[WhoDat]

I posted this in the Mac Mini area, but I would like to see what the G5 community has to say.

I would like to setup a server to store family pictures, iTunes purchases and other media. Also I would like to use it as a backup for important documents and data.

I have a Intel Mac Mini 1.66 and a G5 PowerMac dual 1.8GHz.
I have purchased 4 400GB drives and I am trying to figure out the best solution for the money.

I would like to put the drives into external enclosures like OWC 2 drive FW800/FW400 and use the first pair as either RAID 0 or use the hardware spanning, and the 2nd pair as the backup.

Will this be too much for the FW400 bus of the Mac Mini, seeing I also use an EyeTV 500/200 solution to capture TV and burn DVDs. I will do video editing, iMovie, iPhoto stuff.

I would like to sell the G5, but would it make more sense to install 2 drives in the G5 and use 1 external enclosure with FW800 for the backup? I would like at least 1 external enclosure for the backup?

Any suggestion would help.

Thanks!

WhoDat

[mousehouse]

If you're considering using the G5 only as a fileserver I'd think you'd better sell it. It uses a lot of power and can make quite some noise when it get warm. You could get an external disk enclosure such as the Dlink DSN-323 which provides you with RAID0 or RAID1 storage over a gigabit network link. That way you can put the drives somewhere in your house where the noise won't bother you. I'd just use the mini ;-)

[Apple2Mac]

If you want a computer to act as the server the Mini will suffice, I would recommend using a Airport Extreme instead. It supports USB 2.o Hard drives as NAS
Apple - AirPort Extreme