I’m currently running with an

I’m currently running with an 8TB ReadyNAS NV+.   This is 2 or 3 generations old now, but still has a GB ethernet port and supports DLNA (if that matters to you).     Best case, I get around 45MB read speeds and 30MB write (SMB) and the poor little Sparc processor is maxed out at that point.   I run Raid 0 (I just couldn’t justify wasting 4TB backing up TV shows) for speed.   As long as you’re not trying to feed multiple streams from the device, it’s fine for a single HTPC setup.

I’ve even been toying with the idea of opening up the box and replacing the motherboard with on of the newer Intel Atom boards.  6GB I/O, 10x performance at half the power usage, etc.    The only downside is that due to Sparc big-endian byte ordering, if you change the chip, you need to reformat all the drives.  🙁

Amazon has them for around $350 US.    It’s almost worth the price just to get a nice shoe box case with easily removable drive bays, but the device will do the job.