# Super Cheap NAS



## pkodyssey

A month ago I found NASLite+ on the web and decided to build a super cheap NAS. For about $300 I built a 1TB NAS. The motherboard I use supports booting from USB so I was able to use 4-250GB Drives. Gotta have a floppy though to save config file.

I am using the following parts:
Intel D845WN motherboard
P4 1.6
128 MB Memory
Aopen video card (ATI chip)
Onboard NIC
128 MB USB Flash Drive (v2.0)
4 - 250GB Western Digital Drives
Old floppy drive

I use it to stream video and audio to the LR and as a file server for the home office. The software interface is all linux based and super easy to use. Sorry to sound like a commercial but I really was getting down over the hug costs involved with all the NAS devices I was finding, including eBay.


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## Mithrilhall

Damn...that looks pretty cool.

I just might build one of these to hold all my MCE files.


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## winterfrost

Interesting concept, but I think RAID support would make it much more appealing.


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## pkodyssey

This is designed to run on very basic equipment. Having Raid support is coming in future versions from what I hear. Up for 2 months without a hitch.


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## Rockn

Does it support fiber channel or gigabit ethernet connections? No array or mirroring options seems to be a drawback, especially if you are worried about backups. If it were able to have mirrored or RAID 5 that you could hot-swap I would definately look into it. Sounds cool for an external storage option though.


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## Mithrilhall

Just an update...

I found this interesting and easy to setup.
http://www.freenas.org/


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## Noishe

Hello, I am curious, how did you manage to build your NAS for 300 dollars?

The cheapest WD 250 drive I can find is 131.40 from a wholesaler, and 4 of those would be 525.60, never mind the cost for a motherboard cpu ram video... etc

I'm thinking of building a sata2 raid device with two maxtor 300GB, and the lowest I can get it is 600 after tax, and that's in Canadian dollars!!!

Thanks for your help.


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## neos1

Fred Langa (LangaList) on Feb,27 had a three part series on how to build a TerraByte NAS/file server
using off the shelf parts for around $500.

I believe you have to subscribe, but it cost me nothing and was well worth giving my email adress to him.


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## gotrootdude

250g hard drives are commonly found for around $60AR. You don't need the fastest drives for just a large network storage, so several IDE drives are fine. If you run out of IDE controllers, just add a USB hub and a few USB to IDE adaptors (around $14 each).

I picked up a couple of 80gb drives for $10 each a few weeks ago for such a project, I'm using them in a astrisk pbx box running asterisk at home on suse linux with samba configured for network access and LVM to expand disk space across physical drives. That way, it's not only a NAS, but handles my home phone sytem as well.

If your using it for storage for MCE, there's another neat trick you can do. If you install openh323 on asterisk, and you install MCE Sip phone, you can use your MCE machine to answer and make phone calls straight through your pbx/nas!  Right now, I'm only using a couple of md3200 intel modems for FXS ports into the pbx, but after I finish up replacing the antiquated phone system at work, I hope to get a few sipura SPA-3000's to ty into the system. The fake X100p's work fine for home.

A great asterisk resource for Beginners here: http://nerdvittles.com/

For those who are advanced, you can boot asterisk from a USB drive here: http://www.astlinux.org/
With a little effort, you can add on the same functionality as [email protected], and still be able to use your hard drives for network storage while booting from a USB key. (little warning here, I have a astlinux system running, you'll need a driver to read and write to your USB key from windows, I believe this driver is the one I used. http://www.fs-driver.org/ )

I'm using a PC CHIPS M789CG with a embedded Via C3 cpu and CLE266 chipset. 
You may ask, "why so cheap and slow a board?"... Well, it's almost impervious to heat, and produces typically around 5W of heat running. It's quieter than the hard drives. It's fast enough to handle asterisk with around 30 extensions, and everything is onboard so no extra stuff is needed, and it's dirt cheap. It can be found for around $50 shipped.


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## neos1

A Complete Terabyte File Server For About $500
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleD=183702383
For some reason this link is dead. But besides that, me, being a beginner at all these things, 
wanted to get my hands into a project which I could feel pretty confident 
in succeeding at without the costs spiraling outof control, 
I was impressed with Fred Langa's detailed, step by step instructions 
(set up just for beginners like myself) on everything from how to add or replace
a harddrive without data loss, especially if you're moving a 
current PC's setup and files to a new drive, to what exact parts he used and where he purchased
them to keep the price down. 
I don't know at the moment why the link will not work.
When I find a working link I will edit this post again.
This thread has been hit so many times, I feel it is worth noting that it was in 
March 26,06 newsletter found on InformationWeek's website.


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## neos1

Complete Terabyte Server for about $500.00

http://www.informationweek.com/LP/s...PBDJYAQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=183702383


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