Calling all server nerds

[colinwoods84]

I run OSX over here and I need to get a home server. I want to purchase Windows home server but I know there are massive communication problems with these two. I just need a server that I can put all my blue rays and music on that I can just transfer from computer to server and have my popcorn hour read. Does any one know if I can accomplish this at a minimum with windows home server and OSX?

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

If storage is what you need, I don't see the need for you to go with WHS.
Checkout http://www.drobo.com/
Plus there are bunch of other NAS boxes to serve your files including build it yourself.
Most of these built with some sort of Linux/BSD OS which probably have better integration with OSX than windows box

 

[digicidal]

I agree with BSA - and although I've read some good things about the drobo boxes - I've also heard some nightmares as well.

If you're even slightly handy with PC hardware - you can put the money into some hardware and have the same performance, with a little bit better reliability (albeit with an end result that's not nearly as attractive - looking that is).

I've built a few NAS servers using OpenFiler and a couple of other opensource solutions. Provided that you spend a little bit of time researching compatible RAID cards, everything else can be whatever is cheapest at the time. Most of them have pretty active forums for support and whitebox server HCLs which make the purchasing a no-brainer as far as compatibility.

If building your own is not agreeable to you, then the Drobo or similar NAS unit will work just fine. If you don't mind rolling your own... check here:

OpenFiler - free for most uses - cheap add-on modules for more advanced uses.
FreeNAS - a little less user-friendly in the setup - but works great also. You can read through tutorial here and here

There are others, but those are definitely the two 'big dogs' on the subject.

I've also had good luck with a few of the hardware only solutions from Promise and Netgear as well as the DroboPro - however, I've read of problems will all of them as well. The nice thing (for me at least) about building my own is that I can maintain it better down the road - and I don't mind having a full tower running in my closet. For you the answer might be a different one however, so these are just a couple of other options for you to weigh - not a recommendation against Drobo - I'm sure one of them would meet your needs nicely as well (albeit at perhaps a slightly higher cost).

 

[colinwoods84]

I do not mind building my own I can figure that out. What I do not know about is what will work with mac osx. I just want about 8TB that will show up in finder on my iMac and I can transfer files around to the storage device. I just have so much media I download and my music I just want my popcorn hour to be able to read from the network all the media I add from my iMac or maybe another computer in the house. I just want to do this is reasonable as possible.

 

[digicidal]

I do not mind building my own I can figure that out. What I do not know about is what will work with mac osx. I just want about 8TB that will show up in finder on my iMac and I can transfer files around to the storage device. I just have so much media I download and my music I just want my popcorn hour to be able to read from the network all the media I add from my iMac or maybe another computer in the house. I just want to do this is reasonable as possible.

You should not have any problems with any of them with the possible exception of WHS - since it's a Microsoft product, they like to complicate things as much as possible.

All of the other NAS/RAID solutions should have options for NFS shares which are supported by pretty much everything. In most cases you might even have an option for a native Apple share format (AppleShare/Bonjour - ?? not sure about this), but you shouldn't have any problems connecting to an NFS share from PC/MAC/*NIX regardless. Since I assume that WHS creates SMB shares... that shouldn't be a problem either - but I haven't played with WHS at all so I can't confirm this.