Cheap Home Backup Server 1.28TB & Counting

UPDATE: It is no more, I have replaced this with 2x 1TB Hitachi external drives "Video Uploaded Soon". They are very cheap at only $179 each on eBay. They will be connected to the main pc to backup & distribute media throughout my home. One of the 500GB drives is now in my replaytv & the other one will most likely be put in an external usb case.

About two years ago I bought five old Dell Optiplex computers that came from FCCJ with monitors & keyboards for only $30 each. I decided to use one as a cheap home backup server, So I bought two 500gb Seagate drives & crammed the rest of it with all of the spare large drives I had lying around. I have 7 hard drives running in it now which gives me 1.28TB, I do use it as a movie server to my XBMC & DLP projector. It can be expanded up to 24 hard drives as I am using the two on board Ide controllers as well as Maxtor ATA 133 pci cards which add four IDE slots a piece. The DVD drive is also network shared for my slim 3110ct portege laptops that do not have DVD/CD drives. I used the 6gb drive that came with the system for the OS Boot & merged the existing drives with XP Pro's Disk Manager. After running out of places to mount the drives "The two 500gb drives are mounted to the bottom of the case with screws" I started using the plastic shells that samsung hard disks come in, Just cutting out the plastic where the cables go. A really nice thing is the push button case which makes it easy to open up & add more storage. Maybe not very pretty but cheaper & alot more storage than a Drobo... You can see me backing up my hacked XBOX with Cute FTP & I use Cobian Backup 8 Which is FREE to backup all of the pc's.

Ok, Heres how I built this.

First off any computer say before the year 2001 or so may need a ATA 133 pci card that can be bought on eBay for about $10 That's because older computers won't see drives larger than 137GB. Each card can have up to eight IDE drives.

Next of course install XP & card drivers.
Then right click on "My Computer" go to manage & then "Disk Management" which is in the left pane. You'll see all connected hard disks, To merge them all into a large drive just right click & convert them to "Dynamic disks" Then right click on the 1st Dynamic disk & choose "New Volume" Set it as a spanned volume. Then add the other drives you wish to have as part of the "Big Drive" that your making using the check boxes. Format them with NTFS. You will see the drives as one large drive under my computer. From there you just share it over the network.

Total Cost:

About $300 including the hard drives used. Over time I will pull out the smaller drives & use all Seagate 500GB seeing that they are only $109 on newegg they seem to be the best price for 500GB Drives.

Drives used "NTFS"

1. 6GB - XP Pro Boot
2. 250GB - Storage - Maxtor - Old Spare
3. 500GB - Storage - Seagate - New
4. 500GB - Storage - Seagate - New
5. 40GB - Storage - Maxtor - from ReplayTv
6. 40GB - Storage - Maxtor - from ReplayTv
7. 80GB - Storage - Maxtor - from old pc

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Dell
• Optiplex
• backup
• server
• cobian
• home
• automation

[DarthScape]

This makes me laugh. Spanned Volume. Just wait till one of them fails...

[catnip20]

This video's over a year old, I'm using 1TB & soon 2TB externals now, They have come way down in price since a year ago.

[skilo837]

thats ok i guess but now they make solid state external hard drives that are 500gb for only 100$ and they wouldent use half the power that monster does. lol

no offense though i do like your set up you definitly wont be running out of space anytime soon lol

[catnip20]

True, But I don't have this setup anymore, I just buy 1TB or 1.5TB externals for about $90 - $100 I built this a few years ago before storage got to be so cheap & external drives so HUGE & yet tiny :-) Storage is so cheap now, And it's only getting better!

[pummisher]

Your raid appears to be spanned. Meaning that if one drive fails all the data on all those drives is lost. And it's location would likely make the drives inside very hot.

[catnip20]

It was just a cheap get by & your right there were way to many drives that could fail & it would have only taken one to lose everything. Two of them ran hot "In the plastic cases" But the other ones were just barely warm to the touch.

[deimos420]

Very juicy. Only, I would use Ubuntu Server, as to cut back on costs. Although, if you happen to have an extra copy of Windows on hand, there is nothing wrong with that.

[catnip20]

Not really, They were old 40GB 5400rpm so they didn't get hot at all. I quit using this for awhile but I am now again using it, This time with just the 2x 500GB & 6gb Boot & not spanning the drives, They are separate network drives now. It's my chepish get by until I can afford more $148 1tb externals. HD video & movies takes up tons of space.

[manule321]

sale me your computer how mush.??

[Macuser7800]

change the boot drive to one of the bigger and faster drives.

[jnnycliff]

NT could also do it well. OEM or preinstall OS from manufacturers should working well. I have tries with 8 x 400GB IDE on my Main computer, and it work great. Bust I have to buy more PCI IDE card. It cause about $50

[jnnycliff]

Not a problem, all he need is an external enclosure. Just take out those drive and connect to enclosure to make it as an external drive. He could easily get back the data he saved in those drives.