NAS recommendations

[Splash]

Ok, so my storage needs at home have just skyrocketed for one reason or another and I've decided that the best (read cheapest) way to deal with it will be to invest in a small NAS. Only trouble is there seem to be a squillion devices at my end of the market and I'm not sure which is the best.

I've been looking at this device which looks to have everything I need bar one thing - I'd prefer a device which will sit happily within my AD domain for authentication purposes, rather than having to setup an ACL on the device itself. Anyone seen anything similar that'll do what I want? It must be reasonably small (1U would be nice!!) and fairly quiet (IDE/sATA rather than SCSI) on top of the AD requirements, and must also support at least RAID 1 (Pref 5+hot spare)

[user1453]

why not build a small (read cheap) socket a machine with sata connections and stick it in a case

[Splash]

Ideally I'd like something either 1 or 2u rackmountable. That or one of those Thecus doobreys, but they seem a tad steep at present.

[TheAnimus]

1u will increase the sound level a fair bit.

A mate of mine had a chassis made that sported two eden 533s and 4 hdd's all in 1u of space, each box had a mirror RAID, quite nifty. Wasn't that cheap thou, but made less noise as no CPU fans where needed.

[Splash]

I hadn't considered the Eden route - that's a stonking idea! Where did he get it made?

[TheAnimus]

these are quite good as you can fit 2 HDDs apparently in it, the gigabit NIC. But also you can fit about 3 in a standard 1u space...... Thats quite kick arse.
http://www.avrio.co.uk/acatalog/DS15050.html

Bigger:
http://www.avrio.co.uk/acatalog/DS13170.html

the one my mate has was a custom jobbie, and i'm not sure where he got it from, i've mailed him this thread.

if your rich, you can get some of those loverly new 2.5" 10krpm drives, these are a lot faster than raptor (because the head dosen't have to travel as far).
http://www.rackmountmart.com/rm1u/rm1027.htm

another eden option
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Produ...?ProductID=176

other end of the spectrum, with lots of upgrade headroom:
http://www.pcicase.co.uk/rackmount.ihtml?pid=279&step=4
thats a lot of hot-swapable stuff!

[TheAnimus]

another good one:
http://www.icp-epia.co.uk/site/datasheet_rack1u360.html

could probably fit two of those in a a 900mm deap 1u. Very reasonable at £61.50 + VAT.

[Splash]

Some nice pointers there TheAnimus - cheers. The 2U looks particularly nice...

I think all in all I would prefer a small unit like the Buffalo Terastation or similar, but a fanless Via jobby is looking more appealing by the minute!

[TheAnimus]

aslso the PSUs in some of the chassis are also fanless, and support upto 2 HDDs each...... only sound is the HDD! Rockon! But remeber most eden's aren't gigabit network by default, so u need space for a PCI riser.

Myself, if money was no object, I'd probably go for the nice 10krpm 2.5inch scsi HDD's, their very very very fast (give desktop 15k rpm drives a run for their money).