Splitting storage into separate PC

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Soldato
Joined
2 Jun 2007
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So, my current PC case is a bit of a mess due to a whole lot of storage drives in it making a mess of cables and also blocking up a lot of the front air intakes. I'm guessing that the best way to deal with this is just to build a dirt cheap computer to basically work as a HTPC/Plex server? Keep the SSDs and game drives in the PC, offload all the others to the new pc, have them connected through the hub via ethernet to have a decent speed to them still, seems like it should work? I pulled the below out just using fairly cheap parts. The ram is a real killer at that price, though.

Does this whole idea make sense? Is there a better way of doing what I'm trying to do? I guess I could just get a much larger case for my main PC instead? I could get a pretty decent PC for this same cost, I guess.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £254.61 (includes shipping: £11.70)​
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So you're basically building a NAS with a media server. Do you know what Operating System you are going to base this on (you could get away with less RAM depending on the answer)? How many drives are you putting into this new build? Will you be leaving it on 24x7 or only turning it on as needed?
 
Basically, yeah. It seemed much cheaper than outright buying a nas with multiple bays.

It's going to start with 4 HDDs, no raid or anything like that. And I would only have it on when I'm using my pc ideally. And finally, I was planning on just sticking some form of Linux on it since there's not much need to shell out on a Windows licence. Though having never used Linux before I'd probably end up googling or asking on here for pointers on which distro.
 
Well its about as cheap as you're going to do it with a dedicated server. The alternatives like a 4 bay Synology or an HP Microserver are about the same price.

The absolute cheapest way I can think of doing it for your use case, because you don't need it o 24/7, is to add a card with eSata ports if your existing motherboard doesn't have any and then buy a four bay enclosure so they are in effect still in your PC logically just not in it physically. You can get a 4 bay enclosure for just over £100. Also available over USB3 but I've had better results with eSata.
 
Huh, I hadn't considered something like that. And after some more searching, I've found that the secret word I was looking for is JBOD. Found some decent looking 4 Bay options for fast cheaper than that pc, and a couple even have good reviews!
I think I'd just mentally written USB off, didn't realise usb3 would be faster than gigabit ethernet, so it'll probably be faster too!
 
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