I’ve been in the market for a NAS ever since Steve Jobs revealed Time Machine this past January. Since my MacBook is my main machine, I’ve been discouraged from using external hard drives, making backups difficult. Using a NAS would lift that barrier by making external storage available anywhere over my network.
After determining store bought NAS devices were too expensive or underpowered, this weekend I decided to give FreeNAS a try. FreeNAS is an open-source FreeBSD distro which can be installed on almost any PC. I’m quite impressed with FreeNAS as it supports CIFS (Samba), FTP, AFP (WebDAV), RSYNC, S.M.A.R.T., and Software RAID among other functionality.
Installation
Installation of FreeNAS could not have been simpler. I burned the installation disc, booted from it, selected the install option, and rebooted several seconds later. After that, I just needed to assigned an IP address before I could access the easy to use web interface. I’m going to go out on a limb and say FreeNAS was easier to install than some software applications.
Once everything was setup, I began adding my storage devices. I’m currently using a 20GB IDE drive, a 60GB external USB drive, and a 80GB external USB drive. Down the road I plan on adding a 500GB SATA drive, but I’m holding back until I have the need for the storage.
After adding the drives, I used FreeNAS’ interface to mount them, and I was done. I could begin enjoying my storage devices from anywhere on my network.
Setup Your Own Box
If you’re looking for a NAS device and you have a spare computer around, I would definitely recommend checking out FreeNAS. The installation is simple, the interface is simple, and it supports a wide variety of connection protocols. Not to mention you can’t beat its price of free. Take a weekend and setup your box; trust me, you’ll love it.
3 Comments
We’re building a mini file server for up to 5 harddrives just to solve these kind of things. Then of course, it’s not only for FreeNAS, but it’s ideal for it!
Follow the project here:
http://www.myuninstalledlife.com/category/other/mini-fileserver/
Are you using external USB 2.0 hard drives with FreeNas?
Not sure WebDAV and AFP are the same protocol. I’ve got a FreeNAS box (0.69b1) and it can’t do WebDAV. It does AFP like a champ, though. Hope this helps. -Matt
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