J.D. Hodges

Our family is looking to upgrade our “always on” network storage. Criteria include: energy efficiency, data protection, unobtrusive design, cost. Here is our past and future setup…

Currently we use a Linksys NSLU2 with a 16GB USB flash drive.

Pros:
+super-low power usage (nice since we live off the grid)
+compact size
+simplicity
+SSD (flash drive) for reliability
+silent

+cheap

Cons:
+SLOW

Planned upgrade: Thecus N4100 Pro

(2) 750GB 2.5″ 7200RPM SATA laptop hard drives
Upgrade to 1GB RAM (supposed to drastically improve performance)

Pros:
+much faster performance
+RAID1 (or RAID5 if we add more disks) for excellent data protection
+more capable firmware/features out of the box

Cons:
-greater power/electrical usage
-larger physical size
-louder

I will try to update with specific energy usage figures (in watts) and photos of each setup…