Build a NAS Device

7/26/2019 Build a NAS Device

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/build-a-nas-device 1/5

Search... SmallBusinessComputing.com

New s Networking Hardware Softw are Buyers' Guide Marketing Basics In-Depth About Videos Products Forums Tech Terms

October 08, 2010 Small Business Hot Topics:

SmallBusinessComputing Hardware & Equipment Read More in Hardware & Equipment »

Looking for a reliable printer? The HP LaserJet MFP also copies, s cans, andfaxes . Click here to learn more.

Post a comme nt

Email Article

Print Article

Build a NAS Device With an Old PC and Free

SoftwareIf you've ever considered purchasing a NAS (short for network-attached storage)

device to add storage to your home or small office network, you may have balked

due to the relatively high prices they can command. If you don't have hundreds of

dollars to spare on a commercial NAS product, but you do have an old or unused

PC lying around, you might consider pressing it into service as a NAS device.

If you have the time and are comfortable with basic network technology, one way to convert that spare

PC into a NAS server is with a free utility called FreeNAS. Like many commercial NAS products,

FreeNAS is built atop FreeBSD (a compact Unix-based operating system). FreeNAS offers pretty much

all the features common in a ready-made NAS device and then some, but best of all, it can run on pretty

modest hardware — the main requirements are a system with a minimum of 96 MB of RAM, a bootable

CD/DVD drive, and, of course, at least one hard drive (external USB drives are also supported).

There are a few versions of FreeNAS available, but here we'll focus on the basic setup of the LiveCD

version. The nice thing about this version is that you don't need to permanently install it onto your

system. Instead, you can boot FreeNAS directly off of a CD or DVD — it will run from a RAM drive

(using only around 32 MB of memory) and can save its configuration data to either a USB Flash drive or

even an old-school floppy disk.

To get FreeNAS, go here and download the most recent version listed under FreeNAS ISO (as of this

writing, it was version 0.686b2, dated 11-18-2007). After you've downloaded the approximately 44 MB

file, you'll need to c reate a bootable CD from the ISO image file (as opposed to simply burning the file to

a disc). Windows built-in burning tools won't do this for you, but pretty much any commercial burning

software such as Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Easy Media Creator will. (If you need it, ISO Recorder is

a free utility that works with XP and Vista — you'll find it here.

Before loading FreeNAS, make sure your system's set to boot directly

from its CD or DVD drive. You can do that from the system BIOS,

which you can access by pressing a key when prompted — usually

F2 or Del — right after powering up the system. The exact menu

options will vary slightly by system or BIOS vendor, but you're looking

for settings that refer to boot order; when you find them, make sure

that CD/DVD or optical drive is listed as the first boot device. (If you

have any external drives you want to use with your FreeNAS system,

you can either connect them now or wait until later.)

Installation and Network Configuration

After you've configured the system's boot order, insert a blank formatted floppy disk (or connect a Flash

drive), insert the FreeNAS CD and then reboot your system. FreeNAS will start loading and eventually

display a boot menu on a 5-second timer. Leave the default option selected, and within a few seconds a

splash page will appear. After a few more moments there will be high-pitched beep, which means

Free Newsletters : Small Business Tech Daily

Developing a Storage Backup StrategyeBook: With storage requirements moving into the tera-,

peta- and exabyte ranges, companies need to refine their backup strategies to ensure availability of their grow ing

data stores. >>

Deduplication with Symantec Backup Exec 2010The Deduplication Option in Symantec Backup Exec 2010

enables several capabilities that can greatly benefit Administrators looking to control storage grow th. There

are three different methods of deduplication that areavailable w ith the Deduplication Option. >>

Small & Mid-size Business Protection GuideTo close their protection gaps, small and midsize

businesses need reliable, comprehensive pro tection that

have compatibility designed in; are sized r ight; are easy

to install, configure, and use; and come from a source

they can trust. >>

Developers Solutions eBook Library Webopedia Login Register

January 4, 2008

By Joseph Moran

Send Email »

More Articles »

Most Popular Stories

IT Professionals

Windows Microsoft Accounting Social Net

1 Top 10 Social Media Tips for Small Business

Marketing

2 What's a MAC Address , and How Do You Find It?

3 Inkjet Versus Laser Printers

4 Build a NAS Device With an Old PC and Free

Software

5 Windows Wireless Zero Configuration: Five Steps to

Sanity

Share Articles

Today This Week All-T ime

08/10/2010 Build a NAS Device With an Old PC an…

smallbusinesscomputing.com/…/Build… 1/5



Demystifying a Small

Business Network

Store, Secure and

Synchronize Data with

Seagate

Get the Most From Your

USB WLAN Adapter

FreeNAS is loaded and ready to configure.

After you hear that beep, press ESC to gain access to the Console setup menu. Select option 2, Set

LAN IP address, and you'll be prompted about using DHCP for IPv4 and then AutoConfiguration for IPv6.

Choose Y in both cases, and after a moment FreeNAS will display the addresses that have been

assigned for each. The IPv6 address isn't really important, unless you're running IPv6, but take note of

the address listed for IPv4 — this is the address you'll use to access and configure your FreeNAS

system.

