Networking Home Media Data

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Nov 2, 2004
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Hi Guys and Gals,



Got a home media/networking issue:



Basically, I have over 7TB of data (mainly HD Video, music and pics) spread over about 10 external hard drives.



I've got two laptops and one desktop:



Laptop 1: Dell XPS M1530 running home premium

Laptop 2: Dell Inspiron running home

Desktop: Dell Dimension E520 running XP home



I have an O2 wireless internet connection over which I'd like to network all three PCs and share the 7TB of data.



I currently only have one working external HDD enclosure. Two others have recently stopped working.



Here are the specs of the external HDD enclosures



1x Iomega Prestige 1TB USB 2.0



I'm broke but don't want to buy something that I'll want to upgrade in a year's time.



So far, my research seems to point to buying another two or three enclosures and running six hard drives externally and mounting one inside my desktop. This will mean running all six through two USB ports via hubs.



This is essentially what I have done for a few years now but I've had people telling me about RAID systems (although I don't really care about redundancy as I backup really important stuff onto solid state or DVD) and NAS. Is there a better/faster/more eloquent way of sharing my data across my network?



Unfortunately, I'm a vain person and so more often than not I'm willing to lose a bit of performance for better aesthetics. I'd love a single enclosure/case for all 6-10 of my HDDs but multiple bay enclosures seem to be extortionately priced. Is there a way I can buy a desktop case that will act as a cheap multiple bay external HDD enclosure?



Also, I have different standards of disks but I'm not sure what each one is: SCSI, IDE or SATA (pretty sure I don’t have any eSATA)?



I have three fairly old (5+yrs) HDDs that have a different connection to the rest. I'm assuming that the old ones are SCSI or IDE and the new ones are all SATA?



Basically I want a way of being able to easily access all of my data across all of my PC’s!



I’ve also tried sharing data before between a vista and xp machine across a wireless network but have had major issues. Is this a common problem or am I just being inept?



Cheers in advance for any replies,



Dan
 
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Perhaps utilizing a PC as a mini server? I use Windows Home Server but XP will work to share files. Then just map a network drive from your PC's to the shared folders.

You would need though, a PC with a PSU big enough to power those drives and with enough sata/ide ports.

SATA drives have a small thin cable, which sort of slot into the drive, wheras IDE have a long flat connector with 40 (I think) pins in a dual row, and usually a flat wide ribbon cable.
 

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