I don't have quite the same situation, but I do need fairly large storage shared between multiple systems.
I use a nice little 2TB NAS box for the storage, since then it's on a separate system (so one power surge doesn't take out everything), I can use cron to schedule rsync backups, and I can do regular backups of that to a 2TB USB drive (fairly cheap) using dd (embedded distro only has rsync and dd).
Using a NAS also makes it a little bit easier to add storage; most will allow expansion with USB drives (slow but effective), and it's not unrealistic to get devices with 4 bays and eSATA expansion (have you seen the 15-bay eSATA expansion boxes?) that allow serious storage growth (from 8TB up to 30TB or so) if needed.
I have 3 different Linux distributions in use (on 3 different machines, however), not counting the embedded Linux in devices (NAS, routers, etc...).
I switched to using VirtualBox for experimenting with new distros a few years ago to get out of the multi-boot headaches.
I, too, had issues with Ubuntu 10.10 (and 10.04), so I switched to Kubuntu at work (slightly more stable) for now, and have been evaluating a few different rolling distros because I don't see Ubuntu acting like a good community member anymore.
Ubuntu seems to be heading down the road of becoming a proprietary Linux-based O/S with their own "value-added" garbage (e.g. Ubuntu One) rather than a fully open GNU/Linux distribution. I understand them wanting to find a commercial model that works, but I suspect the road they're on isn't it.
The NAS is a Buffalo LinkStation, by the way, I've been fairly impressed with the device and it's Linux internally (I had to root it to get ssh and rsync, but that turned out to be trivial to do), only thing I don't like is it's CIFS/Samba-only and doesn't support NFS or iSCSI.
I've done some poking around in Chromium O/S, and you're right; that belongs on devel.
Mike Hoy wrote:
> I need to run Windows and Linux. It has been this way for years. I am
> getting fed up with it to be honest. But this isn't just about going
> between win and nix. I also am compelled to run at least two different
> distro's.
>
> My solution was to do this:
>
> HDD1: Ubuntu (for web dev and basically everything I need to get done)
> HDD2: Windows
> HDD3: Storage (for all backups between both 1 and 2 and all multimedia)
>
> There is a 4th hard drive but it has failed so I will leave that out.
> It was running Gentoo up until it's demise.
>
> No matter what since I've owned a computer I find myself constantly
> reinstalling operating systems. It has gone down over the years but
> it's still like 3 times a year or so.
>
> Recently I went from 9.10 to 10.10 and that caused problems so now I'm
> going to have to go back to 9.10 not the end of the world but it's
> getting old as am I.
>
> Anyone have the ultimate solution for how to manage this? Are you in a
> similar situation? What have you done to fix this problem.
>
> Another problem is disk space. I have 2 500 gig drives (plenty for OS)
> but my storage drive can never be big enough. I keep all my client's
> data on it because I feel the need to have backups of everything for
> those CYA moments. They do come up.
>
> I find myself in awe of motherboards with more than 4 SATA ports. That
> way I can have 8 hard drives! I could run 6 operating systems and 1
> storage in RAID config! I'm only somewhat joking there.
>
> Another question has anyone done any development on chromium OS? Maybe
> that belongs in the dev list.
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