Hey guys, so I'm looking at possible ways to bring all my movies, music, and other assorted data with me to University.
I have a DD-WRT router with a USB port, so I plan on using it as a SAMBA server with whichever USB hard drive solution I choose. I'm just looking to hear any opinions of my situation or any suggestions.
I just got a laptop which I will be taking with me, my desktop is staying home so the hard drives can be ripped out.
Option 1: Purchase 3 USB Enclosures (~$20 each) and use my USB hub to connect the three hard drives currently in my PC to the router and share them out.
Pros: Cheapest of all options, but only marginally.
Cons: Three drives are clunky, also it would take a lot of shuffle data around so that the drives can be EXT3 formatted. (As needed for efficient Samba sharing on DD-WRT
Option 2: Buy a WD Elements Black 2tb drive. It's $100 at Ncix until the 20th. Plug that directly into the router.
Pros: Clean looking, most energy/processing power efficient, easy to take the actual drive with me if ever needed (going to be away from my dorm and/or offline for an extended period)
Cons: Most expensive option. Not sure if I can/should spend that much. (We're trying painfully hard to scrape buy to pay tuition and for textbooks). The drive inside is also a Caviar Green from what I read which is slower than the main drive that would come from option 1. (I have 1tb 7200rpm, and 2 Caviar greens in 500 and 320gb)
Option 3 is something different but I've also considered it: Buying a $100 2 bay NAS enclosure, putting the 1tb and 500Gb drives in there, and calling it a day.
Pros: Would relieve the slight worry that I have about the read/processing speed of the router. It's got a 320mhz processor but it really isn't intended for this purpose. Forums/others say it can sustain about 8MB/s, sometimes up to 12MB/s.
Cons: Matches the WD Black in price, not as portable, not as much capacity. (1.5 vs 2tb)
In any option, I'd like this to be an always-on box. I'm renting a VPS and my plan is to set up auto-torrents of TV shows and stuff, then have them automatically transfer to my local drives over a secure FTP/VPN.
Sorry for the long read, but hopefully someone can help me out with these options.
(Sidenote, I'm Canadian so prices may be higher than expected)
I have a DD-WRT router with a USB port, so I plan on using it as a SAMBA server with whichever USB hard drive solution I choose. I'm just looking to hear any opinions of my situation or any suggestions.
I just got a laptop which I will be taking with me, my desktop is staying home so the hard drives can be ripped out.
Option 1: Purchase 3 USB Enclosures (~$20 each) and use my USB hub to connect the three hard drives currently in my PC to the router and share them out.
Pros: Cheapest of all options, but only marginally.
Cons: Three drives are clunky, also it would take a lot of shuffle data around so that the drives can be EXT3 formatted. (As needed for efficient Samba sharing on DD-WRT
Option 2: Buy a WD Elements Black 2tb drive. It's $100 at Ncix until the 20th. Plug that directly into the router.
Pros: Clean looking, most energy/processing power efficient, easy to take the actual drive with me if ever needed (going to be away from my dorm and/or offline for an extended period)
Cons: Most expensive option. Not sure if I can/should spend that much. (We're trying painfully hard to scrape buy to pay tuition and for textbooks). The drive inside is also a Caviar Green from what I read which is slower than the main drive that would come from option 1. (I have 1tb 7200rpm, and 2 Caviar greens in 500 and 320gb)
Option 3 is something different but I've also considered it: Buying a $100 2 bay NAS enclosure, putting the 1tb and 500Gb drives in there, and calling it a day.
Pros: Would relieve the slight worry that I have about the read/processing speed of the router. It's got a 320mhz processor but it really isn't intended for this purpose. Forums/others say it can sustain about 8MB/s, sometimes up to 12MB/s.
Cons: Matches the WD Black in price, not as portable, not as much capacity. (1.5 vs 2tb)
In any option, I'd like this to be an always-on box. I'm renting a VPS and my plan is to set up auto-torrents of TV shows and stuff, then have them automatically transfer to my local drives over a secure FTP/VPN.
Sorry for the long read, but hopefully someone can help me out with these options.
(Sidenote, I'm Canadian so prices may be higher than expected)
