FreeNAS is a free, open-source FreeBSD derivative, and though it can be a little more complex under the hood, it’s as powerful as Windows Home Server and runs well on salvaged hardware.We’ll show you what hardware you’ll need for a FreeNAS server, how to install and configure your server, and then help you choose between FreeNAS and WHS.
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50 Responses
12.4.2009
FreeNAS is great. Works excellent on those old Dells.
12.4.2009
Aw .. see we can play nice with both Microsoft and Apple
12.4.2009
Dugg, because you’re one of the few who clearly understands why running FreeNAS (or anything of the sort) on crufty commodity hardware is an asinine idea….course, when you purpose-build a box (which can be done very cheaply – hi, Intel Atom!) for it, power concerns are pretty damned negligible. Atom, those kooky ‘green’ drives… Nice little Antec PSU, and Bob’s yer Uncle Dick. All the convenience of a PC, none of the headaches of cheap consumer appliances, and stupid low power use compared to that old piece of crap Dell you have laying in your closet that you were thinking of using.Chances are that anything you spend will pay for itself within a year.
Especially if, being a NAS and all, you’ve got it running 24/7.
12.4.2009
Spend less on the machine. FreeNAS doesn’t need much power. Get nicer hard drives and a speedy flash drive for the OS.
12.4.2009
This stuff always seemed downright confusing to me… maybe I’ll have to give this a read!
12.4.2009
who doesn’t need a NASty server, its for pr0n right?
12.4.2009
It’s as free as OTA television signals. The fact that you need to already have or go buy a TV doesn’t change the fact that the signals are free to use. This NAS software will run well on the hardware you already have (and likely have replaced), but you can’t run any software without a computer.I’m trying to believe that your comment was meant as a joke, but even so, it was still not impressive or funny.
12.4.2009
Exactly. I have a nice one I spent approx $500 on the enclosure and 4 nice hard drives and it uses a fraction of the power a full blown computer costs to run 24/7. I also noticed there is no mention of RAID in the article. It’s a big mistake to not include at least a RAID1 config with this. If you are going to be storing lots of data on this you should build in some degree of fault tollerance. When your hard drive fails you will learn the wisdom in such a precaution.
12.4.2009
Free and nasty… that part I understand!
12.4.2009
I bought an old 700mhz Compaq Ipaq for $20 off ebay, and stuck a new HDD in. It sits in the basement doing my nightly backups, and hasn’t been touched for a long time. It’s also nice to be able to download a file remotely when I need it. FreeNAS works very well.
12.4.2009
That funny, just made a video 2 weeks ago on how to build a FreeNAS box toosmartguys.com/how-make-freenas-box
12.4.2009
Installing FreeNAS to a hard drive is a waste. It can boot off a cheap $5-10 USB thumb drive, which means one less HD sucking power and generating noise and heat in your server.
12.4.2009
Okay I got them posted on the site now, Thanks for the reminder
12.4.2009
Cheap != Free
12.4.2009
FreeNAS running SABnzbd, on-the-fly codec conversion & file renaming and a media database to the entire household (including the PS3) via discreet CAT5 & wireless where feasible. Never has been centralized media availability been so convenient! The hardware was all free / salvaged except for the 1TB hard drive: newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 …Fun times.
12.4.2009
huh?
12.4.2009
the kooky green drives suck for raid! they have been know to power down and ***** up the raid image… just some thing to be aware of …
12.4.2009
Assuming he’s doing something to verify the backups, he’s only SOL if BOTH the HDD in his system(s) AND the backup drive die and can’t be recovered. While not bulletproof, I’m betting this is better backup than probably 98% of the people. This is one of those things that even very technically adept people always talk about doing it or the perfect system, but very few actually do.
12.4.2009
I have a *backup* copy of WHS that i made from my original copy which i store in a file cabinet that I call the "internet". It runs great, but now with FreeNAS, I can create another media server with older parts if needed!
12.4.2009
I have tried FreeNAS. It’s not bad. However I prefer Openfiler. It’s a bit more friendly, customizable, based on Linux, and the interface/idea is based on enterprise level solutions.
12.4.2009
I just bought a new WD Caviar "Green" drive to use with my old Powerbook — I made sure that the enclosure I got let’s the drive spin down and I can even use Wake-on-LAN to let it sleep when I’m not using it an wake it up again.
12.4.2009
And old HPs.
12.4.2009
norman619: RAID1, while a mirroring image, sometimes called a backup, is not a backup plan. RAID is specific about this. Fault tolerance as you suggest may help you recover more quickly, but is in no way a replacement for a off site (in the away from the main computer) sense.
12.4.2009
You forgot to place the parts list on the site. (The video said you’d list all the parts bought for this).
12.4.2009
would one be able to stream to a wii?
12.4.2009
If I was going to set this up, I’d use an old laptop with USB drives. Surely I’m not the only one with a few old, slow laptops in the closet. Those don’t require a lot of power.
12.4.2009
Not if it’s a mirror of data on another pc.
12.4.2009
and music
12.4.2009
You probably don’t need high-speed drives unless you have a Gigabit network.
12.4.2009
I’ve got a crappy Dell that I used to run Freenas but now I run Ubuntu server. In the future I plan to build an Intel Atom based machine. In the meantime my crappy Dell, which has not failed me once, shuts down after every backup. I don’t leave it on 24/7 because it doesn’t make sense plus, yeah I know running a crappy Dell doesn’t make sense either.
12.4.2009
I’ve got a computer running that cost <$300 in parts, new, and uses 106W under typical load. It’s not bad, for a dual core system running my home network. Did you know that your monitor probably uses more power than my server?Nobody said the entire system was free, though you do bring up a good point. Power consumption is an all-too-often overlooked cost of ownership in most electronic devices.
12.4.2009
Thats the part that needs to be fixed. If they want linux to go mainstream, they need to make it so that you don’t need a doctorate to use the software.I wanted to use FreeNas in some of my alternative schools for mini servers, and the ability to give rights to files and folders was such a pain, it was unusable.The reason WHS works so well is that even my wife can administer it.One big drawback to the WHS is the limit of 10 users.
12.4.2009
Your Mac said, "hey due want time capsule no worries"? Is LOLspeak a language option on Macs these days?
12.4.2009
I set this up a couple years ago in a server built on about 350 worth of hardware. I put a naked copy of Ubuntu on with Vmware Server. This now hosts the testbeds for my programming but also has the FreeNAS server, another Xubuntu install with torrentflux-b4rt and a customized Youtube clone to stream all my movies over the web using http pseudo streaming. All storage in centralized into FreeNAS. Works like a champ.
12.4.2009
It has that ability, it’s just very tricky to set up correctly. Once you have the users set up and working with SMB shares, then it’s just a matter of setting standard unix user permissions.
12.4.2009
Also consider Nexenta ( nexenta.org) it is free as well and based on SunOS. It is extremely stable and very easy to setup.
12.4.2009
Why couldn’t it mount those partitions the setup creates for you? Why do you have to do it afterwards?
12.4.2009
I have no idea how the Wii handles media since I don’t own one, but if it’s able to retrieve information from a network source, then yes, it’d be viable. It depends on the codecs the Wii supports / streaming transcode features your software has.I use PS3 Media Server, there might be a Wii equivalent: ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/
12.4.2009
You rock! Thanks.
12.4.2009
Does it? My experiences with FreeNAS are that it’s buggy, corrupts data and is generally much more painful to configure than a proper NAS box. Admittedly it’s been a while. Has FreeNAS fixed those kinds of issues?
12.4.2009
You are kidding right? That seems like a waste of time, power, and money. It’s far more efficient to do a RAID1.
12.4.2009
why is he getting dugg down? Are questions looked down upon by digg?
12.4.2009
Its all nice and dandy, but its missing the MOST important thing. The ability to give users rights to individual files and folders. When it has that ability built into it, I will use it. Till then WHS is the way to go. You get what you pay for.
12.4.2009
Network storage always seemed cool, but it’s pretty useless for me tbh
12.4.2009
multimed:You are aware of the fact that many desktop motherboards now support RAID right? There is no longer any excuse for not going with RAID1 for fault tollerance in a setup like this.
12.4.2009
Oh, and still missing single instance storage. Given the article is comparing to Windows Home Server, I’d say that’s a rather severe shortcoming for FreeNAS.
12.4.2009
Charity Digg
This is so wrong. I bought a Netgear MS 220 NAS last week ($249) USD. Hmm, oh it comes with a eco friendly system and oh.. a 1 TB seagate barracuda drive, (room for a 2nd drive in a raid config)oh, you can plug unlimited usb external drives in it even daisy chain them for unlimited storage, oh, windows 7 drivers, oh mac os x snow kitty meow drivers, oh works with iphone, on the net or just local, oh has user, admin, general multi user even item or folder, accesses. $249 frickin dollars with a 1tb drive with my few usb drives (some private, some public it is now a eco friendly 6 TB beasty. Time to set-up 10 minutes out of the boxOn my pc/mac network the mac said hey due want time capsule no worriesI even log in via my iphone to watch mp4 movies or listen to the built in itunes syncing serverNetgear Stora Crushed It !
12.4.2009
LULZ
12.8.2009
If you’re fine with Free as in beer software, you can look at a Nexenta-derived OS, Nexenta Developer Edition which is free as in beer for 4TB of storage
http://www.nexentastor.org/