John Stumbles wrote:
On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:23:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
1/. ALL my data of any importance live on a separate server. This
changes every 5 years or so.. Currently its a linux engine on a cheap
low power ATOM bard with no video, no screen, no CD-ROM bugger all RAM
and tow of the biggest disks I could get in. Half of one is my data, and
my wife's, the other half is full of videos we record off air. The other
is a backup of our data mirrored every night plus backups of any other
desktop machines or other machines I add to the list. I think it cost me
£200 or so.

That's what I'd like to do. I did have my raid, mail, webserver and usb-
attached external drives on an old PC in a cupboard but that died (while
I was away on holiday, trying to access it remotely, natch :-() and I
haven't got round to replacing it (got the pre-loved box sitting here for
it, just lacking the Tuits). A low-power box would be nice but £200 is a
chunk to spend on another box.

Have you considered a Qnap NAS? They are interesting beasts with 1,2 or 4
drive bays in the SoHo versions. They have gigabit LAN, up to four external
USB ports and eSATA. They provide most of the functions that you are after
not news or web, but third party add-ons may cover that - since they are a
Linux server with a plug-in architecture. They are also low power and can,
depending on model, have up to 12GB of storage. More if you make use of the
eSATA and USB.

http://www.qnap.com/Products.asp

Have a look at the TS112, 212 or 412. Prices range from £150 to £365 if you
shop around. The 212 is probably the price "sweet spot".