Cloud Computing and Backup Administrator “We are a 24/7/365 operation and cannot afford any downtime. FreeNAS has helped build our virtualization platform to this effect and has provided us with a very flexible system through with a ROI not matched by any competitor on either the Open-Source or Closed-Source market.”. For Mac users, there’s no better way to expand storage capacity and share files across networks than NAS.But with so many NAS solutions available for home and business use, knowing what you’ll need can be tricky. Here’s how Mac users can make the most out of NAS, and a look at the top four NAS solutions currently available. FreeNAS is the first and only open source storage OS to offer encryption on ZFS volumes. Encrypted volumes can only be read by a FreeNAS system with the master key, which you can change at any time. An optional password can be added to protect the entire system from unauthorized access.
Are you planning to create your own NAS (Network Attached Storage) using some old hardware and drives? Then for that self-made DIY NAS server you definitely need some OS or software to work; obviously, because the operating system is the thing that will control the functions that your NAS server will provide later. However, still, there are only a few well known Linux operating systems that dedicatedly meant to do this job. Yet, whatever out there are quite developed to provide Linux/FreeBSD based SAN (Storage Area Network) or NAS (Network Attached Storage) solutions to enterprises, small offices or homes.
Top Open source Linux DIY NAS software
Before listing Linux or FreeBSD distros for creating network Attached storage OS, I would like to say there is no “best operating system” either for NAS or computer. The choice of an operating system depends heavily on what you are going to do with the NAS server. In this guide, we focus on software that understands a NAS server primarily as a system for the provision of data in your office or home. With the operating systems we mention in this article, you can copy data back and forth, perform backups, along with some advanced tasks (such as establishing a VPN connection or installing a mail server) including plugins to extend OS capabilities.
Here we are about to list some best NAS solutions to help you if you are planning to data management using open-source software in 2020.
1. FreeNAS OS
You might be already familiar with its name. It is one of the best FreeBSD based NAS software solutions that not only provide easy to use interface but also plugins to extend features such as for the Plex server. The operating system is designed to enable a self-built NAS system based on free software.
The company behind it actually deals in NAS hardware for enterprises, however, the OS is available free of cost for the general public.
The best thing is you don’t need to have a hard drive for FreeNAS installation, a simple USB drive would be enough, of course, to save data hard drives are needed those can be managed from its graphical user interface.
In addition, the operation of the FreeNAS is extremely simple. In terms of upgrades and updates, the manufacturer and their product life cycles are released from time to time. It uses the OpenZFS file system which is highly reliable and can be configured from the admin web interface volume manager.
Key Features:
- It provides easy to use graphical interface.
- Supports all major protocols for file sharing such as CIFS/SMB (Windows), AFP (Apple), and NFS (Unix).
- It makes easy to stream and share your movies and music.
- Backup and snapshots are possible.
- Checksums ensure only error-free data gets written to disk
- Self file repair file system.
- It offers encryption on ZFS volumes.
- It offers useful plugins such as Plex, Owncloud, Minecraft and more to use NAS more than a storage device.
- Docker and in-built virtualization support.
2. OpenMediaVault NAS software OS
OpenMediaVault (OMV) is another network-attached storage (NAS) software operating system and well-known for home or small office clouds. It is based on Debian Linux distribution, yes, the familiar one thus easy to install and manage without much system knowledge. This opensource Linux NAS software supports all major protocols such as SSH, (S) FTP, SMB / CIFS, and RSync and also can be expanded via plug-ins, for example, DAAP Media Server, Shairport – AirPlay/RAOP receiver, and more…
Open Media vault Key Features:
- It comes with a web-based user interface thus not a problem to backup and accessing the storage drives from anywhere.
- Based on Debian, thus easy maintenance of updates using the apt command.
- Web-based administration, User management, Scheduled jobs, Multilanguage support, Service announcement via DNS-SD and Plugin system.
- In terms of networking, it supports Link aggregation, Wake On Lan and IPv6 support.
