openfiler.com — A review of FreeNAS, which makes PC a Network Attached Storage device, was recently on the front page. I've searched and found another free NAS OS, OpenFiler. Based on CentOS Linux, it seems to have all the features of FreeNAS plus WebDAV, quota/resource allocation, user/public/guest shares & more, but a larger footprint. So, FreeNAS or OpenFiler?
Jun 1, 2006 View in Crawl 4
waynegoodeJun 1, 2006Submitter
Sorry that the wording of the lead is a bit stilted. The 350 character limit can be a hassle.One of the main complaints about FreeNAS is that all of the spaceis open to all authenticated users. OpenFiler does not have that problem. However, the larger foot print probably means it can't be run off of a flash drive. I'm going to install it and try it soon to see how well it does.
walkingblindJun 24, 2006
Openfiler does have better SAMBA/AD/LDAP integration built in but is quite larger that FreeNAS. I am trying both but might try to modify FreeNAS to add SAMBA support to allow the NAS to participle in a W2K3 AD domain.
uhdeanSep 22, 2006
FreeNASPositives: It is simple to setup and use (10 minutes from download to running). It provides a small footprint. The web interface is clean and easy to manage.Negatives: You cannot set specific permissions to shares for groups or users. It is either all access or no access. Limited command line utilities available.OpenfilerPositives: Multiple authentication types (NIS, LDAP, Hesiod, Active Directory (native and mixed modes), NT4 domain controller). Disk quotas, per user/group permissions on shares. Web interface is clean and easy to use. Built using CentOS.Negatives: Larger footprint, must have a central user/group database server (LDAP,NIS, etc) to authenticate users/groups. Does not support local users/groups so it may not work in small workgroup settings. More complicated to install and configure (30 minutes from download to running).All in all both have their place. I use FreeNAS at home because I do not have a domain or authentication server. Works great from home/workgroup use. They are working on per user/group permissions. Once that is implemented it will be my NAS of choice...
njpartonOct 1, 2007
Doesn't openfilter require around 4GB for an installation? In which case surely you'd be better off just going for a community supported linux distro like Ubuntu. FreeNAS or Ubuntu server are my current choices...