QOTW: Do you use a NAS server at home?

[Euphonium]

One HP Microserver with 5x4Tb HDDs running either FreeNA or NAS4Free, can't remember which.
Three Netgear Storas(two with 2x2Tb, one with 2x1Tb)
One Freecom w. 1x500Gb

The Microserver (JBOD) hold my movie/Tv collection - I love not having to mess with DVD/Blurays every time I want to watch something
One Stora (JBOD) holds my music videos
One Stora (Mirror) holds backups of my photos, documents, pen&paper RPG stuff
The last Stora (JBOD) holds backups of all my software/game insallers and acts as a torrent box when I need one.
The Freecom acts as an extra paranoia backup of the really important stuff.

I don't run any media server software on them. I let my HTPC do the playback itself.

[Spreadie]

RAID1 DAS box live archive and a portable drive as periodic backup I'd like to get a couple more portables and rotate them, but that's way down the list of wants at the moment.

[TaintedShirt]

Not yet. #hint hint#

[Saker]

We have a Synology DS211j with a pair of 2TB drives in, best bit of kit we ever bought. Can access it from wherever, got it doing cross backups with my brother's Synology in the States, used it for making wedding photos available to guests, interacts with other devices nicely (e.g. TV, phones, tablets, oh and PCs) easy to manage and very little maintenance needed. Had it running a Mumble server at one point too.

[whatif]

I used seagate goflex for less than 2 years and went through 2 hard drives before I gave up. They just run way too hot. Ended up spending some money and got a Qnap 469 pro and 4x WD reds. So much better functionality, easy personal cloud, running AC wifi and bluetooth, usb twin tuner TV dongle, Qnap remote, 1x wifi security camera, and a printer off it and use a older (superseded from work so not expensive) external Femitech 5x hdd for extra storage/backups. I do not use raid so I can use all the Qnap's hdds.
Also managed to get cheap deals on enterprise drives (Seagate Constellation ES3 4TB and intel DC S3500 800GB for my PC for storage) to match my Samsung 850 pro 512GB ssd for OS/main programs and PM 851 msata 512GB for games. Multiple backups of every computer we have and relatively reliable storage should keep me covered. (I hope Ha Ha)

[BlueScream]

No, though I continually toy with the idea.

[whatif]

I always thought NASes were for those without the technical experience, as the techies would custom-build their own NAS.

I don't personally own one, but I've always felt they lacked a feature or the power that I needed from one.

I have an i3 2100T with an assortment of disks with Ubuntu that's been running without issue for 3 years now. I run 3 VMs on it, which I feel I can't do with the QNAPs either (due to limitations of the CPUs used).

I have a Qnap 469 Pro with 3 GB ran and have run 3 VM's on it without any problems. Use it to play with programs before actually installing or not.
Have you seen the new range at Qnap and the same thing probably with Synology. Good CPU's (i3 4th generation) and up to 16 GB ram on the 471 model, a lot of PC's out there without this computing power. Also heard on Qnap forums about people running up to 9 VM's on the 469 Pro, but never needed that many myself.
Should have a better look, that is if you are interested. But if yours does the job OK, stick with it and save your money.

[TeaLeaf]

HP microserver + 5 x 3TB HDDs running Nas4Free (the fork from FreeNAS).
Runs as a network share with multiple permission sets to suit the family home, also runs a media server and provides FTP facilities.

[Dooms]

HP microserver + 5 x 3TB HDDs running Nas4Free (the fork from FreeNAS).
Runs as a network share with multiple permission sets to suit the family home, also runs a media server and provides FTP facilities.

Just wondering why Nas4Free over FreeNAS?

[TeaLeaf]

Just wondering why Nas4Free over FreeNAS?

Mainly because it seemed to be the successor to Freenas - I'd never used either before, but Nas4free seemed to be the continuation of the code.

http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php

[shaithis]

Mainly because it seemed to be the successor to Freenas - I'd never used either before, but Nas4free seemed to be the continuation of the code.

Nas4Free is a fork of FreeNAS.....both are being developed independently now.

The bottom line is Nas4Free has a shallower learning curve, while FreeNAS is the most feature-rich and gets the bells and whistles first (if at all).

[TeaLeaf]

Try this comparison too:

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...vs-nas4free/1/

[TeaLeaf]

Nas4Free is a fork of FreeNAS.....both are being developed independently now.

The bottom line is Nas4Free has a shallower learning curve, while FreeNAS is the most feature-rich and gets the bells and whistles first (if at all).

Yep the article agrees with the shallower learning curve, (although I and you stand corrected on the fork, Nas4free is a continuation of the freenas code, not a fork in the proper sense).

[dturtill]

i have a very basic Dlink one for use in making sure every machine updates to one location for all photos and things (got that fed up of having duplicate shared pics)

[jm101]

Yes Synology DS-1513+ with 4GB ram and 5 x 4TB drives. I will slowly upgrade these to bigger drives as space is needed. THis is a great unit that works wonderfully.