[TriLUG] Any NAS recommendations: Linux & Windows in harmony

[Jason Tower]

i use NAS all the time, with all kinds of clients.  however, i don't buy 
pre-made NAS devices, i just roll my own using a PC, large hard drives, 
and linux.  inexpensive, fully serviceable, fast, powerful, flexible, 
and (relatively) easy to administer.

for example, one of my clients has a linux server essentially operating 
as a NAS device.  it uses samba, netatalk, and nfs to let PCs, macs, 
and linux hosts all access and share the same files and directories.  
three client OSes, three protocols, one server.

logically grouping seperate NAS devices is probably gonna be a little 
tricky without some kind of global file system, i'm not going to touch 
that here.  however using LVM you can add disks to an existing linux 
NAS device to quickly and easily to increase your capacity.  just make 
sure you use LVM on top of RAID (either hardware or software) unless 
you're feeling mighty lucky.

if you're interested, i'll be happy to build you something :-)

jason

On Saturday 17 July 2004 13:02, Glen Ford wrote:
> Anyone on the list have any practical experiences with using NAS with
> Linux and Widows clients?
> I have been reading vendor write-ups  and am now looking for someone
> real life experiences with buying/installing/administering.... NAS
> for a Linux/Windoz environment.
> Also is there a way to logically group NAS units?  Say I have 3 units
> @ 1TB each; Can I logically group these to create a mount point that
> has 3TB?
>
>
> Thanks,
> /glen