[bluenote]

I've got a lot of proliferating HD's packed into cases, and since I've started to migrate away from the main gaming-HTPC being the nerve center of my network and moving towards the RPI 2 being the center, I'd like to integrate the storage into the mix.

I don't have a huge requirement for performance, no requirement for RAID, just JBOD of mixed internal and external drives. At a quick guess I might be looking at 4 external 3 - 4 tb's and currently maybe 4 x 3 tb internals with some more sitting unopened in their packaging.

The question is, what's the best way to either port multiply and power, or otherwise connect and house these drives.

A secondary issue is, the USB and network bandwidth on the Pi. Right now I am only wired for 100baseT in the house, (wiring is split half phones/half network... a jury rig setup by me) but that may change once all storage is not local.

So if I wanted to get into something that supported gigabit, and lots of USB bandwidth, what would it be? I assume we're talking about Odroid or Banana-something at this point.

thanks for any thoughts

[nickr]

Server tower case and Linux.

[katsup]

If the Pi 2 is only a Kodi media player, the 100mbit is plenty fast enough. I recently picked up a Odroid C1, but I use it as a server and not for Kodi. I have two Pi 2s and a Chromebox (which I may replace) for Kodi.

nickr's suggestion is best for what you descried. You could also grab a commercial NAS device that supports JBOD.

[bluenote]

Hey katsup, it's not only a media player. It's connected to 4 tuners, recording, comskipping, and then nzbgetting as well.
And on top of that I'm talking about serving out a bunch of HD's to both media and office pc's.

It seems like the banana pi (pro?) with the SATA might be the only real possibility which addresses bandwidth/storage. That's not ideal since their new board drops the SATA port, and the old one is only dual core which I'm not crazy about.

I could go with the Odroid or newer banana boards, and just use USB2 and the gigabit lan support. That might be enough throughput depending.

I really have so little interest in trying to spec a low-wattage linux box ... I'll have to think about whether I want to go down that road.

[Namoi]

You could also have a look at addonics. They have a lot of solutions ready made or for diy. Look for their mini tower, or for diy at their 5 sata port multiplier which give you esata or usb3 out. It has a raid controller buildin also, but you can stay with the jbod.
For ready made enclosure, icycube give you 4 bays with hotswap feature.
You can also have a look at mediasonics or better oyen digital.

My concern for all of these is the way unmounting at shutdown is done.
I read some posts on openelec forum which rised my concern.