[geeks] NAS storage opinions and bitching wanted

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>Date: 2007/06/24 Sun AM 11:23:27 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: [geeks] NAS storage opinions and bitching wanted

>I'm going to get a file server running soon.
>
>I can either build one of my own, or I can get a NAS box.
>
>Sun or other UNIX equipment is out of the question due to costs.
>
>The NAS boxes all seem to come with a user interface that hids the
>guts of user management, access control, permissions, etc. You set
>permissions and it handles dealing with SMB, FTP, NFS, etc and
>keeping it all in sync.
>
>If I build my own server, is there any software like that I could get to
>run on it?

Windows Home Server is in beta, you could try that ;^)

> ...preferrably for NetBSD or FreeBSD? If I can avoid the work
>of doing it myself, that would be nice. Not necessary, but very nice.

There are some small-office linux "builds" (or distributions, if you prefer), their names escape me, but they are designed to act like a small network appliance...

Consider unRAID: http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=19

>That out of the way...
>
>I'm interesting in opinions of the various small NAS machines.  I really
>can't spend over $500 no matter what I get.
>
>Here are the requirements:
>
>	- at least two internal drives with RAID 1
>	- at least 500GB

2x 500 Gig HDs are $225 +/- - not alot left for anything else...

>	- the ability to serve files from two external USB drives
>	- a print server would be a nice bonus
>	- needs to serve NFS, SMB at a minimum, ftp, svn, rsync would
>	  also be nice
>	- would be nice if it could initiate rsync backups to client
>	  machines, which implies ssh support and rsync
>
>The last requirements almost makes it look like a PC server is a
>requirement, but I'm open to knowledge of NAS boxes that can have
>those features added.

Actually, most of those features make it look like a PC server to me ;^) You want to run your own programs (rsync, svn), serve up a printer and add USB storage options. If a PC isn't the only solution, it might be the most cost-effective solution, esp with only $275 to spend (at most)...

Xandros has a $450 solution (plus hardware :^( ): http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3062187408.html

Collax appears to have a free (for 5 or less users) Linux-based solution: http://www.collax.com/?&L=1

(I've downloaded the demo/trial version to give it a try, it's more of a business server solution, but it either has or can accomodate your required functionality, and the price is right ;^)

>What I've found so far:

<snip>

>Building the PC server would probably cost more, but would of course be
>more flexible.

Agreed - esp. since you can probably get by with a generic P4 system and buy a couple (three for RAID5?) 500 Gig SATA drives and still have a wee bit of change available afterwards...

Lionel