Please recommend on a network hard drive/home server solution

Question

As the number of computers at my home increases (now up to 3 in active use, and expected to rise in the following years), I start longing for a central storage unit, so that I don't have to keep the computers on all the time. So a network hard drive would satisfy this basic need. The first question thus is:

Can you recommend/dis-recommend a network hard drive model/manufacturer?

However I'm a programmer (read: geek), so I'd like to squeeze the juice out of this piece of hardware. It would be really nice if it could also serve files over the Internet via FTP or (recommended) SCP. For complete satisfaction it would also have to be able to run basic apache/php/mysql for a small home website. Maybe even an SVN server. Nothing too demanding as this will be strictly for my own private use, but still. Thus the second question:

Will a network HDD have enough power in it to do this? Will there not be too little CPU/RAM? Perhaps there is something else that serves this need better?

A few more notes:

• Has to support Windows shares. All my machines are Windows machines and I want to use the storage unit transparently on them.
• Quietness/size is a major factor for this device. Ideally I want it tiny and fanless (but at least with 1TB of storage). The sound of a standard 3.5" 7200rpm HDD is OK. I don't want SSD as that would be clearly outside my financial reach.
• I do not need any video output. I don't own a TV and don't plan on getting one. The machine will be strictly network-accessed.
• I have not yet decided on a budget for the device because I have no idea how much these things cost. But keep it reasonable. $2000 is waaay too much.

Answer 1

an atom based minu itx system is cheap and good enough - most have at least 2 sata ports and one IDE one, a full range of basic ports, and tends to be cheap- pop one into a standard case (mini itx cases are over priced), add a 1 tb hard drive, and you're good. OS wise, freenas will do quite well

Answer 2

I quite like the Drobo. You can network enable it with the Drobo Share

Answer 3

I had the same problem and I decided upon having fan-less computer (Alix 1D) with FreeNAS. I added to that 2.5" HD and result is practically noiseless storage. Total cost was around $250 for Alix and $100 for HD. For backup I use another HD in external case.

Answer 4

Netgear, HP and many other brands make a great home networking server. I recommend what I currently am using and that is the HP MediaSmart Server EX485 it works great, I have scheduled automatic backups for all of my home computers and laptops, and I also can ftp to it from my office at work.