TexasCHLforum.com

CHLSteve wrote:Lots of bad advice being tossed around here. I suspect most of you haven't even LOOKED at Home Server, much less used it.

I believe the topic was open-ended: Either WHS or Linux. That covers a lot of in-between ground. Looks like Charles has plenty of interesting options to consider. I've seen no bad advice here, just a divergence of opinion. Choice is good.

KBCraig wrote:

brianko wrote:But not the fastest...a USB-2.0 compliant external drive will do about 480 Mbps, about 4x as fast as a network drive running on a 100Mbit network. For a home network, a USB-based storage device probably makes more sense.

It makes a lot of sense for backing up a home system, but less so for backing up all computers on a home network.

A USB drive attaches to computer, not a network. That computer must always be up and running, and must have all the permissions properly set, for other computers on the network to access the drive.

Yeah, I'm well aware of that. Assuming that this is a server that will be serving up something (database queries, HTTP requests, etc.), it will be on all the time anyway, so your point is moot. Just throwing another option out there. NAS is overkill for backing up a small home network with no more than a few servers, none of which are dedicated servers. It's like suggesting to someone wanting to back up a Windows server that they should set up a Linux box, install some hard drives, fire up Samba and go to town. Oh, wait...that suggestion's already been made

KBCraig wrote:

nitrogen wrote:Even easier, you can get cheap nas (network attached storage) devices.

Exactly!

I'm also a Linux/Mac guy and I like to tinker, but a network drive is the easiest, most transparent way to back up and share files on your home network.

But not the fastest...a USB-2.0 compliant external drive will do about 480 Mbps, about 4x as fast as a network drive running on a 100Mbit network. For a home network, a USB-based storage device probably makes more sense. Also, despite the previous poster's discontent with their Buffalo NAS, most USB drives don't require additional software (I have a Buffalo 500GB external USB drive I use for all my Macs).