NAS storage

[Bumzilla]

What's a decent user friendly NAS to purchase?
Needs to have user security so users don't see each other's backup files etc.
Will be for small office of about 7 users. Want to get 2x 1 terabyte drives running.

[hereticangel]

HP microserver with freenas

[ghoti]

FreeNAS.

[daWolf]

PC Zone has the QNAP TS-212 NAS server on sale at the moment.

[CriticalConsumer]

You could also look @ the Netgear ReadyNAS range. however building your own NAS box with FreeNAS is the best option.

[Wynsam]

As above

[DigiMedic]

Can't go wrong with QNAP - Easy to use, but SOOO many features

[Drunkard #1]

Can I hijack this thread and ask something about freeNAS? How hard is it to upgrade a drive? Can I run 2 x 2TB disks, then add a 3TB disk, then another, and still access my data, or must I backup the data and start from scratch each time? On a related note, do I need to replace dead disks with the identical type? Is Windows home server any easier? Drobos seem ideal, but they've got a few bad reviews and they're slow and expensive.

The Microserver seems ideal - four tool-free disk trays, a fifth SATA port for a caching SSD and an internal USB port for a flash drive holding the system. And I've already got one. On the other hand, I have no clue how to set it up, and it'll cost another R 8 000 for the required kit.

Surely there's a "normal" way to set up a NAS?

[DigiMedic]

Can I hijack this thread and ask something about freeNAS? How hard is it to upgrade a drive? Can I run 2 x 2TB disks, then add a 3TB disk, then another, and still access my data, or must I backup the data and start from scratch each time?

I think that would depend how you set it up in the beginning - i.e. RAID 0/1/5

If you used RAID 0 (which I presume is what you want), essentially you would need to back up the data and rebuild the entire array from scratch. If you just install the drives into the NAS box as is and don't use any RAID, then you would be able to add or remove disks as you please, as there is no array that will be broken and needs to be rebuilt. The downside to this is that you will then have to set up many shares in the NAS interface so that you can access each drive independently - whereas if you have RAID0, it would just be one big drive and one share to access the entire drive contents, but then you can't add/remove disks as you please.

As for the rest of your question, maybe someone else has the answers?

[Bumzilla]

Thanks. Did play with freeNaS a few years back...but am getting lazy. Got to whip out my old pc again. I really pity myself with a cs degree.... LOL

[bdt]

What's a decent user friendly NAS to purchase?
Needs to have user security so users don't see each other's backup files etc.
Will be for small office of about 7 users. Want to get 2x 1 terabyte drives running.

As much as this crowd will clamour to go the homebrew route, that's probably not ideal in this usage case: you want an appliance built to Just Work(tm), rather than something you (may) have to work at. Also, don't even bother with the 1TB drive, you nigh on double your R/MB by going with 1TB drives instead of 2TB. As to shares not showing up for each other, I know ReadyNAS does this and would be amazed to see that the others don't. Also, see PM.

[Ianf1]

After trying freenas, I couldn't get it to work with nicely with when a windows 7 machine was added to the network. So I tried unraid and it works great for me the free version. Just it does put the drives to sleep and takes a while to wake them up. Also on the free version it only reads 3 drives 1 parity and 2 normal.

[CriticalConsumer]

FreeNAS is dead simple to use - I am a user of FreeNAS and had no clue how to set it up BUT found this setup video by Too Smart Guys on how to setup the entire system.

It is not as difficult as everyone thinks or makes it out to be since the initial release there have been significant GUI and CLI enhancements.

Once this is setup you have zero maintenance on the box unless you like tinkering around with plug-ins and advanced features. I have been running my FreeNAS box now for 3 years - started with FreeNAS 0.7 and recently migrated to FreeNAS 8.2 - wow what a huge leap.

On the hardware front, you could use just about any old PC components however; it is recommended to check the hardware compatibility listing on the FreeNAS website.
I have been using an AMD Crosshair II motherboard, with a Phenom II x4 and 6GB of memory, an Adaptec 5805 RAID card which allows me to to perform hot swapping should a drive fail. Yes this maybe overkill but I am a pedantic guy

One very happy FreeNAS customer here

[tRoN]

Very happy with my synology NAS. Great 3rd party apps and many simple raid options.

[naeem]

+1 for the Synology NAS

Bought one of their entry level ones chucked a 2tb drive. Using it in our office as a backup.

Currently we have about 7 or 8 workstations and 1 server that backsup files to the unit.

Works pretty great, nice OS and super easy to setup.

http://www.dbg.co.za/product_info.ph...roducts_id=824