The eSATA option would definitely be the last resort. Thats the beauty of the unRAID system, I may purchase 3 x 2tb drives to begin with and add more as and when I need them.

Thing is, for the price of two extra drives I could then set up freeNAS with RAIDz. That would give me better peformance than unRAID due to striping and decent data security via the parity drive, similar to unRAID.

Hmmm, its such a tough decision. I'll probably have to hide all this from the missus anyway.

unRAID needs a minimum of 3 drives to work right? So to get 2 more when I'm buying the 3 isn't as bad I suppose. Either way I'm gonna incur a large cost. What hard drives would you guys recommend?

do you guys really need the security of the parity drive ?

I'm assuming these are just going to be full of music/films ?  (aka stuff you could easily replace)

even if you back your other computers up to it.... you'll have a copy on your computer and on the micro server....

if it's really important stuff... just copy it to more than 1 disk ?

the only time I've ever had a drive fail on me was when I was rebuilding a pc gave myself an electric shock, dropping some wires, which fell onto my drive which was out on the floor putting 240v through it :s

but..... what does it matter when they're going to be full of "stuff you've downloaded" and can download again anyway ?


since I stopped saving stuff... my storage drive has about 50gig on it... a backup of important stuff, and then a few programs
(150gig total if you add games)

yeah.... but how much is there that you can;t get again ?  I bet it's only a small percentage of what you have saved/stored...

if so... why not just copy that stuff over 2 different drives ?

For me I'd be using it to store home videos of my kids and all of the photos that come along with them. Whilst I will be creating backups somewhere else this will offer added local protection to those files so I wont have to spend ages downloading them all unless something goes seriously bad. For example my wife's aunt has just lost 2 weeks worth of photos from holiday, most of which my wife wanted to keep. It weighed in at just under 5gb. Add my missus' obsession with photos of the kids. I estimate the current lot of irreplaceable data could maybe hit 50gb.

I also have music that I spent a lot of time ripping. I've actively searched in the past for some of the artists I like and haven't managed to find them. Again that means it could be a pain to lose them.

Backing up all that with the notoriously bad upload speeds we get in the UK means a long bloody time to get it all to the new storage. Its all about convenience for me.

Clock'd, have you checked unRAID works with 3tb drives? I think I read it doesnt currently.

Ah ok, well I need to buy the thing still. Quidco is paying me £60 in a few days so I might order it and pay through paypal once that comes.

As an aside, anyone know of a decent service for hosting backups? If not I may speak to a relative and stick a cheaper NAS in their house which I'll be able to access remotely. Set up some kind of automated backup.

The only models to really avoid are the Western Digital 2TBs, which have some kind of power up/down issue. Other than that all the manufacturers are pretty even. just wait for the cheapest price to come up, e.g. Aria SuperSaver, Scan DOTD, etc.

Another question...

What is the noise level like during playback when compared to something like a Xbox360 ? I'm trying to decide whether to actually use it as my HTPC and move my Revo to the bedroom or have the Server in the loft.