[geeks] NAS storage opinions and bitching wanted

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

I'm going to get a file server running soon.

I can either build one of my own, or I can get a NAS box.

Sun or other UNIX equipment is out of the question due to costs.

The NAS boxes all seem to come with a user interface that hids the
guts of user management, access control, permissions, etc. You set
permissions and it handles dealing with SMB, FTP, NFS, etc and
keeping it all in sync.

If I build my own server, is there any software like that I could get to
run on it? ...preferrably for NetBSD or FreeBSD? If I can avoid the work
of doing it myself, that would be nice. Not necessary, but very nice.

That out of the way...

I'm interesting in opinions of the various small NAS machines.  I really
can't spend over $500 no matter what I get.

Here are the requirements:

	- at least two internal drives with RAID 1
	- at least 500GB
	- the ability to serve files from two external USB drives
	- a print server would be a nice bonus
	- needs to serve NFS, SMB at a minimum, ftp, svn, rsync would
	  also be nice
	- would be nice if it could initiate rsync backups to client
	  machines, which implies ssh support and rsync

The last requirements almost makes it look like a PC server is a
requirement, but I'm open to knowledge of NAS boxes that can have
those features added.

What I've found so far:

Iomega makes a 4-drive RAID5 box running Linux that appears to do what I
want. I know zip about them. They also have units that run Windows 2003,
and I want to avoid those.  Anyone run a 150D or anything like that?

D-Link DSC-323. Two drives, two USB ports, and seems to have a bit of a
cult following with hacks to its Linux based system. Doesn't seem to be
able to run cron jobs or rsnapshot. Only two USB ports.  

Hammer: this is another two-drive unit that supports more network
filesystems out of the box than the D-Link.  I know one person who has
one that likes it.

So far most of the rest that I see either doesn't meet my requirements,
or they start getting really expensive.

Building the PC server would probably cost more, but would of course be
more flexible.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any war stories or reviews of what you guys are
using in this area.





-- 
shannon           | An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto 
                  | one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth.