Best free OS for a NAS, used purely for backup.

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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27 Jul 2009
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386
Hello,

I am putting together a NAS from cannibalised parts - AthlonIIx2 240e, 2GB Ram and 4 hard drives (2 laptop ones, a regular SATA one and one with IDE).

All I am going to be doing with the server is backing up all my important documents, once a week.

My only real requirements for the OS:

* Supports Smart
* Allows the Server to be run headless
* Allows the Hard Drives to be pooled and appear as a single disk (JBOD, not RAID0).
* Can be run off a USB drive

What is the best option for this?

Thanks
 
Buffalo2102 said:
Or the usual suspects;
NAS4Free
FreeNAS
OpenMediaVault
Rockstor...
Click to expand...

FreeNAS is a definite no go, as it needs at least 8GB RAM (with ECC preferred)

Mixing and matching old hard drives (IDE and Laptop?) sounds like a terrible idea if this is supposed to be a backup of important data.


If you absolutely have to go down this route, I would use something like Stablebit drivepool, flexraid or unraid, to give you one big pooled drive, whilst still retaining recoverability of NTFS etc.


Personally however, I would pick up a QNAP or Synology NAS (even if you can only afford a single bay version), and a brand new hard drive. You then aren't compromising on reliability, and it will "just work".
 
^^ Xpenology would be high up my list - freeNAS has some positives but also a few areas where it lacks, after that I'd probably just use a light weight UI less debian install and stick a few relevant packages on (though I have enough experience to put something together in webmin to make that a useful option).
 
I highly rate OpenMediaVault.

I've been running it for a couple of years now without any problems.
 
Rroff said:
^^ Xpenology would be high up my list - freeNAS has some positives but also a few areas where it lacks, after that I'd probably just use a light weight UI less debian install and stick a few relevant packages on (though I have enough experience to put something together in webmin to make that a useful option).
Click to expand...

That's what I do and it would be ideal for this. Headless Debian with BTRFS for disk pooling and samba for sharing. Not too friendly if you are a stranger to the linux terminal though. Webmin potentially makes things easier but I'd rather know what's happening "under the hood". :)
 
Armageus said:
FreeNAS is a definite no go, as it needs at least 8GB RAM (with ECC preferred)

Mixing and matching old hard drives (IDE and Laptop?) sounds like a terrible idea if this is supposed to be a backup of important data.


If you absolutely have to go down this route, I would use something like Stablebit drivepool, flexraid or unraid, to give you one big pooled drive, whilst still retaining recoverability of NTFS etc.


Personally however, I would pick up a QNAP or Synology NAS (even if you can only afford a single bay version), and a brand new hard drive. You then aren't compromising on reliability, and it will "just work".
Click to expand...

Really? I'm running it on an old D930 with 4Gb of Ram and 6 x 500Gb Sata drives.
 
Buffalo2102 said:
That's what I do and it would be ideal for this. Headless Debian with BTRFS for disk pooling and samba for sharing. Not too friendly if you are a stranger to the linux terminal though. Webmin potentially makes things easier but I'd rather know what's happening "under the hood". :)
Click to expand...

I use webmin to supplement ssh access rather than replace it - create my own configuration/information pages to automate simple, often used, actions.
 
Haven't checked but there used to be 2 versions - a lite version for older systems (I had it in one case for instance running on a 256MB RAM Celeron 400) as well as the main package.

EDIT: Looks like they maintain just the enterprise version since dropping 32bit support hence the high system requirements.
 
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