[X4U] Using a Quicksilver G4 as a NAS?

[David Ledger]

At 23:42 -0500 1/1/09, Neil wrote:
>I have an old Quicksilver G4/733 with 1.12gigs of ram and running 
>Mac os 10.4.11.  I need storage.  So, I'm thinking of adding a 
>couple SATA cards, pulling the existing drives (even the DVD), and 
>installing 6 or 8 SATA hard drives.   I know that can make a lot of 
>heat, but I think I would rarely access more that two drives at a 
>time.  I don't need RAID.  An 8 bay NAS would be expensive, and 
>while an 8 bay USB enclosure would suffice, that would run a few 
>hundred dollars too.
>
>My questions:
>
>Am I better off getting a USB enclosure?  If so, is there one in 
>particular that I should consider?

That would depend on what you would do if your G4 died.

If you would replace with an iMac or Mac mini then you'd be stuck 
with SATA cards and drives.

If you would replace it with Mac Pro, then your SATA cards would move 
across and your investment protected.

In either case an external box would be ok. I wouldn't use USB 
though, especially with a slow G4. FW cards will continue to be 
available for Mac Pros, whatever Apple does. Read up on USB 3 before 
committing.

You say you don't need RAID. Do you have a good way of backing up 
these extra drives (or are they the backup for other places)? If not, 
RAID 5 makes sense. (When will someone make an economical external 
RAID 5 box with 5 drives? It's the simplest, cheapest way to do RAID 
5).

>If converting the G4 into a NAS makes sense, which SATA controller 
>card (inexpensive, Mac compatible and bootable), hard drives (low 
>heat)?  Should I run the Mac os or try Linux?  Thanks in advance.

I use an old G4/533 as a 'storage server' - really a data repository 
because it's so slow. I put a SATA card and two SATA drives in it. 
It's ok to use for my primary iTunes and iPhoto data, plus anything 
else I want to keep, but keeping it backed up is the problem. Linux 
might be better, but mainly because there will be less temptation to 
'just log into the G4 to do ...' and before long it's not just a disc 
server. I don't have that option as my G4 is the only thing that will 
talk to my slide scanner.

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
HP-UX specialist of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk