Best operating system

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pbls

n00b
Joined
Apr 25, 2007
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37
Hi theres,
Can anyone please advise me for a OS to build a file server ??
The hardware would be some 1TB WD,Asus board with vga on board and 4 sata ports,2GB of ram and everything wraped in a Nox Coolbay.
It mainly serve as file server,stream Full HD and photos/Music/docs back up,probably using Syncback.
 
slackware was fun, back in the day
today its gentoo, cant imagine my work with servers without emerge
 
Linux - Ubuntu (its come a long way...almost there i think)
Windows - 7 (honestly, it really is working well)
 
What type of files and usage pattern is expected? Video, audio? Documents? Streaming to multiple devices at once? If so what devices, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, other set top device? possibly a networked receiver that can access the file server? Solely other PC's?

Knowing the usage should help people make a better recommendation as to OS based on what software is available on the different platforms.

That said, I wouldn't use slackware although it used to be my OS of choice. It's still quite stable, but the usability hasn't improved much and if you are not familiar with *NIX there will be a steep learning curve. That said if you want control over everything Slackware or Gentoo is probably the way to go. Otherwise Ubuntu is quite popular these days.
 
StormUP said:
What type of files and usage pattern is expected? Video, audio? Documents? Streaming to multiple devices at once? If so what devices, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, other set top device? possibly a networked receiver that can access the file server? Solely other PC's?

Knowing the usage should help people make a better recommendation as to OS based on what software is available on the different platforms.

That said, I wouldn't use slackware although it used to be my OS of choice. It's still quite stable, but the usability hasn't improved much and if you are not familiar with *NIX there will be a steep learning curve. That said if you want control over everything Slackware or Gentoo is probably the way to go. Otherwise Ubuntu is quite popular these days.
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As i said it´s to back up files (Docs,Music and photos),store my HD collection
and stream it only to my pc, occasionaly my wife pc by wireless N, and install a Bittorrent client.I thing i prefer Windows because i´m not not famliar with Linux.
 
pbls said:
I thing i prefer Windows because i´m not not famliar with Linux.
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I would encourage you to at least give it a shot, your not really out anything if you decide it is just too complicated. Setting up a samba share on any recent distro only takes about 30 seconds.

Download Fedora 11 or Ubuntu 9.04 and people here will help, it is very easy.
 
+1 for FreeNAS, at least try it out and see if it works ok on your hardware. Its not hard to set up at all. Otherwise WHS or the desktop OS of your choice.
 
Windows Home Server hands down. I just love the easy remote access, add-in capability, automated backups, and easy recovery in case of failure (like folder duplication and the fact that the drives are standard NTFS).
 
Ubuntu for linux if your new to it. (worthwhile switch which offers many benefits for the capable)
Otherwise, WHS
 
FreeBSD + ZFS. Nothing can touch it except perhaps Solaris/OpenSolaris + ZFS.
 
If you dont have any previous experience with any of the linux stuff, I wouldnt bother. Too much to learn just so I can listen to my music in my living room from a pc in the bedroom ;) I wouldnt even waste time or a CD to "try it". WHS is the perfect solution for you.
 
jay2472000 said:
I wouldnt even waste time or a CD to "try it". WHS is the perfect solution for you.
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A blank CD doesn't cost $100.

FreeNAS is great for a simple fileserver, he might as well try it. If you can follow simple written directions you can set up FreeNAS.
 
Its not so much the money, as the time. ANd then the learning curve, and then you have to learn to troubleshoot, etc. Trust me, if all you want to do is share some folders easily, WHS is awesome. About 3 years ago I was so fed up with Microsoft I DL'ed about 6 Linux distros to try. Well, Im still working on MS based PC's. Not so much because I love the OS but more because if it screws up, I can fix it. Im typing this on an Ubuntu machine right now, Im not totally against other OS' but feel for this persons needs WHS would be best.
 
jay2472000 said:
Its not so much the money, as the time. ANd then the learning curve, and then you have to learn to troubleshoot, etc. Trust me, if all you want to do is share some folders easily, WHS is awesome. About 3 years ago I was so fed up with Microsoft I DL'ed about 6 Linux distros to try. Well, Im still working on MS based PC's. Not so much because I love the OS but more because if it screws up, I can fix it. Im typing this on an Ubuntu machine right now, Im not totally against other OS' but feel for this persons needs WHS would be best.
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That's the nice thing about freeNAS, you install it, login from another machine, mount and format the drives/RAID, turn on Samba, and you're pretty much done.

There are some things you can tweak and other features (FTP and such) you can use if you want to, but overall its simple and there's very little configuring to do.
 
It depends what you're using it for. WHS is best for fire and forget servers for home use. For more actively administered servers, FreeBSD is king, and likely will always be. The fact is that Linux just flat out sucks from every technical measure out there, from performance through security. There's a reason many, many routers, firewalls, and storage systems have been or still are FreeBSD based.
 
AreEss said:
The fact is that Linux just flat out sucks from every technical measure out there, from performance through security.
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The ignorance here is staggering! Let's keep personal hatred out of the conversation...
 
ive been digging in the net for this matter and i think i´ll try Freenas,but i have a doubt,do i have to fomat the drives i have on my dlink dns323 to install them on my file server with freenas?
 
longblock454 said:
The ignorance here is staggering! Let's keep personal hatred out of the conversation...
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And how many years of experience do you have on Linux? How much knowledge of kernel programming do you have? How many systems, environments, and applications have you tested?
Let's put it more simply; in the past 60 days, 4 exploits that allow user to root or kernel privilege escalation have been posted on milw0rm, all of which still exist in the kernel. Last I looked, Intel i825xx and i824xx ethernet still had TCP Checksum Offload disabled because of pointer errors due to kernel bugs dating back to 2.0 that resulted in a checksum error rate exceeding 90% with it enabled.

Maybe before accusing someone of being ridiculous, you should spend a decade actually working in-depth with what they're talking about.
 
pbls said:
ive been digging in the net for this matter and i think i´ll try Freenas,but i have a doubt,do i have to fomat the drives i have on my dlink dns323 to install them on my file server with freenas?
Click to expand...

You need to format any disks being installed into a FreeNAS server, so yes, they would lose any data on them. But that's also true of WHS or any other solution.
 
AreEss said:
And how many years of experience do you have on Linux? How much knowledge of kernel programming do you have? How many systems, environments, and applications have you tested?
Let's put it more simply; in the past 60 days, 4 exploits that allow user to root or kernel privilege escalation have been posted on milw0rm, all of which still exist in the kernel. Last I looked, Intel i825xx and i824xx ethernet still had TCP Checksum Offload disabled because of pointer errors due to kernel bugs dating back to 2.0 that resulted in a checksum error rate exceeding 90% with it enabled.

Maybe before accusing someone of being ridiculous, you should spend a decade actually working in-depth with what they're talking about.
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Since 2000. Your comment was as ridiculous as saying the earth is flat, end of discussion, take your hatred elsewhere.
 
longblock454 said:
Since 2000. Your comment was as ridiculous as saying the earth is flat, end of discussion, take your hatred elsewhere.
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Yeah. Except I backed it up with facts. Oh, and I've been working with Linux since 1994 including kernel internals since 1996. Just as a point of interest.
 
well guys this is (my) a post to decide what OS to use and not who is the Pro on SO,so back on topic,if my drives are almost full do i need to reformat,were the heck do i back up 2TB :eek:,
by the way the drives are in ext2,a file system that´s recognisable by freenas.if i have to format i´ll go to a xp or server 2003 .

PS: i want to install FreeNas on a compact flash drive and add the 2TB
 
pbls said:
well guys this is (my) a post to decide what OS to use and not who is the Pro on SO,so back on topic,if my drives are almost full do i need to reformat,were the heck do i back up 2TB :eek:,
by the way the drives are in ext2,a file system that´s recognisable by freenas.if i have to format i´ll go to a xp or server 2003 .

PS: i want to install FreeNas on a compact flash drive and add the 2TB
Click to expand...

External drives from OfficeMax or the like? That's about the best option for that much data.

Really, any setup is going to require a reformat, even if it doesn't immediately. Remember that these systems are designed for a purpose, and prefer if not need the correct file system. Plus most other systems are just flat incompatible one way or another. Some store your files as BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects) in a database, some encrypt them, some compress them, some do software striping, etcetera.

As for putting it on a CF drive and adding the 2TB of disk, that definitely shouldn't be a problem at all. Just make sure to observe the various notes on CF installation, and you'll be good. (Also watch for boards that share the CF with the IDE or SATA channel. That will prevent you from using the shared channel.)
 
pbls said:
well guys this is (my) a post to decide what OS to use and not who is the Pro on SO,so back on topic,if my drives are almost full do i need to reformat,were the heck do i back up 2TB :eek:,
by the way the drives are in ext2,a file system that´s recognisable by freenas.if i have to format i´ll go to a xp or server 2003 .
Click to expand...

You can add drives with data on them without formatting them. Check out the FreeNAS quick start guide and documentation here.
 
pbls said:
well guys this is (my) a post to decide what OS to use and not who is the Pro on SO,so back on topic,if my drives are almost full do i need to reformat,were the heck do i back up 2TB :eek:,
by the way the drives are in ext2,a file system that´s recognisable by freenas.if i have to format i´ll go to a xp or server 2003 .

PS: i want to install FreeNas on a compact flash drive and add the 2TB
Click to expand...

FreeNAS supports UFS, FAT32, NTFS, and ext2. Its best to use UFS if possible since its the native file system and gets the best performance, but ext2 should work fine.

The documentation walks you through adding disks.
 
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