Use old PC as Thunderbolt RAID store

[StuartAM]

Hi i need more storage for my Mac at the moment i have my iTunes library on a 1tb usb drive which is about full... i have been looking at thunderbolt RAID drives such as the Drobo 5D but at £400 wish before adding any drives i wanted to see if their are any other options.

i have an old PC sitting beside my desk its got an i7 cpu and a few expansion slots and an onboard RAID controller, has anyone tried converting a PC into a thunderbolt external RAID store, if so how?

thanks

Stu

 

[chrfr]

Hi i need more storage for my Mac at the moment i have my iTunes library on a 1tb usb drive which is about full... i have been looking at thunderbolt RAID drives such as the Drobo 5D but at £400 wish before adding any drives i wanted to see if their are any other options.

i have an old PC sitting beside my desk its got an i7 cpu and a few expansion slots and an onboard RAID controller, has anyone tried converting a PC into a thunderbolt external RAID store, if so how?

thanks

Stu

There's no way to use your existing hardware as a thunderbolt device. Presumably you could buy a thunderbolt disk array, strip all the hardware out of your PC and then somehow transplant the hardware from the disk array into the PC case, but I can't imagine why that would be desirable.

 

[campyguy]

I've bookmarked this just to remind me how much of a PITA it could be every time I look at some of our old PCs in the offices...

http://www.howtogeek.com/190835/how-to-turn-an-old-pc-into-a-home-file-server/

IMHO, there's a better way (stealing this line from Alton Smith...). Consider moving your iTunes library over to the PC and using iTunes for Windows, and using iTunes Match @US$25 per year. I have a Mini Server with my two libraries - a lossless copy for local listening, and an AAC/MP3 library (comprised of a lower bit rate burn of my CDs and my iTS purchases) I sync to iTM and my iOS devices and ancient 5th-Gen iPod. No futzing around, and thousands of Pounds saved in not needing therapy...

 

[kryten42]

I would turn old PC into a NAS rather than a direct connect system. More flexible then too and fast enough for iTunes steaming of audio and video.