Journal: How to make a PC into a firewire hard disk - THE MF'N ANSWER

buckinm recently asked slashdot http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/22/1336227 Make a PC Look Like a Firewire or USB Drive? but none of the dorks here gave him a good answer.

Like all slashdot discussions, what could have been a useful source of information for everyone, got sidetracked from about the first post into rants about how to do it with samba on linux or about how macs have been able to do it since before we were all born.

BUT NO GODDAMN ANSWERS!

Well I happen to have hit the same problem recently, so buckinm, here is the answer: http://www.kuroutoshikou.com/products/henkan/x4hd-1394sfset.html. Yeah, that's all in Japanese, but read the tech specs and check out this super easy to understand diagram http://www.kuroutoshikou.com/products/henkan/x4hd1394.pdf and you can understand exactly what's going on.

For those of you who don't understand the issue, or why this is a good solution, here's a slash style list:

• you have a bunch of spare parts like hard drives, power supplies, and cases lying around
• you want to use that stuff as some kind of storage unit, but actually running an os on it has a number of disadvantages, like:
  • it's a pain in the ass to deal with another os (if you just said knoppix, punch yourself in the mouth)
  • it's a pain in the ass to deal with network security
  • it's a pain in the ass to deal with permissions
  • the ethernet you probably have is slower than firewire or usb that you probably have
  • you don't want to have the noisy, heat-generating, electricity-wasting overhead of a hard disk, processor, and fan for an OS
• so you think, how can I make these drives into a firewire or usb external disk?
• well let's go firewire for a couple reasons (some of which may be total bollocks):
  • minimum 400mbps link speed
  • bus is more intelligent about cpu usage
  • daisy chainable without a zillion powered hubs
  • and a bad point for good measure: you probably don't have it in all your machines
• So buy the adapter above, or two, and throw that sucker in your case. Booyah, 4 IDE drives on a firewire bus.
• Also, that card has some rad features:
  • tricks an atx power supply into booting up (which normally requires soldering a jumper or some shizzle)
  • actually screws into a 3.5" drive bay itself!
  • has crazy jumpers and headers for all kinds of stuff (like connecting the power switch and HD access lights on the front of the case to the firewire board, or selecting what turns the array on (the switch, the atx supply being plugged in, or bus power over firewire - trick!))
• So you can pick up one of these for a few thousand yen off Yahoo Auctions in Japan http://search.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/search/auc?p=X4HD+1394S&auccat=0&alocale=0jp&acc=jp, and if you're buckinm, I'll send it to you.