Scarecrow Man Posted August 1, 2008 Report Share Posted August 1, 2008 So I've recently decided I want to run a file server at work. We're currently just using a share on another server. This is not the best way to do things, as the server is designed for other tasks (hosting a website at the moment) so sharing files is only bogging it down.I've looked around for some methods to do this in Linux, having a small base of knowledge with it, but wanting to learn more. I found a few tutorials on how to run Ubuntu as a file server for Windows, Mac and Linux clients. All well and good, but then I came across FreeNAS. Hmmm... This looks exactly like what I need!Keep in mind, I have 0 experience with BSD...Let me tell you, setup could not have been easier. I read over the installation PDF just to get an idea of how to run it. I first installed it in a VM environment using Sun's VirtualBox. Installation went quite well and fast, so I decided it was time to throw it into production.Installed and up and running in under 5 minutes. Can't do that with a Windows box. I used the WebGUI for 90% of the config. The only thing I programmed via command was the IP address and gateway/dns information. Unfortunately my SATA Disk Controller is NOT compatible with FreeBSD and therefore not compatible with FreeNAS, as FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD.I plan on installing a PCI card to handle the 2x500GB SATA drives I have installed on this PC, to accompany the 80GB IDE disk giving me just over 1TB of storage space. I am currently setting up FTP, SSH. These are only a few of the features available in FreeNAS. I should mention the cost was minimal. Obviously the OS was free. The disks were cheap on sale, the computer is an old P4 system with 256MB ram (more than enough) so the total cost was under $300 for a 1TB+ file server, configurable via web interface, and setup within minutes.If you, or someone you know is looking for a cheap file server, it's worth your time to have a look at FreeNAS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homecomputeraid Posted August 4, 2008 Report Share Posted August 4, 2008 Very good informaiton ScarecrowMan. I hadn't heard of FreeNAS but it sounds like a good thing to check out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.