Arch Linux

bwh1969

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 151

What NAS network storage devices work with Linux out of the box

I have been using linux for years, but I am relatively inept when it comes to networking.  I tore apart a tower unit that had two identical samsung drives.  I ws looking to put them in a dual bay enclosure and was going to do the usb route; however, I see that there are network cases as well.  These generally only list MAC or Win XP.

Is Arch/Linux configured to detect these kinds of devices or is setting something like this up fairly tricky for a network novice?  I just want to plug something into my router and have it work with minimal fussing.

stefanwilkens

Member

From: Enschede, the Netherlands

Registered: 2008-12-10

Posts: 624

Re: What NAS network storage devices work with Linux out of the box

NAS and linux work well together, there is one thing you should be aware of.

Mounting of NAS (or other net devices) drives during boot can be tricky. Say, for instance, you want to mount your NAS drive during boot by using an entry in fstab.

It can happen that your system will try to mount the NAS before networking has been completely initialised, causing a failure while it tries to mount the NAS drive. This, however, can easaly be helped by either adding "_netdev" to the fstab options or adding something like "@reboot sleep30; mount -a" to the crontab.

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Arch i686 on Phenom X4 | GTX760

bwh1969

Member

Registered: 2008-01-05

Posts: 151

Re: What NAS network storage devices work with Linux out of the box

Cool, I found someone that knows what is going on:-) 

I am using kde4-kdemods, so my next question is, will it show up in the file manager as mountable block device under HAL (will the Dolphin file manger just show it there), or do I HAVE to add it to fstab (not a huge issue, I am comfortable with editing it)?   Like I said, i am hoping for the "plug and play" or something very close to it.  I can add things to fstab and rc.conf; but if I have to edit ip tables and the like, I don't think I will bother.

Lastly, do you have any recommendations?  I see these devices can range from $100 to upwards of $1000.  Looking at the lower price range, as I am just trying to utilize 2 identical 80 GB IDE drives.  Most of the devices and JDOB or mirror the drives.

dmartins

Member

Registered: 2006-09-23

Posts: 360

Re: What NAS network storage devices work with Linux out of the box

Most of the consumer NAS enclosures are accessed through the Windows file sharing protocol (SAMBA on linux). Anything that applies to mounting Windows shares should also apply to a NAS. Have a look at http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acc … dows_share and http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sea … ork_shares.

A super techy friend of mine owns a Dlink DNS-323 and is quite happy with it. It has some nice features like FTP access and a Bittorrent client. Also, it is running linux so there are guides to gain telnet and ssh access. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 3rd party firmwares available to add more features too.
AFAIK, it can be fully configured through a web interface. Although Dlink's website lists Windows as a system requirement, I think this is only to use their Easy Setup software. Note that this enclosure only supports SATA drives.