just curious if it would be better to have a computer where all your texture files are stored…or one of these guys. this one is only 10/100 maybe there is a version out there for 10/100/1000. this seems like a really cheap alternative for file storage. and i guess you can just keep on adding more and more drives as you need them
Well… lower electrical cost, higher stability (because it’s not doing anything else) space saving, etc… there can be reasons for going this route instead of general purpose machines.
Well biggest drawback i’d see with that kinda cheap NAS stuff would be the absence of raid. And dear god raid saved my poor life more then once 
There are raided NAS solutions, but they wont be cheaper then a nice little debian box with an attached raid i assume
Regards,
Thorsten
this is written in english? i think i recognise some of the words there. hehe no idea what NAS is but i do know what raid is (kills bugs doesnt it?) kidding
Kidding with all of it or only with the raid joke ? 
Just in case NAS : Network Attached Storage 
yup. u cant put a price on running RAID mirrored drives. plus a server means upgradability with more drives. i can recommend SBS, its not hard to setup, and it manages all your email, web, virus stuff.
DNS-323
the DNS-323 is a cheap raid NAS.
about 220 $ without drives.
i will get one with two large mirrored drives and store textures and network rendered frames on it.
it supports gigabit networkspeed and as its not running windows it should not have the 10 connections limit.
product link:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=509
hacking forum:
http://forum.dsmg600.info/f3-DNS323-General-Discussion.html
We’re running a network shared harddrive similar to the one shown above here in my office. It runs fine as long as no more then a few people try to access it at the same time and heaven help ya if you try to run files or executables live from it… :roll:
ar you talking about the DNS-323?
what happens if several people connect at the same time?
No I’m talking about the one elf originally was looking at in the first post. The drive seems to cease up and needs restarted frequently during heavy network use.
Be carefull with some of these “cheep” NAS solutions as alot of them are simply CRAP. DO YOUR HOME WORK ON THEM THROUGHLY!!
nuf said
-dave
Setting up a linux or windows raid 5 based piece of kit would be ideal…but if you dont know about that sort stuff it may be easier to just buy a prebuilt NAS of some sorts.
get s cheap old p4 machine with a 1gb netwrok card with windows server and a raid setup. It will be cheap as chips and the raid will save your bacon!
It would be good for a backburner manager too
I got a 450 gig Buffalo Terastation NAS last year and love it. You can set it up as a raid 1 mirrored or raid 5. It uses Linux as an OS and has a gig LAN, plug it in and go. It only cost about $500. No connection limit. I store all my data on it. Now you can get a Terabyte for $628.
@ jacksc: thats not a good idea if you have to buy a windows server licence.
i looked into this a couple years back
after reading a few reviews, NAS storage at the time that i could afford wasnt very fast - (even though they have gig connetions)
ended up getting a proper raid 5 8 port card, a cheap dual core 3800+ cpu and twin gig nics
ended up being a good idea, because that box is my file/ music/ license/ DHCP sever/ backburner/ porn all in one and never misses a beat
i just VNC to it - cue up some tunes on foobar, and work the day away.
go with windows 2000 then
or linux if your worried about cost