What's the best GigE networked storage device?

December 9, 2003 8:17 AM

Anyone have any thoughts about the best GigE networked storage device? Should I roll my own? I have a hybrid environment (XP and OS X) and right now I backup the Powerbook with a Firewire HDD, but was thinking that networked storage would be best, but Firewire beats 100baseT Ethernet by 4X. My Powerbook supports GigE and I could add a GigE card to my XP machine for $50. Run some Cat 6. Replace my 10/100 router with a 10/100/1000 router. Is there such a thing as GigE networked storage for consumers?
posted by gen to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

If you are running an Intel based PC, you should note that you will not get full speed on the Gigabit Ethernet using a PIC card, because of the PCI bus sharing limitations. The PCI Bus can handle up to 400 Mbps throughput whereas Intel's Communication Streaming Architecture (CSA)Gigabit architecture can handle throughput of 750 Mbps (Megabits per second). All i875 chipset based motherboards have CSA.

You can make your own Martian Netdrive clone.
posted by riffola at 8:27 AM on December 9, 2003

er that should be PCI card not PIC card.
posted by riffola at 8:28 AM on December 9, 2003

I wouldn't worry about gigabit ethernet. What exactly would a home user need to access 10 MB+ per second for? That's a DVD every 7 minutes.

In contrast, the fastest consumer drive I know of is the WD Raptor 10,000 RPM drive. It transfers 20 MB+ per second sustained. Most regular consumer drives transfer less than 100 Mbits per second, or 10 MB- per second.

In short, I can't think of any reason to worry (that includes video editing!) about gigabit for home... Stick to 100 MBits and save.
posted by shepd at 9:33 AM on December 9, 2003

Response by poster: shepd, thank you for your comment. I forgot that the slowest part of the link may be at the data source...

ok, I'll stick with what I have now :)
posted by gen at 4:49 PM on December 9, 2003