One step too far?

[theonewithgingahair]

Hello everyone. I have a bit of a problem, here's my situation:

In an effort to set up a centralized storage for my network, I managed to purchase a xyratex 4u 48 slot SAS enclosure P/N: RS-4835 (massive overkill maybe but it was a steal at $110). I have picked myself a couple of old fibre channel cards, but haven't got a clue as to what software I may or do need on the head end in order to get the storage up and running.

I plan on using the storage to back up and store all LAN data as well as recorded HD shows and DVD's.

Any advice is greatly appreciated with regards to the set-up of this thing... I'm just a little lost :-S

Jon

 

[MikeJRamsey]

You want Network Attached Storage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_attached_storage

FreeNAS is a popular option because it's, well, free. http://www.freenas.org/

Also see these links.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/qnap-nas-storage,7350.html
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

And here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3873703

One tip: Space your drives and make sure that the air flow is sufficient to keep things cools.

Have fun.

 

[theonewithgingahair]

Thanks Mike,

However, it would seem that freeNAS is actually an OS (UNIX derivative)? If so thats a problem as I need to have Vista running on the headend system in order to serve videos and music (using SageTV thanks to their media extenders).

I guess what I am really asking is whether or not there is a piece of software readily available to the everyday individual that will manage this external RAID enclosure via the fibre cards. Normally Xyratex provides StorView but as this is a second hand item there was no software included.

In technical terms (I am guessing here as my knowledge is limited only to the background reading I have done) I think it would be classed as a DAS rather than NAS. I think I have all the hardware correct, its the software on the server computer that I need advice about.

Thanks Jon

 

[theonewithgingahair]

anyone? here is a link to the storage enclosure's PDF:
www.impediment.com/xyratex/RAID/F5404E/80449-01a_F5404E_QIG.pdf