Like I said, I have no actual practical experience of this sort of thing, but I can imagine that a 'poor man's NAS' with 1 TB of storage attached, even if it is a little slow, would certainly be useful in some ways. There are plenty of uses, e.g. backups, longer term storage, where the speed doesn't really matter (and of course if you wanted speed, USB isn't the way to go, whether attached directly to a PC or not). I would be inclined to give it a try. You sound like the kind of person who likes to get their sleeves rolled up and have a tinker with things, so it'll be a bit of fun at the very least, and not a heavy expenditure.
Or you could think of alternative uses for the USB drives, e.g. get a multimedia streamer, that is, a device with a USB socket and video and audio outputs that you plug into a TV and hi-fi, and put dozens and dozens of movies on the USB drive...
SalmonTrout: You hit the nail on the head. This is exactly my line of thinking. I am looking to extend the usability of my 2 very fine Seagates and not be forced to share them fully via a single PC. This is OK, but I'd like to take the next step.
I think you [and the other nice folks here] have convinced me to give it a shot. Will broaden my investigation, but may pull the trigger on either your Newlink suggestion or the Hitachi SimpleNet[after I try and grab hold of their tech support].
For sure the drives will retain their usefulness in many ways as you mention. Perhaps what I am really after is a hybrid setup - repurpose 1 of the USB drives for streaming media to hifi and the other as part of my poor man's NAS.
<sigh> Too many choices in this respect I guess...Gotta make up my mind on what exactly I want the end result to be.
And yes, you are indeed right - I do indeed enjoy rolling my sleeves up and giving stuff a try. Everything I know about PCs and tech from almost 20 years have come from simply trying things out. I can't think of a better way to learn.
Can't tell you how many times I botched things up by playing around too much with DoubleSpace though... ;-)
cheers and thanks much again for your input.
-lestatar
