If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Addonics Storage Towers? Good/Bad?
I have been looking everywhere for reasonably cheap (cost wise) esata/
usb, 4bay, RAID 1 storage solutions and while there are some undisputedly top notch options out there they seem to start at $500 on up and none seem to support 2tb internal drives. I happened upon one post in the smallnetbuilder forums about Addonics (it is still hardly talked about on that forum). Their mini storage tower seems to be about the form factor I need, the $200 price range is ok and the option of integrated RAID 1, port multiplier, eSATA, and USB seems just about right. But I can hardly find any reviews about these storage towers. So has anyone tried either the “Storage Tower” or the “Mini Storage Tower” from Addonics? I would be curious to know about any of the configurations, how they run especially the quality (parts etc did anything break prematurely). Any comments or experiences shared would really be appreciated! Cheers -Gaiko |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Addonics Storage Towers? Good/Bad?
Gaiko : I have been looking everywhere for reasonably cheap (cost wise) esata/ usb, 4bay, RAID 1 storage solutions and while there are some undisputedly top notch options out there they seem to start at $500 on up and none seem to support 2tb internal drives. I happened upon one post in the smallnetbuilder forums about Addonics (it is still hardly talked about on that forum). Their mini storage tower seems to be about the form factor I need, the $200 price range is ok and the option of integrated RAID 1, port multiplier, eSATA, and USB seems just about right. But I can hardly find any reviews about these storage towers. So has anyone tried either the “Storage Tower” or the “Mini Storage Tower” from Addonics? I would be curious to know about any of the configurations, how they run especially the quality (parts etc did anything break prematurely). Any comments or experiences shared would really be appreciated! Cheers -Gaiko I have not used those myself, but I had similar considerations last year. My conclusion was to "roll my own", since storage boxes seem overpriced to me and the software as delivered with the ones I was investigating always was limited as opposed to what you can do yourself. You'll need - A cheap standard PC, processor does not matter at all, get something like a Celeron or Sempron. Or check out Mini ITX boards with integrated Celeron/Atom processors, they have become pretty cheap (around 100$). - If possible, get a motherboard with 4 Sata interfaces. If you go the ITX route you'll only have 2 of them, but they normally have one free PCI slot which allows you to add a 4 port Sata card, like the Promise TX4. Most motherboards still have one parallel ATA-IDE interface, which means you can add at least one more disk and/or DVD Rom that way. - Memory is not very important either, 512MB should be enough. The PC enclosure must be big enough to fit all the disks you need, obviously. An onboard network controller is standard anyway nowadays. Install something like Ubuntu Server on the machine and use Linux Software RAID in whatever configuration you desire. Don't worry about the overhead of software RAID, you'll hardly notice it on a lightly loaded server. Use Samba to share the RAID volumes on the network or NFS or Rsync or any of the other numerous ways possible in Linux. I know this is a little more work to begin with and in terms of footprint you'll probably end up with a larger box but you gain the flexibility that comes with using standard OS components and the total cost including disks should be less than for a propriatary solution. regards, -- Joerg Lenneis email: |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
McCain, 5 Hebrews + 2 towers of WTC = 3,000 Bombs ??? | No Name | Dell Computers | 0 | October 12th 08 11:59 AM |
Addonics CardBus USB 2.0 adapter | Andrew | Dell Computers | 1 | November 13th 04 11:46 AM |
Dell - Addonics DigiDrive conflict | Lil' Abner | General | 1 | August 19th 04 09:21 AM |
Mini Towers/ RFI / EMP / Shielding | gmv | Homebuilt PC's | 12 | September 11th 03 02:31 PM |
CD/DVD JukeBoxes and towers. | Crimson* | Homebuilt PC's | 2 | September 2nd 03 12:17 AM |