Home Data Storage Solutions

[tjunyat]

With everyone downloading movies, tv series, and the general trend for the size of home data storage increasing exponentially, what are people doing in terms of storage solutions?

I currently have 3Tb in a 3x1Tb disk configuration, but what happens once I increase that to 5, or 10 or even 20 disks?

Is there a "cheap" home solution?
Enterprise solutions are ridiculously overpriced and also offer way more functionality than is needed in a home environment.
I don't need raid controllers, hotswappable drives, hot spares, redundant power supplies, etc. I just need a chassis that can store hard drives and ensure they remain cool enough to function properly.

The only thing I found online that might work is a Backblaze pod - http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ but where could I get something like this in SA?

Does anyone have any other suggestions/solutions?

 

[greggpb]

if you gonna spend the 100grand just get one from them, I'm

 

[tjunyat]

if you gonna spend the 100grand just get one from them, I'm

The whole point is to not spend 100k

 

[rorz0r]

There's a device called the "drobo" which is rather good at managing home storage. I think it's somewhat pricy but if you're looking at upgrading to 20TB it's cheep cheep. A lot cheaper than the "corporate" equivalents.

 

[howardb]

I would get something like a Codegen Jumbo S-201 case, cheap mobo, some sata cards and run it like that - with most mobo's handling 4-7 onboard sata connections plus a few extra sata cards, it would be like a huge NAS box - could use Gigabit LAN to connect to HT or your PC/network

You could expand to 3/4 4-port sata cards giving you up to 22 data drives and 1 boot drive. I'd thin this is the cheapest option.

This is similar to the setup I'm currently creating for all my HD content and DVD backups.

 

[bwana]

I really want to get my hands on a Drobo.

 

[thePhurball]

Cm Stacker?

 

[Random717]

I would get something like a Codegen Jumbo S-201 case, cheap mobo, some sata cards and run it like that - with most mobo's handling 4-7 onboard sata connections plus a few extra sata cards, it would be like a huge NAS box - could use Gigabit LAN to connect to HT or your PC/network

You could expand to 3/4 4-port sata cards giving you up to 22 data drives and 1 boot drive. I'd thin this is the cheapest option.

This is similar to the setup I'm currently creating for all my HD content and DVD backups.

This is not for the light hearted... the amount of cable ties and patience required to rewire several PSUs to power 15 harddrives is a real pain in the ass. Then there is keeping it cool

Anyway I'd recommend this:
http://www.sybaritic.co.za/store/product_info.php?products_id=17033
with 4x 2TB drives. If you need more space, buy a second one