[drunken]

I am looking for something to fit 4 hdds or something that I can connect to a nettop like a EeeBox or AcerAspireRevo.

Preferably USB, I just want movie storage for these things!

Thanks.

[jmarshall]

There's not that many USB enclosures that hold more than one or two disks.

Most larger ones are eSATA or are full-blown NAS's. Anything bigger than 2 disks gets pretty pricey. One of the cheapest ones I've found is this one:

http://mediasonicinc.com/store/product_i...cts_id=150

I'm personally just going to build a small PC instead, using the new Atom n270 miniITX board from intel (that's the new lower powered board - the old atom boards chewed through the power in comparison). That way I have full control over power management and the like.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[drunken]

I'm personally just going to build a small PC instead, using the new Atom n270 miniITX board from intel (that's the new lower powered board - the old atom boards chewed through the power in comparison). That way I have full control over power management and the like.

Yeah just had a look at that one.
Do you know what sort of PSU you are going to use for it though?
I'm looking for something silent and under 40w of power consumption.

[jmarshall]

A PSU will just deliver what is being used, after all, not what it's rated at. I'm not sure if the atom board above will be able to supply enough juice through the on-board SATA power leads to feed more than 2 drives, so was thinking of just getting an efficient ATX PSU to supply the disks.

I believe others have had the above board running with a single 3.5" drive (lowpower model) at 13-14W idle.

40W at full load *may* be doable with 4 disks running - it'd be easy with a disk or two powered down ofcourse.

I'm currently running a minipc (based on laptop parts) with 2 external USB 3.5" disks in separate enclosures, and the whole thing uses about 50W while running, and both disks are idle for 99% of the time.

I'd be interested to hear others thoughts - I want something that averages about 20W, as it's on 24/7 - all it does is serves files (and obtains more files to serve).

Cheers,
Jonathan