Oops just read the original post which requires sustained 6Gb/s. I had not considered speed in any calculations. So ignore my post. On 1 September 2011 10:27, Justin Richards wrot= e: >> I never tried more than 4 drives at a time. If you need up to 12 drives >> you will need multiple SATA controllers, it starts to sound expensive. >> > as the requirement was for min 4 drives max 12, perhaps use 2 x cheap > motherboards that support 6 sata + 1 ide each. > > For less than AUD$2000 total you could have 2 separate NAS boxes > (providing some additional level of fault tolernce) each providing > 12TB+ a total of 24+ TB > > Naturally, this would require fans but cheap $89 2TB HD consume about > 7 watts so total power per box =3D HDDs + CPU + MOTHERBOARD + FANS =3D > (7x7) + 65 + 50 + 10 > > Total 175 watts. =A0standard 200 watt supply should suit. > > Having 2 boxes may provide additional speed improvements but that > would depend on the application. =A0Rsysnc could be used to backup any > important stuff. > --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .