Its a good point and one I hadnt considered :s

USB enclosures could be the answer but they can be very loud too :s I have my old HDDs hooked up to a PC thats in the loft ! Although I do have some heat issues in the summer with that too !!

Quote from: NimrodIts a good point and one I hadnt considered :s

USB enclosures could be the answer but they can be very loud too :s I have my old HDDs hooked up to a PC thats in the loft ! Although I do have some heat issues in the summer with that too !!

true but they can at least be turned off when not in use.

I currently have my DVD drive in a USB enclosure due to my motherboard having developed an alergy to DVD-RW drives. Does the job but is noisey as you like when Im trying to watch a film

doh!, loft is an option though, as ive got my main hub up there (old 3com auto 100/10 hub with noisy fan)

just need a good NAS box then, any ideas?


ive got a *really* old pc but not got it booting so may or may not be an option, although the board is that old itll deffinatly balk at larger than 120GB drives.

*sigh*, stand alone NAS boxes then with multiple IDE and possibly SATA ?

You don;t want much do you

Are the HDDs NTFS or FAT32 ? Youll have problems getting a NAS caddy that supports NTFS !

I have a Linksys NSLU2 USB2 NAS hub thingy that does work ok with NTFS (Read Only). It has 2 USB2 ports that you plug your standard HDD USB caddies into, the NSLU2 turns the 2 caddies into NAS.

my western digital usb enclosure is quite quiet.

freeNAS ?

Quote from: NimrodYou don;t want much do you

Are the HDDs NTFS or FAT32 ? Youll have problems getting a NAS caddy that supports NTFS !

I have a Linksys NSLU2 USB2 NAS hub thingy that does work ok with NTFS (Read Only). It has 2 USB2 ports that you plug your standard HDD USB caddies into, the NSLU2 turns the 2 caddies into NAS.

Nope not much at all  

theyre all NTFS atm,
but formating shouldnt be a problem, got enough space free to juggle the data

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1873156,00.asp looks intersting, the multidrive nass listed are sata though

I take it freenas is a pc based solution ? id have to get the other machine up and working then  :whoops:
supposed itd get it outta my room and the rest of the clutter though  

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=239

Can be had cheaper elsewhere

thanks for the linky, this looks like the sort of thing though
http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=109_198&products_id=449&osCsid=dd2aacc4626e77618db98c64d7b8f4ef

one or two IDE HDDs, network attached

bit odd that it only supports w2k, winxp and w2k3 though...... hmmm

ill have a bit more of a dig about when i get home

thanks for all the ideas so far lads (and lasses?)