I'm currently a PC user, who's planning to switch over soon. I'm going to buy a MBP and I need help on setting up the following configuration: Basically, I want to have a home based storage server. I want to hook up a 500GB external hdd with preferably, firewire, to an airport extreme and be able to access that drive from my MBP from any network via the internet. I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, will it work with the above configuration or another?
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Help! I'm setting up a Storage Server
- Thread starter superspiffy
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Depends on how much you want to spend...
I am using an airport extreme (n). It works just fine for me.. I have 3 250 GB HDs connected to a USB2 hub, connected to the airport. It is fast enough for my purposes.
There are other host computer based solutions.. but then your basically running a file server.. so you need to maintain security and os patches. You could have a machine with a gigabit NIC in it, though, and have the drives connected via sata or esata.
What is your budget for the project? how tech savvy are you? for example, would running linux or bsd on a box be something you would allow in your solution.. there are $10,000 solutions and there are $150 solutions..
I am using an airport extreme (n). It works just fine for me.. I have 3 250 GB HDs connected to a USB2 hub, connected to the airport. It is fast enough for my purposes.
There are other host computer based solutions.. but then your basically running a file server.. so you need to maintain security and os patches. You could have a machine with a gigabit NIC in it, though, and have the drives connected via sata or esata.
What is your budget for the project? how tech savvy are you? for example, would running linux or bsd on a box be something you would allow in your solution.. there are $10,000 solutions and there are $150 solutions..
I'm definately not that tech savvy to run a linux box and because I'm a college student, money is an object. Plus, I'm really going to try hard to make this with as few components as possible without sacrificing too much of the functionality I want. So can I access my external hdds that are hooked up to airport extreme from anywhere and from other networks? Or do I really need a dedicated computer server for that?
Depends on your internet connection.. some universities block users from running any sort of server. You can use your airport extreme to make usb2.0 drives accessible from both your local network and from outside of your network. Will your university allow you to have your own access point? Many universities ban anyone from having an access point if they have their own wireless network available. you could turn off the wireless on the airport and use it as a NAS, but that might seem a waste..
You could consider something like the Linksys NSLU2
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040818051643464
http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-Storage-Link-Drives-NSLU2/dp/B0001FSCZO
$90 on amazon
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I'm actually planning to hook up the airport extreme with the drive in my house back home (away from the college network) and access it from campus or anywhere else I may be.
That will work just fine.. You will need to know the WAN ip address of the airport extreme in order to access the drives from off network.
Well, you would have to be a software developer.. amazon web services are meant for developers to use amazon APIs to write software that uses their systems.. It is not like you can just upload data to S3.
For 99.99% of the population, S3 will not be an option.
There are plenty of software tools and services out there that leverage s3 now, you no longer need to write your own. Even FTP programs such as Interarchy support s3 now.
Alternatively, one could use a hosting account with tons of storage. A hard drive connected to an AEBS shared over WAN is going to be SLOW, unless the OP has a fast u/l speed with his ISP at home.