John R Pierce wrote: > Rudi Ahlers wrote: >> Hi all >> >> I want to look at setting up a simple / cheap SAN / NAS server using >> normal PIV motherboard, 2GB (or even more) RAM, Core 2 Duo CPU >> (probably a Intel 6700 / 6750 / 6800) & some SATA HDD's (4 or 6x >> 320GB - 750GB). My budget is limited, so I can't afford a pre-built >> NAS device. >> >> Can this be done with CentOS? I've been looking FreeNAS (which is >> built on FreeBSD), and it look like a great project, but since the >> hardware support in FreeBSD is limit, I'd rather use Linux for it. >> >> Has anyone done this? If so, please share a bit in your experiences :) >> > > you might look at openfiler, too. same idea as opennas, only its > linux based. web management interface, supports NFS and CIFS/SMB > sharing, etc etc. > > > IMHO, a storage server really /should/ have ECC memory to minimize the > potential for data corruption by random memory errors. this, however, > requires a server chipset, as 99% of desktop stuff doesn't support ECC > at all. > > you are, btw, way overspecing the cpu. a storage server would be fine > with a much slower processor than any of those. > > > _______________________________________________ What kind of processing does the NAS server really do? I mean, it won't do actual calculations / DB access / etc, those will all be done by the host OS / server, right? For the price difference, the bigger CPU is a better investment, which could also be reused for something else (xen server?) if this doesn't work out. Unfortunately, the only ECC capable motherboards I can get my hands on will be XEON, which is much more expensive than a normal desktop type motherboard. And the CPU's will cost more. -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers CEO, SoftDux Web: http://www.SoftDux.com Check out my technical blog, http://blog.softdux.com for Linux or other technical stuff, or visit http://www.WebHostingTalk.co.za for Web Hosting stuff