NASLite Network Attached Storage

I was very excited when I discovered NasLite through another forum. However, I've been spending sometime on these forums and I just read that Windows and NasLite use completely different file systems. This concerns me because I wonder how accessible my data will be in the future if the drives can only be read by NasLite.

Both Windows and Macs can read and write to FAT32, so it seems to be somewhat universal and I can plug hard drives into either machine and access my data. But what happens if I have a terabyte or more on a NasLite box and years later I need to pull those drives and access the data on another Windows or Mac machine? Would I be able to do that?

I also have several external firewire and usb drives with a few years of work on them and would like to move them to a central server for better accessibility. If I use NasLite would I have to install new HDs and copy all the data from the old drives?

I'm a professional photographer and I'm very concerned about long-term accessibility of my images.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Andrew

I use Naslite (Linux) to save my photographs on, but I do also have a USB backup (Windows).

I actually use the software "EXT2IFS" on the Windows machine to read the Linux drive in a removable caddy'. Under Windows explorer, you can drop and drag the files anywhere. So if you install the software on the Windows machine, put your Linux drive in a USB hub and plug it in, you should be OK.

I don't have a Mac, so cant help you there.

ext2/3 is probably as universal as FAT32.

Mac OSX can also read ext2/3 volumes as well. Search sourgeforge for the project.






Yes, unless they are formatted ext2/3

Thanks for the replies. It's nice to know there are options if you need to retrieve your data if the drives are removed from the NasLite box.

Would another option be to back-up my image files from the ext2/3 drives inside the server to external USB or FW drives formatted in FAT32? Is that even possible? If it is possible wouldn't that provide the most universally accessible backups? Could those external drives be plugged into a Mac, Windows, or Linux machine with read/write access?

Thanks again,

Andrew