[ale] cheap network attached storage?

Jay Loden jloden at toughguy.net
Fri Sep 9 14:50:05 EDT 2005


I did eventually find one (ximeta netdisk) in the 2-250 range that are 
compatible with Linux, but it requires installing their gui client rpm, and 
it looks more like token Linux support than any kind of real support. 

Here at work they've given up and just purchased a big fat IDE drive that'll 
go in an old machine hooked up to the network.

I'd agree with you about a simple NAS being a good concept for home networks, 
except that since all the existing drives out there work with Windows and 
Macs, you've effectively narrowed it down to a tiny niche market of Linux or 
Unix home desktop users.  These are people who are even more likely to build 
their own solution. Basically, I think that if you went into this market with 
your mail selling point being Linux support, you'd be toast. Ah, the joys of 
being a relative minority ;)

On Friday 09 September 2005 2:16 pm, you wrote:
> I really don't think you will find exactly what you are looking for in a
> consumer grade appliance. One solution for a "network storage" device
> would be Iscsi, scsi commands over ethernet, but I think this puts your
> $ into the couple of zeros range. I saw recently a rack mounted storage
> system that uses PATA drives. Google search "PATA over ethernet". These
> would be true "networked" storage.
>
> Another thing would be to build a system yourself with mini-itx or nano-
> itx motherboards. This is the route I will take soon, If I cannot find a
> better solution.




More information about the Ale mailing list