Spec Me: A Network Storage Solution

[Freakish_05]

Hi Everyone,

I need a network storage solution which has redundancy. In my mind that means Raid 5.
At the moment I'm currently running a Vostro 200 as a file server (amongst other things) with the following drives:

• 1x 320gb
• 1x 500gb
• 1x 1tb

As you can see, there's no redundancy there and I've always had this niggle in the back of my mind going 'If one of those drives fails, you're screwed'. Hence the reason for this post.
The requirements for whatever solution I end up with are:

• Must be relatively quiet - I live in a house and don't want to be kept awake
• Must be expandable i.e. I don't want to reach capacity in 6 months and think 'damn where do I put my next drive?'
• Energy use is a factor, but not a necessarily big one

I've looked at NAS drives, specifically the Qnap TS-509 which I could cram 5x 1tb drives in and have 4tb of redundant storage. My two concerns with this are: 1 - What happens when I need a 6th drive? (I have to fork out for a new nas) and 2 - For £600 I could put a pretty nice raid card in a system inside a lian li PC-343 which could hold up to 18 removable hard drive caddy's although that case is probably a bit overkill, just for a glorified nas!
The other option which I'm considering is getting hold of an enterprise storage solution, I'm talking Dell PowerVault now.

All replies greatly appreciated,
Freakish_05

 

[Freakish_05]

Thanks for the reply Skidilliplop

FreeNAS looks decent, my only concern is that its software raid. Is that different from 'standard' NAS drives? Also, if the FreeNAS O/S gets corrupted, I lose the array for good! Unless, of course, FreeNAS has proven to be a rock solid product.

Freakish_05