Should I buy the G5 Jive?

[ipacmm]

I am thinking about buying the G5 Jive and the Tempo E4I PCI Express card...I already have 2 x 500GB hd's in my Powermac so I was thinking about buying the kit and when the prices come down pick up 3 more 500GB hd's. My only concern is that it will cost me $240 just for the Jive and the card with out any hard drive...is it worth buying or are there any other solutions out there any cheaper?

 

[ChrisA]

.... My only concern is that it will cost me $240 just for the Jive and the card with out any hard drive.

Cheaper? Maybe

Get a PC server chassis and build a RAID based file server. Use Gigabit Ethernet to connect to the server A mid spec Pentium is close to overkill. The "true Apple geek" would use Open Darwin as the OS others might choose Linux, BSD or Solaris. All four OSes are free and Open Source.

The advantage is

1) All the RAID overhaed is removed from your G5 PowerMac
and offloead to a server. This overhead is far from small.
2) Other computers can have access to your files
3) Backups are done on the server

I use a Linux based server inside a "silent" Antec case. It truely is silent and fits under the desk. Servers can run "headless", that is with no monitor or keyboard so they take up little spece. Tiger comes with X11 and ssh which is all you need for access to the server.

Many times you can fine a "free" PC that you can use. You certianly don't need a high end box.

But simply stuffing more drive into the existing box is simple