Just to go out on a limb and suggest something to think about. I investigated some NAS solutions, but found them kind of expensive. I wanted to go dirt-cheap, yet have the power to run "real" server software. With a little scrounging around, I came up with enough parts to build a bare-bones box (750Mhz PIII, 256MB RAM) for less than $20. In this I put an old spare 8.5GB hard drive to hold an OS, and a 200GB Seagate that I just picked up at a CompUSA "Midnight Madness" sale for $29.95 (after rebates) for data storage.
My initial plan was to just install FreeNAS (www.freenas.org). This free Linux-based software lets you turn any modest PC box into a completely effective NAS storage device. I had zero Linux experience, but doing this actually turned out to be much easier than expected and worked like a charm. So in one evening's project I now had my cheap NAS. But I still had the issue of not being able to run the Slimserver on it. So I decided to abandon FreeNAS and try a full Linux distribution. After a little research I chose SuSE Linux 10 (www.opensuse.org), and have not regretted that decision. This distribution contains the Samba server which permits you to share drives on the Linux box with your Windows machines. Furthermore, since this is a "real" Linux distribution, you can run the Linux version of Slimserver on it--which, strangely, seems more responsive on this lowly machine than on my 2.6Ghz Windows XP box! Once the SuSE box is attached to the network, you don't need a keyboard, monitor, or mouse for it at all. In fact, you can put in a closet if you want. Just install the FreeNX thin client server software (freenx.berlios.de) to the Linux box and Windows client (www.nomachine.com) to your Windows machine. This will enable you to do remote management on your Windows machine (similar to remote desktop, but better). You can stop at this point and run this thing as a full-blown 24-hour availability LAN and Internet music server, but I went ahead and setup a few more things. First, I attached a printer and turned on print services. Magically, I now had a print server. I also installed Webmin (www.webmin.com) to remotely manage and configure the server over the web. This software is very cool if only for the feature that permits you to reboot the machine from anywhere you can access the Internet. Finally, I installed MondoRescue (www.mondorescue.org), a remarkable backup solution that supports writing bootable restore disks directly to CD/DVD/RW and/or iso images. Oh, and did I say that all of this software is free? It is. And did I say that it was easy to setup? Well, I can honestly say that setting up FreeNAS was, but setting up SuSE and all the other stuff was a definite challenge. Especially for a Linux novice like me. But it is now two weeks later and everything works perfect and is highly stable. Can I say it was worth it? Yup. ...and cheap. Dave -- Gildahl ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gildahl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4102 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22820 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
