Home NAS Solution

If you know me, you are probably familiar with the freak occurrence that took down in succession a RAID card channel, an IDE RAID drive (or two), and a Dell PowerEdge server SCSI boot drive… After a lot of research (over days and weeks), as well as some key advice from a trusted IT advisor (thanks Steve), I selected and ordered a network storage solution that while not cheap, is pretty affordable and pretty well guarantees that my pictures, docs, and other data will always be available. Hope this is useful… -- Keith


Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ RNV2-S2-0000, no pre-installed HDD with 4 empty disk trays, support X-RAID and RAID 0/1/5, 256MB memory, Silver, SFF desktop - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822329023

This guy is hot-swappable, gigabit-connected, low form factor, low power, and has 4 SATA slots supporting up to 750 GB each (up to 3 TB); and in addition to supporting RAID-5 etc has a cool feature called X-RAID, where you can add disks as you go and it will automatically expand the array.

Following the grit-your-teeth project mandate (“data is valuable”), I opted to start with two enterprise-class server drives (Seagate Barracuda ES drives, below), paying a premium. While you can get consumer SATA drives of 500GB for around $140/ea plus shipping at NewEgg.com, one reads a lot about drives that are DOA, failed after a month, etc. This makes sense and actually matches my experience with the cheaper consumer drives.

With RAID overhead, etc. this should give me a working NAS of around 650 GB. Not bad…

Seagate Barracuda ES ST3500630NS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148151

Got two of these; can take advantage of price drops in the future to pick up a couple more.

The ReadyNAS has a USB 2.0 output to allow a preconfigured backup, so I bought a USB enclosure and another, smaller enterprise Barracuda ES 250GB. This I will use to back up critical stuff (pictures, documents). I will use Microsoft Backup (or similar) to schedule local computer backups to the NAS, and possibly something like Acronis TrueImage to “image” boot drives to the NAS (so I can simply re-image a new hard drive if a boot drive fails).

To leave no power issues (quality, spikes/surges, brownouts, failures, etc) to chance, I got a APC Smart-UPS 750VA, which not only provides power backup, but a little power conditioning as well as power graphs showing history and quality.

Anyway, I pasted the whole order below for your convenience if you’re interested. -- Keith


Products

Qty.
Product Description
Total Price
Item(s) shipped from CA Tracking Number:

2
Seagate Barracuda ES ST3500630NS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEMItem #: N82E16822148151 Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$399.98

2
OKGEAR SATA II cable with metal latch,UV Model GC10AUBM12 - RetailItem #: N82E16812123108 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$5.98
Item(s) shipped from NJ Tracking Number:

1
Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEMItem #: N82E16822148215 Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$99.99

1
Infrant ReadyNAS RNV2-S2-0000 Diskless System The Superior NAS for Office and Home - RetailItem #: N82E16822329023 Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$615.99

1
AMC VGA, With dual ferrites Male to Female Monitor Cable Model CSV-F25MF - OEMItem #: N82E16812105804 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$9.99

1
OKGEAR 20" SATA Power Cable Model GC20ATA - RetailItem #: N82E16812123168 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$3.99

1
OKGEAR SATA II CABLE-UV BLUE Model GC10AUBM - RetailItem #: N82E16812123107 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$2.99

2
OKGEAR 6" molex 4pin male to two 15pin SATA Power Cable Model GC6ATAM2 - RetailItem #: N82E16812123119 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$3.78

2
Link Depot UV Power Cord into SATA Power Cable Model POW-UV-SATA - RetailItem #: N82E16812189005 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$3.98
Item(s) shipped from TN Tracking Number:

1
AZiO ENC311SU41 3.5" eSATA + USB 2.0 External Enclosure - RetailItem #: N82E16817106097 Return Policy: Standard Return Policy