[X4U] OT: using old tower Mac as a Firewire case?

[Neil]

on 12/10/06 3:54 PM, Randy B.Singer wrote:

> External FireWire hard drive cases are so inexpensive now, that it
> doesn't really make sense to go for a kludge to house your external hard
> drive(s)  e.g. for $28:

Well, that case only holds one drive.  Six of those cases would cost $168
plus shipping. 
 
> And FireWire cases can be daisy-chained (assuming that you get one with
> two FireWire ports.)  So you can attach several to one computer.

But then you're stuck with six power bricks/wall warts plus the rats' nest
of cables.   I can see the appeal of using an old PowerMac.

Maybe the old Macs are a little slow now and the FW a little flaky, but it
can still make sense if you are on a budget and have an old G4 with gigabit
Ethernet lying around.  Pop in a RAID IDE or SATA card and you have a
network attached storage device on the cheap.  Even if you only have a G3,
that could still make sense if you are familiar with Linux and have drivers
for a cheap Gigabit Ethernet card.

I'm not an expert on this stuff and have never tried it, but am I missing
anything here?