Published at LXer:

For the past several years, I've used a custom-built file server at my house. I've upgraded it many times, but it began life, as near as I can recall, in April 2000. When I say "upgraded", I mean the internals have been swapped completely on at least two occasions among other things. The most-recent major upgrade was in 2006 (or thereabouts) when I added a software RAID5 with three 500GB hard drives (later expanded to six). It has chugged along merrily for years, but lately it has begun showing its age. For starters, two terabytes of space isn't all that much anymore. Also, it's not as efficient power-wise as I would like (in my measurements, it draws between 1.8 and 2.0 amps continuously, depending on load). Finally, the case for this server takes up way too much space (it's a full tower).

Read More...