Interesting project, I plan to set up one of these next month :-)) FreeNAS: The Free NAS Server What is FreeNAS ? FreeNAS is a small (less than 16Mo) Operating System based on FreeBSD 6 that provide Free Network-Attached Storage services (CIFS, FTP and NFS). What is NAS ? NAS here mean Network-Attached Storage (it's not the same than a Network Access Server). >From the Wikipedia, here is the NAS definition: Network-attached storage (NAS) systems are generally computing-storage devices that can be accessed over a computer network, rather than directly being connected to the computer (via a computer bus). This enables multiple system to share the same storage space at once, and often minimizes overhead by centrally managing hard disks. NAS systems usually contain one or more hard disks, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID arrays. Because NAS devices enabled utilised logical file system storage in local area network, the performance of NAS devices heavily dependent on NAS devices cache memory and network interface overhead. The protocol used with NAS is a file based protocol such as Network File System (NFS) or Microsoft's Common Internet File System (CIFS). NAS was developed to address problems with direct attached storage, which included the effort required to administer and maintain "server farms", and the lack of scalability, reliability, availability, and performance. They can deliver significant ease of use, provide heterogeneous data sharing and enable organizations to automate and simplify their data management. Details at, http://www.freenas.org/ taharka Lexington, Kentucky U.S.A.
