A Complete Terabyte System For $500
A short while ago, I received a challenge from a reader who didn't believe me
when I said in print that it was possible to put together a brand-new terabyte
(1,000 Gbytes) file server for around $500. Well, you can, and I did: The
example system I put together now resides on the far side of my office, offering
up a thousand gigabytes--- that's a *lot* of disk space--- as network storage on
my office LAN.
The heart of my terabyte server is a modest array of high-capacity drives. In
assembling that system, I realized that because large single hard drives are
more or less standard in many new PCs, most users have never had to deal with
the details of drive installation, initialization, and configuration, either for
adding multiple drives to a system or for swapping drives. Both these processes
raise questions as to the safest and best ways to set things up, as well as to
avoid data loss, especially if you're moving a current PC's setup and files to a
new drive.
So we presented some preparatory information in "The Windows Disk Management
Tool"
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180207718 .
There, we looked at a little-known tool built into Windows for creating,
formatting, or deleting partitions and drives; changing drive letter assignments
and paths; and so on. Knowledge of that tool can enormously simplify your
hard-drive management tasks.
Next, in "How To Safely Add Or Replace A Hard Drive"
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=181502411 , we
looked at a slightly nonstandard way of physically adding a drive to a system--- a way I find much easier than the methods recommended
by some drive manufacturers.
The information in both the above articles stands on its own, but also serves as
the foundation for this article, in which we'll look at that from-scratch, $500
terabyte server, including where I got the parts, and for exactly how much.
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 .
As you'll see, with just a little effort, it's entirely possible to get a full terabyte of storage in a brand-new PC for around $500, total. I did it; and so can you! Click on over!
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183702383
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