Storage Server

[Komrade]

Hi,

I want to set up a network storage server using my very first computer, its an Athlon 4200XP with a Asus A7V motherboard.

It doesnt have gigabit ethernet but i found a 30$ pci card that will make it have gigabit.

The problem im facing is how will I stick in lots of HDDs in there. Its an old mobo so it has the plain old ATA connection. How do i make it so that I can connect the new SATA 1TB HDDs, preferable lots of them for the future.

If thats not possible with that kinda mobo then what do you recomend?

Thanks

 

[gearhead1972]

you could put a pci sata card in it, not sure but I think you can get them with 8 ports. if your going to be going with that many drives you may want to look at upgrading your PSU. If space is an issue in the box they make a 4X 2.5 inch back pane that fits in a 5.25 drive slot and is hot swappable from the front.

 

[Trap05]

You'll have to buy a PCI sata card if you want to use that old rig. Another option would be to buy a cheap AMD cpu and a decent motherboard with sata and that takes cheap DDR2 ram.

 

[Komrade]

Thanks,

I found a 4 sata port PCI card fro 80 bucks, a little more than I would want it to cost but what can I do.

In this scenario with the whole PCI to SATA connection, would the gigabit ethernet still be the bottleneck?

 

[MadMan007]

although I like the idea of using old stuff in a new role, if you're going to spend that much on a SATA card and a gigabit card why not just pick up a 6 SATA port integrated video mobo and a dirt cheap CPU?

If you go used you could possibly do it cheaper.

*Edit Oh, you'd need memory too but DDR2 is practically free these days.

 

[Mpegger]

Just adding in some more info for you to think about..

If your going to be setting up multi-TBs' worth of drive space, don't forget to use a OS that will be able to actually access all that space. XP32 can only address up to 2TB of partition space. Linux and Vista64 (Home?) can access way beyond that amount just fine.

There are also 5 Hard Drive Hot Swap bays that fit in 3 x 5.25" bays you can use if you dont have enough hard drive space built within the case itself. Be creative and you can use these bays externally just fine. I plan on doing just this myself as I'm going to take down the central server/PVR computer I had setup for the home, but really no one uses it except me. No point in having 2 computers running nearly 24/7 when 1 can do everything itself.

 

[Komrade]

Good point, having an external hot swap drive bay, laber HDDs by alphabet and thats it. I just spotted this western digital 2TB network drive for 350$ at costco. That is sweet sice 2TBs will prolle cost around 260.

 

[tgxiii]

I second MadMan's suggestion. It looks like you're going to be spending $80 for the SATA card + $30 for the gigabit card, so $130.

You can get a $50 AM2 motherboard with SATA and gigabit + $50 CPU + $20 for 2 GB of memory. Add tax and shipping and it's not that much more than what you originally were going to spend, plus you have a newer system.