More On: A $500 PC with 1,000 GB Of Storage
Think of it as maybe a quarter-million MP3s. Or 1,400 completely filled CDRs. Or 900,000 jpg photos at 3-megapixel resolution. Or a couple hundred full-length feature movies.
I'm talking about a terabyte: A thousand gigabytes. A million megabytes. Something like 8.589935e+012 bits.
No matter how you envision it, a terabyte is a *lot* of disk space. <g>
Normally, that kind of storage doesn't come cheap. For example,
Buffalo Technologies offers a NAS ("network attached storage:"
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=nas
) device with 1TB of storage that normally lists
for around $1,400. With careful shopping, you can find it for much less; as of
this writing, the current best price I can find on Froogle is $750. (It's
possible to find even lower prices from time to time in one-off sales such as
eBay auctions, but let's look at normal
retail channels for now.) This kind of NAS is more or less plug-and-play; but also is
focused on one function only--- adding storage.
I decided to try a different tack to see if I could produce 1TB of low-cost
storage by using an utterly-standard PC as
the host hardware. Although shared storage via a PC can deliver the same
effective benefits as a vanilla NAS unit, it also offers advantages. For
example, it uses utterly standard, commodity-level parts, and familiar,
well-proven technologies. Not only does this keep the prices down, but also
means that all your normal PC knowledge applies--- there's nothing new or
different to learn. And, because the server is a normal PC, it also can be used
as such, performing any and all normal PC tasks in addition to the NAS-specific
task of adding massive storage to the network. Having the storage in a standard
PC also means you can have direct access to the 1TB of disk space (as opposed to
the network-only access for a classic NAS unit), and further means your 1TB file
server can act as a backup or spare PC for your operation.
Familiarity, low-costs, high operational flexibility--- there's a lot to be said
for this approach to massive storage!
And, as you can see in the article posted now at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183702383 , it is indeed entirely possible to get a full terabyte of storage in a
brand-new PC for around $500, total.
Best of all, you could work the ideas in that article many other ways, too. Few
of us need a full terabyte of storage right away, so you could start
with just one or two drives, and plan to add more later, as needed. You also
could start with a less-powerful base PC--- simple file sharing is not a
particularly CPU-intensive operation, and if using the new PC as a desktop unit
isn't an important factor, you could get a bundle based on a simpler,
less-powerful motherboard and CPU and save even more. That's the beauty of this approach: You can get exactly what you
want and need, and often save a significant amount of money in the process!
It's all posted now, complete with abundant how-to photos and screen shots,
live at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183702383
A terabyte PC for $500: I did it; and so can you!
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