Ok, I've had to bring this topic up again as what I was previously planning on purchasing no longer meets my requirements...and I wanted to see if anyone has a better solution, or knows of a cheaper alternative...

Link to old thread on portable hard drives

So heres what I want:

1) To have a hard drive caddy that can hold multiple hard drives so to offer expandability
2) The caddy to have an ethernet port to allow connection directly to the network
3) The caddy to have multiple USB ports so to allow further USB portable hard drives and printers to be connected
4) The caddy to have a print server

I was going to buy this model: Maxtor Shared Storage 300GB Baby NAS

   

But now this model is far more suitable: Thecus N2100



It offers space for two internal hard drives (1TB), 3 USB ports, a print server and NAS...perfect...except...for the price.

When I compare the Thecus to the Maxtor, the Maxtor is only 1 USB and i hard drive slot different, yet comes included with a 300GB hard drive, for $400....the Thecus is $650 just for the enclosure????? 

So can you guys offer a cheaper soloution or know of a cheaper provider?
I cannot afford those $1000 jobs.