Where can a buy a simple small network attached storage drive under
$300 for a home network. The data I need seems to always be on the
computer that is not turned on, so it seems a network drive that I
would always keep on is the solution.

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Request for Question Clarification by maniac-ga on 27 Apr 2003 20:14 PDT

Hello Swisscheese,

The $300 limit will make your options extremely limited and will
require some effort on your part to adapt the equipment for your use.
Higher prices will get an out of the box solution. For example:
 - Lindows PC from walmart.com ($200 to $300) gets a 10 Gbyte to 20
Gbyte disk; can be configured to share the disk for other computers.
 - Linksys 80 Gbyte network attached storage ($479); supports a
variety of Windows PC's.
Would you consider an answer with these kinds of solutions?
  --Maniac

For many years, I have been looking myself for inexpensive network 
attached disk. To the best of my knowledge, there are no 
inexpensive external disks with LAN interface on the market.

Since USB-to-LAN adaptors exist for ~$50, it may be very very remotely 
possible to connect external USB disk to USB-to-LAN adaptor. I won't 
bet that such combination is workable.  You may ask separate question about 
such combination.  I don't think this combination works. 

The closest realistic match to your question is external disk drive,
attached via one of these interfaces: FireWire (IEEE 1394), USB-1, USB-2, 
SCSI. Such external disks can easily be had had for $100-$250. 

I personally use external USB 2.5" hard disk. 2.5" external disks
are more expensive but smaller. It's about size of 3 CD
jewel boxes stacked together. Very convenient, and hot-connectable
at any time.

Hi ia - Thanks for your input on this. -- swisscheese