At the 25 GB mark (or even before) one has to start looking to Enterprise-level solutions which tend to separate the controllers from the disk level. With simple consumer NAS, the controller hardware and OS is tightly integrated and not very updatable. With Enterprise-level devices there is more modularity, meaning that the controller end will be serviceable for longer. Means higher up front cost, longer usability and therefore probably a better total cost of ownership.

Well I do have the same problem. I use of lof of 1To external hard drives for long term storage. But our needs are exponential and data storage becomes an issue, especially with expression data... I saw that there are some solution using magnetic cartridge, that can contain up to 3 To for 40 dollars, and are small sized. HP is selling this. I migh tbe a solution to do libraries of cartridge with our data since these are cheaper that NAs of hard drives, and smaller. But I don't know if it last in the long term. Informatic stores sell these cartridge as long term solutions to save data, so I guess it must be good!

Gerard Tromp: A Drobo Professional with 8 slots can hold 32 Tb. There is no way that 'Enterprise Level' solutions are going to be bought where I work. Five years ago, I heard the same thing about the level of storage I have now. Ten years ago, I heard the same thing about half the level of storage I have now. In the past, I have gotten quotes for tens of thousands of dollars for what I have been able to do on less than five thousand dollars. Sorry, it's a new world. There are few funds (anywhere) for these 'enterprise' solutions you write about. OK, maybe Wash. U. or Baylor or MIT. Not where I work.

Hi Bert, if you're on a shoe string budget, then how about buying a big linux box and putting a bunch of hard disks in there? That could probably get you 24TB for 2000 USD. If you're also looking for a redundant backup, then you could buy the same setup again, put it somewhere else and set up some daemon jobs to sync the first and second server via ethernet (using rsync for example).

@Warren, I think this is a good idea. I already own a licensed Red Hat Server linux box ( http://theta.ncifcrf.gov ) and think I could replace it with a massive box with lots of hard drive space. Do you have a box to recommend?

@Bert, the key ingredient in your linux box designed for storage will be the motherboard, as it defines how many hard drives you can attach to the computer. You'll want to look at the number of SATA slots available. This super cheap AMD mainboard, for example, has 8 slots (100 USD): . Some motherboards even come with some basic RAID options, although you'll probably want to go for JBOD or perhaps RAID 5. Add a processor , cpu and perhaps chassis fans (40 USD), memory and eight hard drives , into a chassis like this one (100 USD): , and you should be set for 24TB at around 1500 USD or less.

Handle with care though, because all of these components are consumer use quality. Any part of the system might go at any time and you'll probably have to find your own replacements as the guarantee on these items tends to only be a year. You might also want to upgrade items and perhaps get a second server as a backup so that when a disk goes, you still have its data on another disk somewhere else.

Also, separate the servers physically if you can.

@Warren, brilliant. I will go for it I think.

Maybe it's a good idea to look around the second hand market? Many data centers replace their "old" hardware at the end of service life. If super-high speed is not an issue, these servers are probably going to last you a long time, and if you go (for instance) for Dell machines, they have very decent dedicated RAID controllers (PERC) that can actually handle standard SATA drives.

An important question in this respect is the value of the data you're going to store on your drives. If you saved $5000, and lost a million's worth of data (just an example), these are difficult to balance. What happens if your cheap AMD motherboard dies, is it possible to just take the drives and rebuild the RAID array them anywhere? This is the reason people go to enterprise level systems.

Google Drive or Dropbox with a 1GB/s fiber connection? :)

Ignacio, cloud solutions are neither fast enough nor secure enough for most Medical and Medical Research applications.