Need a NAS solution

[nman729]

Hello, ill make this short and sweet. Basically, I have 4x 500gb Western digital RE2 drives in a raid 0 in my HTPC for home storage. However, my dad thinks that it takes up too much power all the time and would rather not have it running 24/7. Im thinking that if I could get some kind of NAS and use the 4x 500gb drives than it would use less power? And then just get a small HDD for my HTPC and stream them to the HTPC? However, the 4 bay NAS devices I've looked at are all $400+. What do you guys suggest for a solution? Thanks!

 

[sub mesa]

If your dad is concerned about HDD power usage, would it make sense to use additional electronics to solve that problem? What about you keep your HTPC with RAID0, but configure the disks to spindown after x minutes of inactivity. That would mean it automatically spindowns the disks when you stop using it, and powers it on again with a 10 second delay when you want to start using it again.

If you use regular 7200rpm disks, who have idle power usage of 6-8W, and a 0.5-1W standby (spindown) usage, that would mean:

7W * 4 = 28W (awake-state)
0.75W * 4 = 3W (sleep-state)

I would assume this 3W is less than the power usage of an additional NAS. So i would assume you would want to talk to your dad about that.

What OS does your HTPC run?

 

[nman729]

It is running windows 7. Would it be possible to use free nas for this?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Tailor made to your needs ... mine's will be running 3 years come June

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122010&cm_re=NV%2b-_-22-122-010-_-Product

 

[nman729]

i would rather not dump almost $400 on it though :/

 

[JackNaylorPE]

PC based NAS needs case, PU MoBo, CPU, Memory, ....good if ya have old ones laying around but if not, easy to spend $400