Needs more investigation, but this sounds good:
OS: $0 http://www.freenas.org/
Main system: $50 Pentium 3 box off craigslist
SATA controller: $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020
Use the original harddrive to run FreeNAS, pop in 4 big SATA drives for the data, you have yourself a $75 system.
Source
OS: $0 http://www.freenas.org/
Main system: $50 Pentium 3 box off craigslist
SATA controller: $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020
Use the original harddrive to run FreeNAS, pop in 4 big SATA drives for the data, you have yourself a $75 system.
Source
UPDATE: I'm going to go with a second-hand QNAP 209 Pro. FreeNAS sounds good, but reading through the installation instructions made me reconsider the time vs. money trade-off. In this case, I'm going to spend the $.
