NASLite Network Attached Storage

hi
I was reading an article
Put your old machine to good use
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ ... htm?csp=34

where the guy mentioned Windows Home Server

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/produc ... fault.mspx

thought it to be an interesting project ,any linux alternatives???

And then I stumbled upon

http://www.serverelements.com/index.php
according to the site
can be setup as a headless box
Adding extra storage is a doddle, literally plug and play.
NAS detects the new HDD at boot up, formats and shares it.
You don't need to know anything about Linux at all and it runs on very basic kit.
However, it only does file sharing and ftp.
I was wondering could it be an alternative to Windows Home Server

Any comments

If you want simple access to your files then Naslite will do the trick! and requires basic kit to run it, Home Server needs 512mb and around 1GHZ Cpu.
WHS is going to cost more then Naslite, and you cant simply pull a WHS drive and plug it in another WHS, like you can with Naslite.
Naslite supports Hardware Raid, WHS dont.
Naslite has no user accounts, WHS has.
One thing I do like about ~WHS is the Remote side of things where you can enter in your http:servername.livenode.com and you can access your Server and download/upload files via the web interface, and even remote connect to any pc on the network. so u can create accounts and let them have read write access to your server. be nice to see this in Naslite.

We presently own 6ea completed NASLite2 servers with one uncompleted license pending. All are used as fast video media JBODs...with no Raid or mirrors.

An older server built from the Rebyte RAID chip (company now defunct) serves as our primary network storage unit. It is much slower than the NASlites....but has proven quite robust over the years and features a truly useful secure webdav server. We can therefore mount designated shares as simple drives - even while offsite. Access is also available through any "public" machine through a simple https browser session. And if something fails - you simply replace the motherboard. No proprietary Raid cards which may no longer be available...You can also *read* the mirrored drive directly by attaching to the NASlite via USB.

The Rebyte is a different animal than NASLite....very complementary. I wish Tony and Ralph would buy the rights to it, and continue its development. An alternate freeware product can be found here:

http://www.openfiler.com/

I've never tried it.