NAS OS - recommendations, inputs and opinions

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iDOL

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Looking to get some inputs on what is being used out there.

I am getting a new Commell LV-678 board, getting rid of my D201GLY2.

LV-678 ( Mini-itx form factor, quad cpu support, dual gigabit, 6 sata[going for 6 1tb's] - now who wouldn't want one?)

With this I am also looking at a new setup in terms of the OS that drives my NAS.

Thus far, I have only used the windows alternatives - Windows Home Server & Windows Server 2003. I stuck by the windows based ones, purely because I have had the software tools available to recover the data should one of the hdd's become a bit unstable.

I have also never attempted to use any form of raid or jbod configuration on these and I am seriously considering going that route now as well.

I am looking for an os that I can boot and run from a flash drive, that has a small footprint.

So looking for inputs and opinions on this.

What are your recommendations, pros and cons of the relevant recommendations.
 
Look at OpenFiler or FreeNAS. Both are free and offer a bunch of connection possibilities (SMB, FTP, HTTP, iSCSI, etc).

The only thing that both options need, are a nice web-gui to upload/manage files with. You do have the option of webdav though, so it is not a show stopper.
 
@Deenem the Drobo , is prohibitively expensive. But you will have to also purchase the other "robot" bit to use it as a perfect standalone nas, instead of just a usb hdd enclosure.

I am getting me the LV-678 board + Intel 6 Bay Sata Backplane to use in my Mozart TX , this will function as the NAS portion of the system. I used my D201GLY2 in this capacity in the past.

@NOD - I am still concerned by the data integrity ? How does one recover the data on one of the hdd's should anything go awry? Freenas has a new webgui, I am going to attempt it, but I am looking for a permanent solution.
 
iDOL said:
@NOD - I am still concerned by the data integrity ? How does one recover the data on one of the hdd's should anything go awry? Freenas has a new webgui, I am going to attempt it, but I am looking for a permanent solution.
Click to expand...

Even if you use an EMC box, you'll still have to configure it correctly. I would, personally, go for a hardware RAID solution. Be it SATA or SAS, depending on budget. FreeNAS and OpenFiler is only there to make it easier to manage, and give you some form of freedom.
 
@Synergy , using a friend to import it for me. It's going to cost +/-R3000.00 shipped to Jhb.

I wasn't prepared to pay R3900 excluding shipping just to get it to Canada, then ship it from a friend to Jhb.

Should you be interested, let me know, I am tryign to get a bulk order of about 10-20 units, to encourage him to bring in more of these goodies. Just send me a pm.
 
@NOD , what are the pros & cons regarding hardware raid vs software raid?
 
Software RAID has the benefit (usually, and specially so in *NIX boxen) of being recoverable across different boards so if, say, the board you have your RAID set in now dies, transplant and in reasonably short order for none too much cost you're back. Hardware RAID gets really expensive, really fast and requires that you replace the controller.

Sure hardware is faster but where do you stand on cost vs compatibility?
 
aargh, I missed the party... been waiting for a FreeNAS thread for months! :[ Wanted to see if I could beat The_Techie this time around! :D
 
bdt said:
Software RAID has the benefit (usually, and specially so in *NIX boxen) of being recoverable across different boards so if, say, the board you have your RAID set in now dies, transplant and in reasonably short order for none too much cost you're back. Hardware RAID gets really expensive, really fast and requires that you replace the controller.

Sure hardware is faster but where do you stand on cost vs compatibility?
Click to expand...

Indeed. For a production system, I would use hardware raid with a backup controller, also keep regular backups of your configuration on the controller.

If you want redundancy you will have to pay for it.
 
Nod said:
Indeed. For a production system, I would use hardware raid with a backup controller, also keep regular backups of your configuration on the controller.

If you want redundancy you will have to pay for it.
Click to expand...
... quite. Doing It Right(tm) costs real money - but that's not to say that doing software RAID is necessarily bad: I've got a 3-drive Server2003 RAID5 volume that has been humming quietly away to itself since, according to the systeminfo command, 8 March 2007. And that's WITH the whole load-shedding debacle (yes, it got a li'l UPS that's connected to the machine so it hibernates on power-fail).

It simply just runs ..I'm rather fond of that box, actually! :p

But to have the budget to do that way would be really nice.
 
ext3 - well that is the problem, most of my HDD was windoze based - NTFS, but now with new build I can start off from scratch.
 
Meanwhile, on a minor thread-detour, I spoke with Cliff at Systems 104 who has 4 more of these Commell boards he would love to move off the shelf - them's that has the tom may as well snap 'em up while the goin's good ..sadly, I'm not one of them. :( Contact page here. For the terminally geeky: their name is related to/derived from the PC/104 embedded computer standard.

And now, back to your featured programming. :p
 
bdt said:
Meanwhile, on a minor thread-detour, I spoke with Cliff at Systems 104 who has 4 more of these Commell boards he would love to move off the shelf - them's that has the tom may as well snap 'em up while the goin's good ..sadly, I'm not one of them. :( Contact page here. For the terminally geeky: their name is related to/derived from the PC/104 embedded computer standard.

And now, back to your featured programming. :p
Click to expand...

whats the price ?
 
iDOL said:
Looking to get some inputs on what is being used out there.

I am getting a new Commell LV-678 board, getting rid of my D201GLY2.

LV-678 ( Mini-itx form factor, quad cpu support, dual gigabit, 6 sata[going for 6 1tb's] - now who wouldn't want one?)

With this I am also looking at a new setup in terms of the OS that drives my NAS.

Thus far, I have only used the windows alternatives - Windows Home Server & Windows Server 2003. I stuck by the windows based ones, purely because I have had the software tools available to recover the data should one of the hdd's become a bit unstable.

I have also never attempted to use any form of raid or jbod configuration on these and I am seriously considering going that route now as well.

I am looking for an os that I can boot and run from a flash drive, that has a small footprint.

So looking for inputs and opinions on this.

What are your recommendations, pros and cons of the relevant recommendations.
Click to expand...


Why you getting rid of the D201GLY2 ?
 
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