Home NAS Recommendations

[Matt Middleton]

Quoting Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>:

> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Matt Middleton
> <matt-oC+CK0giAiYdmIl+iVs3AywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> Is there an advantage to using FreeNAS over say a Debian server
>>>  configuration (at least from an installation, set up and update  point of
>>> view)?
>>
>> The main advantages are that the distro is available on a LiveCD, and config
>> is fairly straightforward via a web interface.  That being said, I'm sure
>> it's not necessarily the most powerful option.
>
> "Available on LiveCD" doesn't seem like much of a big deal to me...
>
> Once upon a time, it was rather valuable (especially if on dialup!) to
> have a barrel of packages on CD so you didn't need to download them.
>
> Reasonably quick bandwidth is sufficiently widespread these days that
> this doesn't seem of all that much value.
>
> What *would* seem of value to me, that isn't in something like Debian,
> by default, is:
>
> a) An assisted partitioning "wizard" to help build storage
> configurations of some sophistication.
> b) Some notification tooling to configure "calls for help" if the
> device runs into issues.
>    Who should I nag, and how, when:
>     - SMART complains
>     - Running out of space
>     - Logs bloating
>     - Anything else that might need a bit of nagging.  Such as,
> "security issue!  Update this stuff!"
>  c) Some expression of policy about periodic updating of software.
>
> None of these are notably alien; if there's some pre-cooked
> configuration and policy so that you don't have to construct it all
> yourself, that's of some value.
>
> I'll observe that the last time I built a "firewall box," which is a
> different, but still, by intent, "appliance-like" purpose, I started
> out by trying out a "run something off a floppy" thing, and migrated
> over to Debian because it was easier to add an extra Debian box to my
> environment than it was to add Another Different Appliance Thing
> Needing Different Configuration.
>
> And I suppose that this latter bit points at my particular bias :-).
> I tend to think Debian's a better option as an "appliance manager"
> than anything else, because it has pretty easy options for scaling
> down such that the distribution can be pretty microscopic (e.g. - it's
> mighty easy to leave off all "desktoppish" bits).  BSD folks might
> have some legitimate objection that one could keep a
> (Net|Open|Free)BSD down to reasonably compatible size with what you
> could have with Debian.
> --
> http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>

Those are definitely some good points!  (A) is there, though it's not  
as user friendly as it could be, but FreeBSD doesn't really have (B)  
or (C).

I'm not a BSD guy per se, I just happened across this while looking in  
to different solutions.  Anyway, the big plus for me about having a  
LiveCD is that I don't need to install an OS on a storage device; I've  
got a small flash drive plugged in that stores the settings, so if I  
need to shut the machine down, it retains my settings.  That way, all  
my SATA channels are free for file storage.

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists