[CentOS] using Linux as a NAS / SAN device

[Rudi Ahlers]

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Les Mikesell<lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>>
>>>> But the one piece of of the puzzle that I don't understand, will a
>>>> self-build-Linux NAS device, or even Openfiler / FreeNAS give us that
>>>> kind of uptime.
>>> High quality servers running an enterprise linux version can give you
>>> the same uptime as dedicated hardware if you are comfortable with not
>>> doing updates.  For example I still have a RH 7.3 based box running that
>>> has only been down a few minutes in about 7 years (had to move it) but I
>>> wouldn't try that with anything exposed to the internet.  I did replace
>>> several drives and rebuild the raids over that time - and it is probably
>>> about to die of old age soon.
>>>
>>
>> But surely CentOS, or other free / non-enterprise linux's can do the
>> same? I've seen NAS devices running Debian, so CentOS should be able
>> to deliver the same performance / reliability ?
>
> Sure, CentOS is as good as it gets.  I was just using my oldest still-running
> system as an example - and it is well firewalled so I haven't been forced to
> upgrade it for security reasons. You just need to stick to distributions that
> emphasize stability and in most situations you'll want some scheduled downtime
> to do updates that might require reboots.  But even dedicated hardware will
> sometimes have required updates.
>
> --
>   Les Mikesell
>    lesmikesell at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________



Thanx for all the input, it has helped me a lot. Now I just need to
convince my partner to use a Linux based NAS :)

Openfiler has also been doing quite well for me, as well as FreeNAS,
so it's a tough choice - both of these run out of the box what I need,
but with my own NAS device, I could run a few other things (Apache +
PHP + MySQL) as well.


-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
CEO, SoftDux Hosting
Web: http://www.SoftDux.com
Office: 087 805 9573
Cell: 082 554 7532