Building a NAS

Last week, I purchased 6 refurb 250GB hdd's from Woot.com for $50 each. They only have 2MB cache, so they aren't that fast for main drives, but raided together, they should do the job for Network Attached Storage. For anyone that doesn't know, A NAS is just a fancy way of saying File Server. Anyhow, in addition to the 2 other 250gb drives I have, I will be able to build a 1.5TB RAID 5 array and still have a drive left over to upgrade my ReplayTV PVR to 250 hours of storage.

The cheapest way to implement a NAS is to use an existing older computer, and network it. I have a full tower chieftec style case with 6x3.5 bays and 4x5.25 bays. What I would like to do is set up 2 120GB drives as a Raid1 System Drive, and put the 7 250's as the Raid5 drive. This only leaves room for one extra device, A floppy, or the DVD-burner. The only reason I would need the floppy is for Firmware updates and OS installation. The HP DVD burner has a wonderfull 'feature' that prevents it from working in an external USB enclosure.

Besides how I'm going to fit all the drives and find enough power connections for 10 drives (I have a quality 450w PSU), I have to shuffle data around my existing hard drives across two machines, without much room to spare.

What seems like a simple install has consumed two days so far, and probably will take up the rest of the weekend. Hopefully, everything will workout, and I will have plenty of storage to last for the next 3-5 years.