So I've decided that the old pc parts I have that I want to use to make a NAS just don't cut it. Too old, not enough sata ports, and so on. I want a NAS enclosure.
I was looking at the Iomega StorCenterPro and they have it with drives it in and without. With drives it comes in varying sizes, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB. I already have two SATA TB drives I want to use. However the one without drives only seems to be able to handle 1TB in total.

So I am looking for suggestions for decent enclosures, with no drives in them, preferrably somewhat hot swappable, that can take over 1TB, and don't cost the earth. Suggestions welcome as always.

link

this the sort of thing you're after?

Netgear make some nice readynas pro's but they're expensive.
I found it cheaper to build a server than buy one of those enclosures

Something like that redflames, though with more space in it perhaps. I would build a server, but the costs for a decent NAS enclosure come to about the same as buying the parts I'd need. Found one from dlink, a 323 series. Seems to fit the bill, and is on sale.

Edge10 have a decent range of products

http://www.edge10.com/digital_storage.php

I got one of THESE from Scan for just over £30. Aside from having to solder one of the power leads to the internal connector, (and I'm guessing that I am very unlucky, because I haven't found anyone else reporting this on the Interwebs) I haven't had any problems with it.

I've got a 500GB drive in mine by the way.

Not bad, but only fits a single disk. I've gone for one that fits 4 and has no upper limit. Sure it cost me €120, but it has no upper limit on disk size. I'm only filling 2 of it's bays with 1TB disks, so in a few years (ok maybe one) I can stick in two more disks, probably 2TB ones.

I don't get all that fuss about NAS. I think they are for somebody who wants plug and play type of device. Surely you can build really cheap storage server that would be 100x more flexible.

I am waiting for the new Zotac Ion board to come out. It will be a media player to play HD on my TV, storage server for my main rig and also a seedbox.

If i didn't need HD playback capability I would go for Atom board. It has 2 sata port but also PCI so you can use raid card to expand it. All you need is one stick of ram, small psu and cheap case. I guess for about £120 you could build one very good file server, much cheaper and more flexible than NAS.

the good thing about NAS for me is that I have a small drive enclosure which I can access, but uses a fraction of the power that a server would use. I really don't need anything else at the moment, (thought that will change soon), so a full blown server would be an overkill.

I don't know if you've looked at them yet, but the lower end of the Thecus NAS range are a bit crap.

They are a pain to set up, the menu system is not very intuitive and the data transfer performance is a bit slow. Also, don't be fooled by the reported support for spin-down, it is a flat out lie, and the most their tech staff will say on the subject is that it is not supported; despite what it says in the manuals.

Rant aside, they are quite cheap, and, once you have set up, they just work, albeit not very quickly.