NAS Software

[LaughingHyena]

I am wondering what good NAS software is out there? I know about FreeNAS, but that is about it. Are there any suggestions for the best software to use for a personal use NAS for 1-2 computers?

[LaughingHyena]

I am also aware about UNRAID, but I don't really know the benefits between those two, or if there is one that is better for my use.

[Meganter]

3 minutes ago, LaughingHyena said:

I am wondering what good NAS software is out there? I know about FreeNAS, but that is about it. Are there any suggestions for the best software to use for a personal use NAS for 1-2 computers?

Hello,

 

We use Synology at work but it also work with the browser directly, it's quite decent too.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-global

[LaughingHyena]

Just now, Plouffe said:

Hello,

 

We use Synology at work but it also work with the browser directly, it's quite decent too.

 

https://www.synology.com/en-global

Does Synology work with a custom built NAS, or only with their builds?

[Meganter]

3 minutes ago, LaughingHyena said:

Does Synology work with a custom built NAS, or only with their builds?

I have no idea about that, I didn't set up the NAS myself.

[Meganter]

So I looked at the server and it's a custom one, so I'd say it should work for you too, I have no idea if it's free though but knowing my boss it is

[LaughingHyena]

4 minutes ago, Plouffe said:

So I looked at the server and it's a custom one, so I'd say it should work for you too, I have no idea if it's free though but knowing my boss it is

Haha! From what I have been able to find, it looks like the Synology software is free with synology drive systems, but you can't get it separately.

[Kilrah]

Synology DSM is proprietary for their hardware.

There are somewhat janky unofficial ways to get it to run on SOME custom builds, LTT actually just made a video about that.

[LaughingHyena]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Synology DSM is proprietary for their hardware.

There are somewhat janky unofficial ways to get it to run on SOME custom builds, LTT actually just made a video about that.

I saw that video, and I would like something a little less janky, and more straight-forward, at least setup/install wise. I wish Synology was available for download.

[Jarsky]

42 minutes ago, LaughingHyena said:

Haha! From what I have been able to find, it looks like the Synology software is free with synology drive systems, but you can't get it separately.

 

Synology DSM is for Synology devices. There is an open version called XPEnology which can be used on custom built devices for those that like DSM but it has limited hardware support so you need to check their compatibility list if you go that way. 

 

 

Freenas is a powerful system great for pure storage. Its very scalably from a few disks up to cross-datacenter sized deployments with ZFS synchronization or Gluster.

Its downside is it can be more complex to get your head around, you need to make your investment in disks upfront as expanding is complicated, and being based on FreeBSD it has more limited hardware support than Linux and its built in Virtual Machine system (bhyve) is limited. 

 

Unraid is a good option for smaller cases (can only use 24 devices in an array), but it is easily expandable as its array isnt striped. 

Its downside is its speed due to not having traditional RAID, you are limited to disk speed for Reads (e.g about 150-180MB/s), but its positive is that it has extensive Plugin support, it has very wide hardware support being Linux and it uses QEMU/KVM for Virtual Machines, as well as Docker support. Its an easy choice if you dont need the fastest performance but want to be able to do virtualisation. 

 

Some other NAS specific OS to look at are Rockstor (BTRFS Raid solution), OMV (Uses Linux RAID MDADM which is very robust) and XigmaNAS (Believe this supports ZFS & MD). 

 

There are also several solutions such as OpenZFS, GlusterFS and MDADM which you can run on any distribution of Linux you want as long as you have the proficient knowhow of using the command line in Linux. If you're into running VM's then one of the ultimate boxes you can build is Proxmox VE on Debian, using ZFSonLinux. This gives you a strong virtualization platform with the best software storage solution. This can even be expanded with GlusterFS by doing Gluster on ZFS, which means you can have multiple boxes with ZFS and cluster their storage together. 

 

You can of course also go Windows and use Storage Spaces to create a Windows based fileshare. The advantage of this is that it natively supports NTFS permissions, so easy to configure your security, and security can be configured granulary. 

 

Lastly theres also hardware RAID which is quite affordable these days with controllers such as the LSI 9260-8i being less than $50. You can then have a robust storage solution on hardware controller, and run any Windows or Linux OS you want.