You can test FreeNAS's network connectivity by returning to the setup menu and then selecting option

5, Ping host. Enter the address of your router, and if you get responses, you'll know your NAS

system's link is up. If so, point your browser to the FreeNAS system's IP address, enter admin as the

username and freenas as the password, and you'll be granted access to the configuration screen.

Preparing Disks and Creating Shares

There are three basic steps to preparing a disk for use with FreeNAS:

identifying it, formatting it and mounting it. Start by going to the Disks

menu, selecting Management, and clicking the plus sign button.

From the Disk pull-down menu — which will list all disks connected to

the system) select one that you want to use, click the Add button and

then click Apply changes.

Now go to Disks|Format, select the disk you just added, and click the

Format Disk button. (As you'll be warned, this will erase the contents

of the disk.) Then go to Disks|Mount Point, click the plus button,

specify the drive, type a volume name into the Name field, then click

Add. Again, Finally, click the Add Changes when it appears.

Now we need to activate file services and set up a share. Head over to the Services menu and choose

CIFS /SMB (this is the protocol used by Windows Networking, a.k.a. Network Neighborhood/Places).

Put a check in the Enable box in the upper right and give your server a name in the NetBIOSName

field. (You can also change the Workgroup name from the default of WORKGROUP if you use

something else.)

Click the Save and Restart button, and then return to the top of the page and click the Shares tab. To

create a share, click the plus button, enter a share name and description into the Name and Comment

fields, respectively, then point to your newly c reated volume in the Path field (you can use the ellipse

button to browse for it). Click Add and then Apply changes, and you're done. You can make sure your

FreeNAS share is visible from an Windows system by or browsing for it within Network Places. (If your

system has a software firewall and you can't reach the FreeNAS system, you may need to configure it

to allow Windows File and Printer Sharing.)

Wait, There's More

We've only covered a basic configuration of FreeNAS here, but there's a lot more you can do with it. For

starters, you can use it to share out multiple drives, including CD or DVDs. Like most commercial NAS

products, FreeNAS will let you set up user accounts and rights, or you can have it authenticate users

from an exist ing Windows domain (2000/2003 Active Directory only). You can also enable other network

services including UPnP, FTP, NFS (for Linux), or AFP (for older Macs) and set up encrypted volumes

or one using (software-based) RAID 0, 1, or 5. For more information on these and other FreeNAS

features consult the product manual, which is surprisingly useful (it's available in PDF format from the

download page).

Using FreeNAS to build your own NAS server won't necessarily make sense for everyone. As you can

see, it requires a bit more configuration effort than a commercial NAS product, so you have to have the

time and inclination to play with it and tweak it to your needs. It's also worth nothing that since a PCs is

usually much larger than a typical NAS device, it may be harder to tuck a FreeNAS system away

somewhere if space is tight. Also, that any PC-based NAS is likely to be nosier and consume more

power than than a ready-made NAS (worth keeping in mind considering your NAS device will probably

need to run 24/7).

But if you've got more time, space, and equipment than you do cash, FreeNAS is an excellent way to

set up effective and inexpensive network storage.

Joe Moran spent six years as an editor and analyst with Ziff-Davis Publishing and several more as a

freelance product reviewer. He's also worked in technology public relations and as a corporate IT

manager, and he's currently principal of Neighborhood Techs, a technology service firm in Naples, Fla.

He holds several industry certifications, including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and

Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA).

Do you have a c omment or quest ion about this article or other small business topics in

general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com Forums. Join the discussion

today!

1

14 Comments (click to add your comment)

Partner With Us

Colocation

Business Liability

Phone Cards

Promote Your Website

Televisions

IT Legal Contracts

Dedicated Servers

Desktop Computers

Data CenterCell Phones

prepaid calling card

Business Email

Website Hosting

Calling Cards

SmallBusinessComputing

Ecommerce-Guide

Webopedia.com

WinPlanet.com

About

Site Map

Tech Terms

Products

The HP LaserJet MFP: Pays for itself in less than 1 year.

After that it pays your bus ines s. Calcu late your own

payback.

Webcast: Ensuring Performance Meets Busines s and

Web User Needs

Google Cloud Computing Resou rce Center

Related ArticlesMost Commented On

Partners More Small Business

On the Forums Visit the Forums »

Key IT Solutions

1 Search Engine Optimization: SEO Tips for Small

Business

2 The Small Business Cas e for CRM

3 Windows Wireless Zero Configuration: Five Steps to

Sanity

4 An Introduction to Windows Vista: Part 1

5 Word Mail Merge: It’s not Jus t for Letters

1 New Group for SBO's!

2 You can't fool a blonde

3 Home Page Look vs traffic

4 Anyone care to see

5 Top 7 Idiots of 2008 s o far

This Week This Month All-T ime

Latest M ost Vi ews M ost Rep li es





Reply to this comment






By anonymous November 5 2009 8:03 AMPDT

nas information is good

By Brian November 17 2009 9:23 PMPDT

Thank you for the report... good to know about homemade NAS

By IT Mark March 31 2010 12:10 AMPDTCan you provide another free NAS product other than FreeNAS and Openfiler? I need the one is

allowed to develop one more function mail services.

