What kind of file server are you using?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Attila Seress on April 1, 2009 at 9:28pm

You should really have a look at the netgear ready nas server. I know it supports 1.5tb raid-1, hot swap, usb backup and includes real-time sync software so files changed on workstations are updated on the server (and keeps a version history).

I've installed a couple of them and it really is a well thought out product. Highly endorsed..... and it's cheap. They're even stocked at Best Buy.

Hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by Paul Graydon on April 1, 2009 at 10:08pm

Something else to consider, if you have the skill set. You might want to try an Open Solaris, ZFS formatted, NFS or CIFS based solution.
ZFS has lots of extremely good features built in deep that will provide a lot more data protection than RAID solutions can, and will be able to warn you in advance of hardware failures or quirks.

I'll try and find a few more professional examples, but there is what looks to be a reasonable homebrew HOWTO here:

http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/

Wiki page on ZFS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS

Permalink Reply by Mika Leuck on April 2, 2009 at 6:32pm

Thank you for the good suggestions, Brian, Attila and Paul!

Brian,
The article “disk failure rates in the real word from CMU” seems interesting. I will check it out. I read about FreeNAS and OpenFiler. I really like FreeNAS, never tried OpenFiler… :) I will play around with OpenFiler sometime soon.
We are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!


Attila,
It seems that Netgear is popular for small to medium size businesses. How about Permission control? Does it have good features?


Paul,
ZFS looks good for backups. I’ve wanted to try it for a long time but we don’t have any Solaris boxes. I know it now runs on some other OSes. I will try it when I get an extra server. :)

Permalink Reply by Attila Seress on April 3, 2009 at 7:43am

Mika Leuck said:

Thank you for the good suggestions, Brian, Attila and Paul!

Brian,
The article “disk failure rates in the real word from CMU” seems interesting. I will check it out. I read about FreeNAS and OpenFiler. I really like FreeNAS, never tried OpenFiler… :) I will play around with OpenFiler sometime soon.
We are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!


Attila,
It seems that Netgear is popular for small to medium size businesses. How about Permission control? Does it have good features?


Paul,
ZFS looks good for backups. I’ve wanted to try it for a long time but we don’t have any Solaris boxes. I know it now runs on some other OSes. I will try it when I get an extra server. :)

Yeah, it has prety good permission management and has active directory integration. Check out their data sheet at http://www.netgear.com/upload/product/rndp6000/readynaspro_comparis...

Permalink Reply by Attila Seress on April 3, 2009 at 7:48am

I've installed the duo version which doesn't ave AD support but it looks like the pro one does - it's in that datasheet from my last post.

At close to $2k it may be more than what you wanted to spend so if you can live without the AD integration you can revisit the duo model and get one for a lot less.

Hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by Dwight Victor on April 17, 2009 at 11:05pm

You can use OpenSolaris to try ZFS on x86 hardware. There's even an option to try ZFS on an online system, but you need a Sun Connection account.

Mika Leuck said:

Paul, ZFS looks good for backups. I’ve wanted to try it for a long time but we don’t have any Solaris boxes. I know it now runs on some other OSes. I will try it when I get an extra server. :)

Permalink Reply by Dmitry Yusupov on April 20, 2009 at 2:37pm

I would recommend to take a look on more enterprise oriented software which we developing - http://www.nexenta.com. Try trial edition here: http://www.nexenta.com/products. Or use Developer Edition, which is free up to 1TB of storage.

Permalink Reply by John Sydney Yamane on July 16, 2011 at 2:07am

Samba with Linux/FreeBSD system and build your own linux NAS is low cost and easy.   Best of Breed for corporate is Windows 2003 or Windows 2008.  Enterprise versions are best if you are a service provider.  It manages DNS, WEB (IIS), MAIL(exchange), SQL(i use MySQL pc) and allows easy to use Windows.

 

I am a more FreeBSD admin 1st and then 2nd, Windows 2003R2 Enterprise Edition fan than any other system.   HP, Seagate, IOmega, Netgear, even WD has great NAS systems, so easy and super fast in a Gig LAN.   But I use DELL systems and Microsoft 2008 servers nowadays, as my all around choice for first and upgraded servers.  I believe in easy of use to the owner.  

 

 

Permalink Reply by Dwight Victor on March 7, 2015 at 6:14pm

how about FreeNAS?