anybody ever try this for storage solution?

wethree wrote on 1/16/2004, 3:41 PM

What if --

you bought an inexpensive minitower/case ($35-50), for say 4 160G IDE drives (at $69 each from Fry's), then ripped out the oxford bridge on a single firewire enclosure ($79-99) then bought removable storage racks for each of those four IDE drives (at $5-15 each), then connected them to you main computer tower (or small form Shuttle) via firewire. Would that work? Could the Oxford Bridge serve as controller/IDEtofFirewire converter? And would this be an affordable/workable solution???

Or does someone have an even better solution...

thanks,
bt

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 1/16/2004, 5:41 PM

I think i wouldn't bother with firewire in this case. I'd go ethernet instead. This would require building a complete computer, ,but it wouldn't need to be anything fancy at all. An old Pentium 1 class computer with Win95 (Win98 SE would be much easier) would do the job. You could probably pick up the parts for this or refurb an old PC for less than all the firewire parts. It's also tried & true technology that just plain works as compared to firewire which still has some odd funkiness now and then.

As far as stability is concerned, i've had a Windows 95 server set up on a 486/66DX run for years at a time without a reboot.

farss wrote on 1/16/2004, 5:55 PM

I'd go along with that, if you really wanted something fancy you could go with NAS device but you'd save a bundle by rolling out your own.
You might find Win 2K a better option, it's got better networking I think. Also for such large drive if you'll be storing AVIs you would need NTFS volumes.

I've got a box I just use for testing stuff before it goes out to clients that been sitting there running headless for years. It's full of fluff but still runs. If I need to access the desktop on it I use VNC, its free!

As you're planning to move a fair bit of data Gigabit ethernet might be worth a look, it is getting cheaper. Just watch out, from my quick investigations not all of them are the same.