Working on NAS

I’ve been looking recently at a few interesting NAS projects that take a piece of hardware and make it into a workgroup server and storage device. I focused on these three and have deployed one, considering one, and cannot get the final one to install:

FreeNAS - this is actually pretty cool and its based on BSD. After an install, you add in some storage, set up some services like NFS, rsync, samba and you have a solution suitable for a variety of operating systems and users. I installed it on an older Pentium 4 Celeron Shuttle PC and then added in my Fantom 1tb USB drive.

OpenFiler - I’m looking at this one currently. Have not decided whether I want to or not. Its a big much of a download and I’m still reading up on it a bit.

NASlite - this one comes in three flavors and it seems to be based on a 2.4 Linux kernel. I think that’s where the main problem comes in for me. It simply will not install on newer hardware like one of my Nforce based AMD64 systems. Too much of a system? Don’t know; but I think they should get a kernel in there that supports what could be considered standard hardware these days. The Newegg AMD64 systems are cheapo these days. I cannot evaluate this one at all and I can’t see having to buy anything more. I should be able to take a piece of existing so-called commodity hardware and make it work.

The drawing point I believe on these solutions over taking a Ubuntu CD and installing it is the integration points. Instead of futzing with all the tools, you get a system that hooks into each service with integrating points. For a smallish workgorup or team server that may not have time to do the installs and configurations, it could be a lifesaver. Linux on its own may cause frustration or angst. The philosophical premise of Linux is that its all separately packaged and to make the pieces talk it takes a bit of work. You have to catch the right files to edit, create the right settings, make the pieces work with the glue.

Instead, I think people want something that integrates and perhaps even innovates for them. Give them standard but make it standard+. Make it work as an “out of box” experience perhaps. It will give them the “P” word. That’s productivity folks. If it does not, people may just naturally gravitate to Microsoft’s SBS offering. Microsoft has the integrating tools down right.

So in the end, you could take a Ubuntu CD and make it work. You could figure out how the packages interact and learn a lot about the glue. It could be an enriching and altering experience. Or you could just find something which already is glued and packaged and meets 90% of the criteria you have. Nothing ever meets 100% BTW. It may not be open source and that’s okay too. You have to find the set and suite of tools which will work. If you want play time, create a nice playground. Here is one more thought for you. Give a try to some appliances using VMWare Player and not real hardware. You can try things, see if it works and not have deployed it on real hardware. VMWare is a great leveler.