[ale] Build-yer-own NAS server

[Denny Chambers]

For software, look Openfiler (http://www.openfiler.com/) or FreeNAS 
(http://www.freenas.org/) is another option. Openfiler is a complete 
distribution with an installer, based on the CentOS. All of your storage 
and configuration is configurable through a web interface. It is a 
pretty mature project, that has been around for about 2 years or so. 
They started with a software base that was donated by a company called 
Xinit System. I don't know as much about FreeNAS, other than it is BSD 
based, and doesn't seem as mature as Openfiler. NewsForge did a recent 
article on FreeNAS here 
(http://hardware.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/05/19/1349206&from=rss).

Denny

Pete Hardie wrote:

>All,
>
>With the flurry of cheap, high-capacity hard drives out there, I am
>beginning to think about
>moving my home machines towards using some form of NAS for the majority of the
>disk space, allowing me to upgrade the OS easily without having to
>worry about the upgrade clobbering my data, or even switch machines
>easily (wfie's Window PCs).
>
>Given that 1TB of space can be had for less than $300, I have a few
>questions for the collective:
>
>1) is this a bonkers idea in the first place?
>2) what should I look at w/r/t the NAS device proper (which distro,
>mobo issues, etc)?
>3) what type of RAID would be suitable for this?
>4) am I forgetting anything?
>
>TIA,
>
>Pete
>
>
>  
>