Hi all
I saw a review of this [1] sort of black box RAID array on Click [2] last week and in truth it's just what I'm looking for as a NAS - currently have several drives via a NSLU2 but making a backup of 100Gb+ takes ages. However at £430 odd quid for the array and another £190 for the ability to use it as a NAS - it's very pricey particularly considering the hard drives required would be extra....
So it got me thinking about an equivalent DIY solution. I already have a few hard drives I could use but I have a few requirements:
1) I'd like the drives to be hot swappable like the Drobo
2) Not sure what version of RAID to go for - any adivce?
3) Presume I'd need a motherboard and case that could handle RAID. I'm very green here - is RAID a software thing i.e. any mobo with 4 SATA ports can support it or is a special mobo required?
4) I'd need a case which allows hot swapping - or is it easier to just get 4 SATA caddies - one for each 5.25" drive bay?
5) Is there a distro which makes this easy(er than others) something a la Smoothwall for firewalls? Ubuntu is my distro of choice but I have a feeling setting something low level like this up could well be very tricky. A lot of the stuff google has thrown up in this area seems to be out of date.
Overall - is this a feasible DIY project of should I just save my pennies and buy it whenever I can afford it?
Cheers
Rob
[1]
http://www.drobo.com/products/index.php
[2]
www.bbc.co.uk/click
