[jasmill1969]

I bit the bullet and decided to buy the parts to build a new HTPC. I went with the setup below that looks like scphantm with bluray's suggestion of upgrading the mobo to have USB3.

1 x ($29.99) MEM 2Gx2|KST KVR1066D3N7K2/4G R $29.99
1 x ($64.99) HTPC CASE XION| XON-810PCB-RD R $64.99
1 x ($69.99) VGA XFX|GT-520M-CNF2 520GT 2G R $69.99
1 x ($74.99) MB ASUS| 880GM-E41 880G R $99.99
1 x ($99.99) SSD 40G|CORSAIR CSSD-F40GB2-A R $99.99
1 x ($104.99) CPU AMD|PH II X4 840 3.2G AM3 RT $104.99

Before that I was using this stinker, GT 5082 for my HTPC and my storage. To that I added an ATI HD 5670, four sticks of 512 RAM to bring it up to 2 whole GB of RAM, LOL. The 300W power supply has two molex lines coming from it. I bought a molex to two sata splitter and added to WD 2TB Green Drives. Then plugged those guys in using the two SATA connectors on the Foxconn C51GU01 motherboard. The other molex power is running to the existing 250gig hard drive that I have the WinXP OS, xbmc, and other apps. The two WD 2TB Greens only have media stored on them (Movies, TV Shows, Pictures, Music). The last non-stock part on this stinker is the NIC, which is a SMC EZ Card 10/100 (SMC1255TX).

So, now that I have a new HTPC on the way, I would like to know if I could take the GT5082 and turn it into a ghetto NAS. What I would like to do is pull the native 250gig drive out and add at least one, preferably two more WD Green 2TB hdd. I was thinking it could go something like...

1. Get another molex to twin SATA splitter. This would power the two new drives.
2. Get two IDE to SATA adapters to turn the primary and secondary IDE connections on the IDE cable to SATA.
3. Mount my two new WD 2TB Green drives. Power them from the split molex connection and connect them to mobo via the IDE to SATA adapters on the IDE cable.

Now I know this isn't l33t or the preferred method to go about building a NAS. All I'm trying to do is add either 2TB or 4TB to my storage to hold me over until I am ready to build a nice NAS. So here are my questions for you gurus out there...

1. Do they even make IDE to SATA adapters?
2. Assuming they do, will I have enough power to run 3 WD Greens? 4 WD Greens?
3. Lets assume I don't have the power, could I upgrade my power supply to meet the needs of 4 WD Greens?
4. If I can and do need to upgrade power, do I add power to the existing power supply or lose the one I get one power supply to handle the whole thing.
4. Assuming I have the power or I have upgraded my power tofit the needs of the 3 or 4 Greens, do I have proper cooling?
5. Should I replace that NIC card with a Gbit? Or am I just wasting money because some other component in my shitty old system is the bottleneck. Or would I see an increase in data transfer with a new NIC?


I know this is alot of crap to read and you guys do this out of the kindness of your hearts, so I want to say thank you to everyone that tries to help folks like me out.

[Kirky99]

1. I'm not sure if they do, but I wouldn't bother. They do sell expansion cards that may be able to add additional SATA ports (PCIe 1x. They can be cheap provided you don't want RAID controllers.
2. I would probably update the power supply. It might work, but at times you might experience power problems, and those are usually weird. Random reboots, etc.
3. I don't see why not... Find out if it's an ATX power supply and go from there. Chances are it is.
4. New power supply.
4. You can never have enough cooling in a server IMHO. That case I'd guess isn't the best setup for staying cool. If you're not worried about looks, blow a 92mm hole in the top and add a fan there.
5. If you're streaming to only one client, 10/100 will probably be enough. Add a second client and all bets are off though. It wouldn't hurt, but if you're going to replace it, save your money and check on network utilization if things look odd. Cost to add a gigabit network adapter would be minimal.