Looking for a NAS type OS

[BigPete]

I have a spare computer which I would like to use as "NAS". Are there any open source projects which accomplish this and allow you to use a web interface for administration?

 

[nweaver]

linux with webmin would...

I think there is a nas type distro, check distrowatch

 

[rmrf]

looks like this will handle it.

http://www.serverelements.com/naslite-plus.php

EDIT: nvm, you actually have to pay for that. I'll keep looking.

 

[rmrf]

http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+XFS-HOWTO/

 

[n0cmonkey]

Web interfaces suck. Use SSH.

 

[Nothinman]

Yea, web interfaces seem cool on the surface but end up being pretty annoying when you actually have to use them.

 

[SeTeS]

The free NASlite has some kind of bandwidth limitation on it. I'm currently using DarmaNAS, which doesn't have the bandwidth limit, but has a 2 client per share limit on the free version (3 bills for the unlimited version). I've got it booting off a 128meg CF card and running a software Raid5 array (3 x 200g + 1 hot spare). Works pretty nicely.

 

[nweaver]

really though, Samba is too easy to setup and maintian. SSH is faster/easier then a web interface (although webmin seemed OK to me, but I hate gui tools)

 

[Need4Speed]

http://www.openfiler.com/

http://www.freenas.org/

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Install Linux or BSD and install Samba and a few lines of configuration and you're all set! We now have a 300GB NAS on an AMD Sempron 2800 server at work. Beats the $3k NAS we bought 2 yrs ago from Sony.

 

[drag]

NAS is just a crappy file server. Get a server OS. I recommend Debian. Next on Fedora, Suse, Gentoo, or one of the BSDs.

That way you can get a real file server, learn howto use Linux, and then be able to do all sorts of usefull stuff with it beyond just a simple fileserver.

Otherwise you can get stuff like clarkconnect or a dozen other siimilar things.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=34&threadid=1731464&enterthread=y

 

[BigPete]

Thanks a lot for the replies guys. I do have Gentoo running on that spare computer now but I am not really in the mood at this point to figure everything out to get it running for NAS. Although, that does seem like the best way to go since I would eventually like to run RAID5 with 1TB of space or more. I'm also a bit weary of using a full nix install because, to be honest, I am a noob and I want to use the box for backup purposes. If something happened to the OS, I dont think I would know how to recover everything like I could in Windows.

I am willing to give a nix install a shot before I go to a dedicated NAS distro. Do you guys have any links to guides (preferrably Gentoo or Ubuntu specific) which cover the services required for NAS?

 

[Nothinman]

NAS is just a fancy term for a file server, just decide what protocol you want to server through (i.e. SMB, FTP, AFP, etc) and install a server to handle it (i.e. Samba, ProFTPd, Netatalk, etc).

 

[TGS]

I would put in my vote for a linux distro running samba. You really can't go wrong there. It's strictly for backup purpose therefore the I/O impact of samba conversion shouldn't effect those operation types much. Samba is really easy, only getting slightly complicated if you are doing usermapper functions for a linux box running as a domain controller.

Do a search on the Samba documentation and you'll see the share creation process it very simple. I'm not sure on what type of recovery you expect to do on a file server, windows or linux, but in this respect using a "free" OS offers you the option to avoid a license cost for housing your backup data. You don't need anything fancy for that.