Tag: NAS

Working online

 

I have working mostly online for sometime now. I use a combination of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Sheets, ProjectPath, Flickr, Mozy Online Backup, and WordPress. However, the paranoid in me still keeps a local copy of all my documents on home built NAS.

Cyber Minimalist: How to Work Almost Completely Online | zen habitsI was tired of emailing myself files between home and work computers, or uploading files to web storage and syncing them between computers, or loading them onto flash drives. I’d forget where a file was, I’d spend a lot of time transferring files and organizing things, my two computers were never completely in sync, and it was just too complicated for a minimalist like myself.Enter online apps, and my newfound simplicity. 

 

Commentary on the MacWorld Review of the AirPort Extreme Base Station

Apple’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station (Best Current Price: $172.08) solves three major wireless networking problems in one blow: speed, range, and configuration. The gateway also makes sharing multiple printers and hard drives across a network as easy as plugging in a cable.

So begins Macworld's review of Apple's AirPort Extreme Base Station. I have to admit when I first heard about this wireless access point (WAP) and it's features I wanted one. That USB connector got my attention right away. I had just setup a Network Attached Storage (NAS) server using an old PC and FreeNAS. But using the Airport Extreme would provide a smaller and more elegant solution. However, $179 is a lot of money for a WAP.

...the new Extreme looks like a slightly squat Mac mini, making it easier to stack in multiples (although careful channel selection may be needed when doing so to avoid interference

With the mac mini stacked on top the WAP stacked on top the miniStack HD enclosure the whole setup would look good. I like when m electronic stuff looks good. But $179.....

It also sports a three-port 10⁄100 Mbps Ethernet switch, a useful feature for small, mixed wired/wireless networks found for years in Wi-Fi routers at a fraction of the cost of Apple’s previous Base Stations.

The AirPort Extreme Base Station does not have gigabit Ethernet. The LinkSys Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link has better specs for the same price.

Home users and small businesses will find the ability to add and control access to one or more hard drives connected via USB (or a separately purchased USB hub) a much less expensive option than many of the alternatives, such as using a dedicated NAS (network-attached storage) drive or using a dedicated computer as a file server.

The affore mentioned LinkSys router has this feature as well. I like the idea of connecting my printer to the USB port and sharing it's functions accross the network. Not having the printer attached to a computer allows me to flexibility in where I can put the printer and AP. While attaching an external HD to the WAP is cheaper and easire than building a dedicated NAS server, FreeNAS supports more protocols (AFP, SSH, CIFS, rsync, NFS ) than the AirPort Extreme Base Station. This makes it a better choice for my hetergeneous platform (Windows and OS-X).

Apple’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station may have been a long time coming, but it’s worth the wait for anyone whose network needs either greater speed or longer distance. While cheaper 802.11n gateways are already on the market, none matches Apple’s for features or ease of setup. Apple just needs to step up to the plate and add gigabit Ethernet to fulfill this speed demon’s full potential.

Hm....I can do get better features from other vendors so other than asthetics why would I buy this? Please! Help me find a reason.

FreeNAS

I was able to get a FreeNAS server up and running in a short period of time. FreeNAS is a BSD based Network Attached Storage software package that supports CIFS (Samba), Apple File Protocol (AFP), FTP, SSH, NFS and RSYNC. I downloaded the FreeNAS software ISO and burned a CD. To install I booted the machine ( an again Dell XPS 4100 with 384MB RAM and a 80GB HD) with the disk in the drive. From the simple console style menu I set the IP address for the server and the password for the admin user. I also chose to install my configuration onto the local HD. This setup took just a few minutes.

freenas console

Once I have the configuration save I was prompted to reboot the server. Once the server was booted and the software was running I launched a browser (Camino) on my mac and typed in the URL for the NAS server. I entered my username and password and was presented with the default page.

FreeNAS general setup

This part of the setup is quite easy. In fact the defaults will work just fine. The only things I changed were the time zone and hostname.

Configuring the server file system was a lot more challenging. I will not go into it here. The FAQ on the FreeNAS web site does an excellent job of explaining how to set this up but it does involve choosing a file system type (UFS, NTFS, or Software RAID), formatting the drive and mounting the file system.

FreeNAS disk edit

Once that was done, I configured the services. I have Windows and Macs on my network so I configured the NAS for CIFS and AFP. I setup CIFS with a NetBIOS name for the server and my small network work-group. AFP was similarly easy to set up. Access controls are limited to anonymous, local user and domain. I used anonymous since I have a small home network. Make sure that if you choose localuser authentication that you create a group THEN create user within that group.

Once the server was configured I was able to browse the network (Windows) and see the NAS server in the server list and connect easily. In OS-X I entered Control-K to connect to the server and mount the NAS share on my desktop.

I remapped my wife's "My Documents" folder to the NAS server and she does not seem to notice any different in how here files are stored. The performance of the NAS is excellent even over an 802.11g network.