> > These aren't centos based - or even all linux, but the software-NAS > players are: > http://www.openfiler.com/ > http://www.freenas.org/ > http://www.nexenta.com/corp/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=4&Itemid=67 > > Or you can just use a generic disto with separate configuration commands > for each protocol. > > -- > Les Mikesell > lesmikesell at gmail.com > > > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > I have, and still do use FreeNAS on my own home-server and I have to say that it works well. But, then again when something goes wrong I reinstall, and restore the backups. The thing is, how will these kind of option perform in a hosting environment where downtime isn't at all an option. We have backup generators, UPS, load balanced networks, etc Even the Tyan / SuperMicro machines that I'm looking at will have redundant power supplies & hard drives. 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. The other thing which I would like to also get to, is that we could do more with a Linux based distro than with a off-the-shelf NAS. For example I could setup storage space for users and build custom applications that could manage it all - for example give a hosting client a reseller account with 1TB space and he could resell that to his clients. And I could go as far as setting up SMB / NFS / iSCSI / rsyn / SSH / FTP / sFTP / podcast / HTTP / etc, i.e. other protocols which a NAS may not necessarily support. And I could even use it as a dedicated web farm if I feel like it, running HTTP & MySQL as well if the server has enough RAM & CPU. Ideally I would like have a highly-redundant storage device which can be used by numerous users, and also host Virtual Machines on it. So IO will be the biggest concern, in terms of speed, with reliability the 2nd biggest concern. I'll run RAID 10 (1+0) for speed & reliability, and use 1TB / 1.5TB RAID edition server grade SATAII hard drives with hardware RAID - although I also think software RAID on a decent CPU could perform better. But the hardware RAID cards have battery backup which gives better reliability. Then I would like to build 2 devices, each syncing with the other one. The other question is, how well will my own Linux / UNIX based NAS perform? Surely these companies who build their own NAS devices spend a lot of time fine-tuning the OS to deliver the best performance, and probably spend a lot of time researching and testing different hardware devices and configurations to see what works best? -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers CEO, SoftDux Hosting Web: http://www.SoftDux.com Office: 087 805 9573 Cell: 082 554 7532