with onboard intelligence and software to ease the configuration. I think the Linksys one is only about $100. The Linksys one is the NAS200; D-Link makes the DNS-323. I suspect there are others.

I haven't used either of these so I can't comment on the quality of the product or software, but they would seem to be a possible solution to your problem.

[glc]

It will be slower than Firewire if the Mac doesn't have GbE.

[xbenjix72]

thanks guys. yah last night i was reading about NAS and its potential, but the need for Gig ethernet. hmm esata? lol im guessing the e is for external. how does it connect? ill have to read up on that. the comp is a april 2007 mac book pro.

the main problem is that it just lags like its buffering when you try and access the pics. i mean this is the main source for the pictures and it gets annoying having to wait a couple seconds per picture to view ( likes its scanning the hd for it)

currently she has about 200 gigs worth of photos and im getting dire to find a solution. the usb exHD's are 100 and 500 and shes got some on a desk pc. and a ton on memory cards.

thanks a lot for the help.

[glc]

USB is NOT efficient for external drives. The best is eSATA, followed by GbE, then Firewire. I do not have a clue whether a Macbook has a eSATA port.

[kram 2.0]

SATA is often used for hard drive connection with the motherboard. For external purposes, usually you would connect via a SATA PCI Card, much like an add-on Firewire or USB interface. There are many of these add-on cards available for the Mac, though finding a stable card that works on OS X would be a bit hard.

kram

[glc]

Kinda hard to put a PCI card into a Macbook. I know PC's are starting to come with built-in eSATA, and I think some notebooks even have it now.