Home DIY NAS box

MarkW7 · 10 Apr 2010 at 02:47

Hey,

I am looking into building a home NAS box.

I have already tried FreeNAS but couldn't get it to work, it was temperamental at boot and when it did, it wouldn't install to harddrive.

So, i'm after an alternative - I'll be using a 40GB IDE drive to have the NAS distro on and a 1TB SATA to hold my actual files.

The system will be used as a backup every few weeks, it needs to be accessible in Windows and Linux.

Also a print server function would be nice.

I have Linux experience so that isn't a problem.

Any ideas / past experience?

Mark.

zetec452 · 10 Apr 2010 at 03:45

What couldn't you get working with FreeNAS? It is probably one of the easiest systems to install and run in the world.

tntcoder · 10 Apr 2010 at 09:30

I would just use Debian or Arch Linux, install & configure Samba for the file sharing, maybe SFTP or Rsync for your backups and CUPS for the print server. Job done

Roland0 · 10 Apr 2010 at 11:07

A vote for debian (or mebbe ubuntu server) here, you can install webmin to perfom remote admin with a web based gui. The FreeNas gui isn't much more advanced than webmin really, and there isn't too much setting up with samba etc.

KIA · 10 Apr 2010 at 13:53

Debian. Don't bother using a WebUI - you won't learn anything. Stick to CLI and enjoy.

MarkW7 · 10 Apr 2010 at 15:04

The thing with gonig a debian route, is there documentation on how to get everything working?

FreeNAS was very temperamental, sometimes it hung on boot, and when it did boot it wouldn't install.

Isn't there other distro build just for a NAS?

CaptainCrash · 10 Apr 2010 at 15:32

I can't see why FreeNAS would be "temperamental", unless it just doesn't like your hardware for some reason.

There are other alternatives, eg Openfiler, ClarkConnect, NASlite (not free), but apart from (debatably) ease of installation, IMO they don't really offer anything over a standard server distro, which can be as minimalist or as fully-featured as you care to make it.

I guess it depends what you're most familiar with, but personally I'd go with Debian or Ubuntu server, which is pretty simple to set up as a basic file/print server, especially if you already have Linux experience as suggested in your OP. As for documentation, well, yes, there's loads...