NAS Devices - What shall I get??

[ajbritton]

Watch out on lower end NAS boxes for poor Active Directory integration. For example, both Buffalo and Iomega claim some of their NAS boxes will integrate with AD, but it only works if your AD domain is in Mixed mode. Now some ADs may be still in Mixed mode, but if they have been upgraded to Native mode (2000 or 2003) then there is no going back.

 

Whatever you consider, check the user forums on the supplier websites for disgruntled customers.

 

We are looking to do a similar thing - do you have a link to the user forums for buffalo?

 

According to this It should work fine if set up as a client.

 

I just want to check

 

I can't find a link to the Buffalo forum I was referring to, but the online help in the TS PRO web interface says that only mixed-mode domains are supported (go to page with all the domain settings in the web UI and click on the help icon top right). I confirmed this with Buffalo tech support. Having said all that, I did manage to make it work in the way described in the Buffalo KB article that you posted.

 

This page may also be of interest.

 

EDIT: Here is the same sort of problem on the Iomega forums. Interestingly, the Iomega people at InfoSec show claimed that their box and the TS PRO are basically the same.

[techstan]

does anyone know if the slightly newer Buffalo TeraStation Pro II 2.0TB still has issues like this i think my domain is Mixed mode but i dont want to buy something thats going to casue me problems and a headach ?

[mattx]

i dont want to buy something thats going to casue me problems and a headach ?

 

Try freenas first:

 

http://www.freenas.org

 

Its open source, has great support, and performs better than some as the off the shelf stuff. If it does not do what you first want then you have not lost anything.

[spc-rocket]

Hi Guys,

 

I've looked at the freenas and it looks good and want to try it out on a spare machine.

 

How do you go about installing in an easiest possible manner. Not clued up on Linux too much so looking for a step-by-step instructions if possible.

 

BTW i have downloaded the iso file from their website. Am I correct in that i should burn this to a CD and install it on the machine??

 

 

TIA,

 

Ash.

[Guest Guest]

Yes, just stick it in and it installs just like any other OS (install screens asking you questions like IP address, machine name etc).

If it asks you about partitioning just leave it as the defaults.

Once installed it'll just be a case of browsing to it and configuring through its webbased config.

 

BTW thats the beauty of most pre-built *nix things these days, they always have a install setup and configure through a web page, (some major settings might be done by typing something like "setup" into the CLI). Most are very well documented aswell - read the manual! (I know its not a man thing to do!)

[mattx]

Indeed, best to go through the manual - just in case you are planning on using software raid etc.

If you looking into using JBOD then you will need the next beta ver and do a firmware upgrade from the console. Just finished making two freenas boxes with two 500 gig drives joined to give me just under a terabyte. All I have to do now is copy over the contents [ just under half a terabye ] of our media server. Then a quick setup with Rsync with the other box so I have a nice mirrored backup...

Freenas is a great bit of open source kit. [ Also got a box setup with software mirroring for our images and some of our backups ]

[Grommit]

far far better than phoning up some forgein idiot in india who doesnt know what your talking about and then sends an engineer with the wrong part.

 

 

sorry mate couldn't let that go... A little out of order enough said??

 

I see you don't phone the Indian helplines then....

[Grommit]

I have Just bought a Terastation II with 2TB.. and I hope it works with my mixed domain...

[spc-rocket]

@MattX,

 

How does it handle AD authentication, the docs say its does support it but as with the terastation is it flakey or does the job well?

 

I'll try out the latest beta and see what happens.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Ash.

[mattx]

How does it handle AD authentication, the docs say its does support it but as with the terastation is it flakey or does the job well?

 

Not had a problem with it handling AD authentication at all. I have 4 freenas boxes at the moment, 1 is acting as a FTP server, that is not on the domain. The imaging server [ which holds ghost images ] is. The other 2 won't be as they will be acting like a media server and I want a bit more control over the file permisions. So I have not had a problem -------- yet !!

Good luck with your testing - I am hoping you will be pleasently surprised as to just how good freenas is.

[ajbritton]

@mattx: Is your domain running in mixed or native mode?

[mattx]

@mattx: Is your domain running in mixed or native mode?

 

Mixed.

[spc-rocket]

Thanks MattX,

 

I give it try and see what happens, if it works out then we just do a HW raid with a simple SATA controller to make it easier on the processing side as SW raid is good but resource intensive.

 

Ash.

[mattx]

SW raid is good but resource intensive.

 

True, I have a freenas box setup for software raid on my FTP server. An old celeron in an old RM box. As its only for simple ftp jobs it works quite well.

With S.M.A.R.T enabled on the disks this reduces over heads too. [ Not sure by how much though ]

Good luck with it !!

[Grommit]

SW raid is good but resource intensive.

 

True, I have a freenas box setup for software raid on my FTP server. An old celeron in an old RM box. As its only for simple ftp jobs it works quite well.

With S.M.A.R.T enabled on the disks this reduces over heads too. [ Not sure by how much though ]

Good luck with it !!

 

On the Buffalo.. is that SW RAID5 or HW ?

[webman]

Word of advice for FreeNAS: Avoid using SiliconImage (SilXXXX) chipsets for (S)ATA controllers! They're crap!

[mattx]

On the Buffalo.. is that SW RAID5 or HW ?

 

Sorry, no idea - don't use the Buffalo. I would hope for the price you are paying its hardware !!

[ajbritton]

@mattx: Is your domain running in mixed or native mode?

 

Mixed.

 

I don't know about freenas or the other software based NAS solutions, but the low end NAS boxes (Terastation Pro, Iomega 150d) appear to have 'issues' with native mode AD domains.

[mattx]

I don't know about freenas or the other software based NAS solutions, but the low end NAS boxes (Terastation Pro, Iomega 150d) appear to have 'issues' with native mode AD domains.

 

Its odd as I have not really considered the mixed or native mode for a long time. In fact it was a long time ago in a previous job when I was part of a team looking after a 2000 domain, because we had a some NT4 DC, it had to be in mixed mode.

 

I cannot remember what the advantages are in 2003 server apart from a domain re-name & Forest trusts. I don't have that problem !!

[Wizzer]

Like JBOD? You'll love TWAIN

 

"Technology Without An Important/Interesting Name".

 

I thought it was "The Windows Acronym Indicating Nothing".

[spc-rocket]

We got freenas setup on a old box with a bog standard 40gb HDD to test and everything seems to be working except AD authentication. We can't get this to work for some reason.

 

Also looking at the share permissions it seems that you can do read-only permission its either read-write or nothing at all which seems a bit silly to me.

 

We are using the latest version with celeron 733MHZ and 256mb RAM (don't ask can't find a box with more up to date HW)

 

Ash.

[Geoff]

Format the drive to a filesystem that supports extended ACLs.

[ranj]

We just recently purchased an adaptec snap server 520 (2tb) and I would highly recommend. It is much more expensive than your buffalo terra stations but is designed to be a high performance file server. Very simple to setup as well. Can talk with a variety of languages, windows, unix, apple talk etc

[Grommit]

We have just been handed a redundant 16TB CCTV server :-)

[localzuk]

Grommit - git