Reply by Bob April 26 2010 7:43 PMPDT

You can use any Linux distribution. I use Ubuntu now and have used Fedora before. Add

Samba for file sharing, or NFS, and a mail server program like Dovecot. But be warned, it

takes a lot of work to set up properly.

By Larry Huang May 1 2010 1:37 PMPDT

I am come from a business family and I am also a business road side salesman in many yearsago. I meet the computer task and start begin to study the world language since 2006 and begin

my first time to surf the internet since from the middle of 2007 But really have so many thing or

task too bother at me even is very steal my importances away and so I am still too late myself can

not catch up with my team. I am just for the money problem too waste me too much. how can I?

just encourage myself hope sometime or someday I am really c an sweat it out.

Reply by Roadside Romeo May 8 2010 10:40 AMPDT

??? What the heck is this ???

Reply by MS May 29 2010 7:46 AMPDT

He sounds like someone who does not speak english as his native language, but the whole

post is nonsensical and completely unrelated to the article.

By Raj May 6 2010 8:37 PMPDT

Excellent article. This can save couple of 100s of bucks. But can you please tell me what will be

the speed. Is it similar to an external disk, or slower than that?

Raj

magnatraining.com

By Dan June 7 2010 2:46 PMPDT

Hello,

Could you elaborate how one extend an old PC to add 4 sata hard drives?

i'd like to build my own NAS out of an old PC but am not sure about the hardware extensions

required.

Reply by Nick August 23 2010 3:48 PMPDT

Dan, if you want to extend your NAS to include more hard drives, you should get a controller

card. The majority of them use PCI, PCI-X, and PCI Express (and up), so i t depends on how

old you're talkin.

You can get them with internal connectors, external connectors, or both.

I hope this helps!









By George Kirk June 9 2010 9:22 PMPDT

A NAS built out of a PC will be considerably faster than any of the consumer-grade NAS devices

(eg: D-Link DNS-321 or 323) because it will have more memory, processing power and throughput.

I get about 20Mb/sec tops out of my DNS-321 on a gigabit network, but between my Windows

machines I'm getting over 170 Mb/sec xfer rates. I'm going to start using the DNS-321 as a backup

for the NAS I build using FreeNAS. Hope this helps.

By kanav July 27 2010 1:29 AMPDT

hi.. would like to know if i installeld scsi pci card on a older pc to support scsi hdds, would theserver os recognise and use the scsi drives installed on this system??

By gogojuice September 20 2010 4:14 PMPDT

would like to know how to access the drives to put files on them or to access to read from

networked computer..

By Krishna October 7 2010 2:38 AMPDT

Hi, I have an old system containing only IDE connectors for harddrives, is there a PCI slot provision

for adding SATA cables( since i have SATA harddrives and no IDE)

Comment and Contribute

Your name/nickname

Your email

XHTML: You c an use these tags : <b> <u> <i>

(Maximum characters: 1200). You have 1200 characters left.

Please type the alphanumeric char acters above and c lick "Submit" to continue.What's this?

I cannot read this. Please generate a New Image

See our comment policy.

Submit Your Comment

The HP LaserJet MFP

Pays for itself in less than 1 year. After that it pays your business. Calculateyour own payback.

Networkin Solutions





The HP LaserJet MFP: Pays for itself in less than 1 year. After that it pays your business. Calculate your

own payback.

Virtual Event: Overcoming the Top Inhibitors to Cloud Computing

Will weather shut down business on the Real (virtual) World or will virtualization save the day? See thedrama unfold with Citrix.

You're Not Ready For Internal Cloud : Check Out Why.

Discover the opportunities and risks involved with virtualization. Read more.

The Netw ork for Technology Professionals

Search:

About Internet.com

Copyright 2010 QuinStreet Inc. A ll Rights Reserved.

Legal Notices, Licensing, Permissions, Privacy Policy.

Advertise | News letters | E-mail Offers

Solutions

Whitepapers and eBooks

IBM Cloud Computing Development Center

Internet.com Cloud Computi ng Showcase

Microsoft TechNet Spotlight

Helpful Cloud Computing Resources

MORE WHITEPAPERS, EBOOKS, AND ARTICLES

Webcasts

Virtual Events in October: IBM Cloud Computing for Developers

All Abou t Clou d Comp uti ng

MORE WEBCASTS, PODCASTS, AND VIDEOS

Downloads and eKits

MORE DOWNLOADS, EKITS, AND FREE TRIALS

Tutorials and Dem os

Demo: Google Site Search

Virtual Event: Master Essential Techn iques for Leveraging the Clou d

Articl e: Expl ore App li catio n Li fecycle Man age ment Too ls in V isual Studi o

2010

Internet.com Hot List: Get the Inside Scoop on IT and Developer Products

New Security Solution s Using Intel(R) vPro(TM) Techno logy

All Abou t Botne ts

MORE TUT ORIALS, DEMOS AND STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES



Documents

Build a NAS Device