A NAS soltuion without a NAS pricetag
Ever have a server laying around that is not quite old enough to trash but not quite new enough to use as a production machine. Are you dying to move from direct attached storage into something more flexible and robust? Why not turn that old server into Networked Attached Storage.
I know it sound a bit odd to use a server with direct attached storage into a NAS box. But actually with FreeNAS it’s not only possible its pretty easy to configure. Simply downloas and burn the ISO image and then boot the server. CHoose to install FreeNAS to the Hard Drive (or you can optionally install FreeNAS onto a Flash Drive). FreeNAS users a web based GUI to configure the storage space.
FreeNAS has some really great features including supporting the following protocols:
- SMB/CIFS
- AFP
- NFS
- FTP
- TFTP
- RSYNC
- Unison
- SCP (SSH)
- iSCSI target
Hard Drive/ Volume Management:
- Supports UFS, Ext2/3, FAT and NTFS filesystems
- Software RAID 0,1,5, 1+0, etc.
- Disk encryption
- Supports MBR and GPT Partitions
- iSCSI initiator
Network Features:
- 802.1q vlan tagging
- 802.1q vlan tagging
- Wireless link aggregation
- Wake On Lan
FreeNAS also includes services such as UPNP, Network bandwidth measure, Web Server, BitTorrent and DAAP server.
The FreeNAS is a great way to create a budget NAS for your business or home. As I looked at this product I thought about haow many times I came across a situation where the department I was working with might have been to small to justify a full-blown NAS or SAN solution but could have benefitted from a product like FreeNAS.
FreeNAS provides you many of the features needed in a NAS solution without the pricetag usually attached. Try FreeNAS today, I guarantee you’ll be sold.
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