I have a bunch of extra computer equipment just sitting around, including computers, hard-drives, etc. Well, I had a lot more before cleaning out our garage recently, but that’s a different story :-). While listening to one of my many podcasts, I heard the mention of a ‘software-based’ NAS that someone could use with old hardware.
Take a look at NASLite from Server Elements. They offer some streamlined distributions which are free to download, as well as paid versions with more features.
Basically, you grab an old computer, even an old 486, stick some hard-drives in it and boot from the floppy. A couple minutes later, after less than a minute of configuration, you have network attached storage. All your drives are now shares on your network, accessible by any other computers. Instant file-server, low maintenance. Beautiful!
#1 by Mahesh Ganapathy on April 24, 2006 - 11:04 am
I would suggest you take a look at FreeNAS (www.freenas.org). Its free and comprehensive. I use it myself (since the last 3 months) and has been excellen but ofcourse I have never used NASLite (merely looked at the site though).