Building My Own NAS

OK, so I'm a little bored with my technology. I have 2 servers, a desktop, 5 laptops, and a bunch of left over equipment my company disposed of. I'm running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu. I also have a 500 GB USB drive attached to one of my servers, which has been dubed the "file server", even though it's also a webserver and email server. I also have a great deal of storage capacity on the Domain controller (yes I have a Windows DC - I know, I'm a freak!). As well as 3 USB drive enclosures for some laptop hard drives, a ton of SD and CF cards, and a couple of DVD and CD burners.

I need to consolidate! I'm in the middle of a big health project (http://pounds4food.org) right now, as well as running a paintball team (http://www.fuzzyduckpaitnball.com), both of which require storage of video and music files. I also have a large collection of DVD's and software CD's that are taking up space.

So here's my idea.

I'm going to take all of these various storage mediums and see about getting them all to work together as a single NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, using FreeNAS Linux. I figure, all told I have approximately 2.5 TB of storage capacity across multiple devices and mediums. If I can make all of the information available in one location, that would RULE!

So, that's my project over the next few weeks. I'll update this blog with photos, info, frustrations, questions, etc as we go. I'll also probably update my VLog on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/gldrumm) with video of me putting the whole project together, so check back with me.

This should be fun! :)