NAS OS, which one?

nzstubbies · February 1, 2015

I am replacing my NAS as my old one kinda burnt out and im stuck trying to decide what OS to put on my new NAS.

With the old one i was using windows home sever and i would just map the network drive and then copy over all my music,videos and game files once a week to it.

Is there a better OS to use in order to do this?

I dont want to manage a lot of settings, i just want to set it up put on top of some draws and leave it alone.

Ssoele · February 1, 2015

I've been using Windows Server 2012R2, it has some improvements over WHS as that one was based off 2008R2.

You could also just go and install FreeNAS, it's fairly easy to use and is of course free.

nzstubbies · February 1, 2015

I've been using Windows Server 2012R2, it has some improvements over WHS as that one was based off 2008R2.

You could also just go and install FreeNAS, it's fairly easy to use and is of course free.

yeah i was thinking freenas but when i was reading up on it it said i needed 8gb of ram to operate and im 2gbs in

BuntzenB · February 1, 2015

yeah i was thinking freenas but when i was reading up on it it said i needed 8gb of ram to operate and im 2gbs in

Nah you really only need that if you are using a ZFS fileshare. I had a freenas with only 2 gigs of RAM and 3 gigs storage and it worked really well.

I highly recommend freenas if you want a NAS. Lots of option of file shares and its fast, barely uses power and yet is powerful. Many other benefits also.