hardware for home use large storage

[Miroslav Lachman]

Dan Langille wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at creating a large home use storage machine. Budget is a
> concern, but size and reliability are also a priority. Noise is also a
> concern, since this will be at home, in the basement. That, and cost,
> pretty much rules out a commercial case, such as a 3U case. It would be
> nice, but it greatly inflates the budget. This pretty much restricts me
> to a tower case.
>
> The primary use of this machine will be a backup server[1]. It will do
> other secondary use will include minor tasks such as samba, CIFS, cvsup,
> etc.


It depends on your needs (storage capacity [number of drives], 
performance etc.)

One year ago I purchased HP ProLiant ML110G5 / P2160 / 1GB / 250GB SATA 
/ DVDRW / Tower / (with 3 years Next Business Day support!). It is sold 
for about 9000,- CZK ($500), I added next 4GB of RAM, 4x 1TB Samsung F1 
instead of original 250GB Seagate. System is booted from 2GB internal 
USB flash drive and all drives are in RAIDZ pool.
The machine is really quiet.
All in all cost is about $1000 with 3 years NBD.
You can put in 2TB drives instead of 1TB drives.

It is really low end machine, but runs without problems for more than a 
year.

Miroslav Lachman