NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi Everyone

Currently, there are no plans to include AppleTalk support in a NASLite product, but some people have asked. If there is enough interest, then maby the option is worth pursuing. Any comments?

As you guys do the work, i guess it's primary your decision.
If it can be done without a lot of extra work, why not ?
There's plenty of space on a cdrom.

cu

remo

Do contemporary Mac's still use Appletalk or since they are unix-based, do they use NFS or something like that?

Hy,

i have no problems with my Powerbook to use the SMB Naslite Version.
For myself i don't need it.

Tony, I am very interested in setting up a NASLite box to network a couple of iMacs (running OS9 I think) with a Windows 2000 workstation.

From what I've read so far it seems the iMac's may not work with NASLite as SMB/CIFS is only available on later model Macs running OSX.

My knowledge of Mac network protocols is fairly patchy. Any comments re viability would be greatly appreciated.

regards,

Linda

Hi Linda,

There is a product for MAC OS9 and earlier called "Dave". Dave will allow you to access SMB shares directly from your MAC.

Hope that helps.

Tony, I already knew about DAVE. Thanks for the tip anyway.

I was hoping that NASLite may remove the need for yet another peice of software. On the other hand I was going to have a look at the latest version of TIMBUKTU to see if it can be used for desktop access across the local network as well as dialup.

If it provides local network access via TCP/IP as PCANYWHERE does I will probably buy a copy and I can tick two items off the wish list.

Any further comments on the above? Have you had any interest shown in adding appletalk support? I for one would be interested if you did and would put my hand up as a beta tester if anything were to develop.

thanks once again for your help,

Linda

Hi Linda,

There simply isn't enough interest in an AppleTalk version. If you look at the poll, there are only 4 people that may find it useful. In addition, with OS X AppleTalk is obsolete.

I think that DAVE is really not a bad addition to your system. I'm sure there are far worst things running on your machine than DAVE

Hi,

I am a Windows (XP/2K) and Apple Powerbook user, and before switching to OSX, I used PCMacLan (SMB resource share for OS9 - similar to Dave) for about 18 months. It worked flawlessly. I even shared Windows printers.
After moving to OSX I just share my windows resources and that´s it.

As a NASLite user, the NAS server can be directly seen and used from OSX and Windows. Absolutely no drama here. Fully transparent and reliable.

I believe that the any effort involved on the development of AppleTalk support would be a waste of time, which you can use improving NasLite, already a surprisingly good product.

Best Regards

XD

hi,

i see that this poll is long over, but i've read your replys and i have that one need that it's not said: backup of a mac on naslite with smb, yes it works but it breakes something and the backup software do a full backup each time i found thats a well knows bug, and there isn't a workaround, i've not yet found if i can extend myself the naslite packeage to support afpd, if i can and i don't find another linux nas package, i'll give it a try.

my2c

c

OSX plays nice with ftp, cifs, nfs, srync as well as http. You do have choices so there's no good reson for adding more crap to a well balanced product.

My vote is inline with exondepot. Server Elements should concentrate on improving other areas.

AFP is the protocol that OS X uses to communicate with Apple's own servers. AFP runs over tcp/ip. This is not the old style Appletalk. There is a need for AFP support. SMB does work but it is not as fast as AFP, I have tested both AFP wins every time. Netatalk is a UNIX implementation of the AFP protocol. This is open source and would be a great addition to NASLite.

http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol

I'll put my two cents in with Pixelmonger -- I hear (although I can't verify) that AFP over TCP/IP is a lot faster than Samba. We've been using NASLite+ for a while now, but we're moving to Macs and would like a "native" solution for backup and sharing. I'd much rather use a Server Elements product than cobble something together myself based on some distro.

I also would like AFP support if possible.
It would solve a few problems associated with NFS and SMB.
SMB has naming limitation, resource forks are kept as a separate file (which can cause other problems)
NFS is slower than SMB (through apple finder, great from a terminal but not practical), still has resource fork (._filename) extra file pain.
AFP is faster from my tests with other NASs that support NFS, SMB and AFP.

Don't need the older appletalk protocol.

Not if it means a delay in releasing the NASLite HDD version...