- Openmediavault provides a wide range of options to manage the storage volumes such as GPT partitions, RAID JBOD/0/1/5/6/, Quota feature to restrict user, SHare Management, EXT3/EXT4/XFS/JFS filesystem support and more…
- It is faster and lighter weight and one best NAS OS even some people prefer it over FreeNAS.
3. XigmaNAS (formerly NAS4Free)
XigmaNAS was earlier known as NAS4Free. If you want to create your own DIY NAS box, it provides easy-to-manage file server to provide data storage and smaller server tasks such as media services with little effort.
It also based on FreeBSD just like FreeNAS, actually, it had been developed using the code of FreeNAS and later in 2018, NAS4Free was renamed to XigmaNAS. It can be used USB sticks, memory cards or hard drives and SSDs as boot media. It is also possible to boot it from a live CD or a live USB stick.
XigmaNAS has extensive documentation directly on its own website, thus installation and handling would not be a big pain.
Like FreeNAS, XigmaNAS server functionalities can also be expanded using its extension based system. For example, you can save data related to BitTorrent directly on the NAS hard drives. Conversion of NAS server into a media server is also possible using the Plex media server extension that allows to manage media data in a visually appealing manner and to stream it to other devices. Or you can install an interface that also makes access from smartphones in a more convenient way.
Key Features of XigmaNAS:
- Complete management via a web interface
- Software raid (0,1,5) and optional file encryption
- File systems: ZFS v5000 (Feature Flag), UFS, Ext2 / 3, FAT, NTFS
MBR and GPT partitions - Disk encryption with support for cryptographic hardware acceleration,
- Numerous network protocols such as CIFS / SMB (Samba v4.x), FTP, NFS, TFTP, AFP, RSYNC, Unison, SCP (SSH), iSCSI (initiator and target), HAST (Highly Available Storage), CARP (Common Address Redundancy Protocol ), Bridge, UPnP and BitTorrent
Services such as UPNP server, iTunes server, iTunes / DAAP server, web server, torrent client etc. - Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
- Monitoring with email alarm
- Monitoring of hard disk drives and solid-state drives (SSDs) via SMART
4. Rockstor – Centos based Linux NAS solution
This Linux NAS software is slightly different and has a more stable base that is CentOS. The biggest difference between FreeNAS and Rockstor is it uses the Btrfs file system, which is very similar to ZFS used by FreeNAS. Btrfs is a so-called CoW (Copy-On-Write) file system and developed by the Oracle to provide high read and write performance and to handle fault tolerance, repair and easy administration.
Rockstor supports the protocols/features AFP, Active Directory, LDAP, NIS, NTP, NUT-UPS, SFTP and SNMP. Shares can be made available via NFS and Samba (Smb / CIFS). The SMART function for hard drives has also recently been supported.
It only supports 64-bit modern systems with at least 2Gb RAM and for best out of it, 4 to 8Gb is recommended depending on the number of data hard drives used.
Rockstor offers the possibility to integrate plugins via Docker. The plugins are available as containers, which Docker virtualizes on the host system.
Apart from the traditional NAS system, it can be also used as Personal Cloud Server and SMB Cloud Server, we can set as per the requirement and data availability.
Key Features of Rockstor:
- Linux, BTRFS based open source storage OS with Bitrot protection, checksums, compression and other advanced filesystem features
- Copy-on-write Snapshots
- File sharing is possible across all major systems such as Linux, Mac, Windows and Mobile devices.
- GUI installer
- Customizable Dashboard
- Rockstor supports file backup with Rsync, Apple Time Machine and Windows Backup.
- Resource monitoring with SNMP.
- Add-ons for media streaming, backups, cloud storage and more.
- And more…
Learn more:
Rich media library can make your Home Theater more attractive. So where can you store the large movie library? A PC or an external hard disc? Network Attached Storage (NAS) is actually the best choice. NAS is purpose-built for 21st Century work and leisure to store more photos, videos, and documents. Designed to support modern life, NAS is your smart, efficient, and up-to-date file storage, backup, entertainment, and secure sharing solution.
If you want to buy a NAS, Qnap and Synology are two veteran NAS vendors. But if you don't spend hundred of bucks on a NAS, it's also OK. You can build your own NAS Server for your Home Theater by using an old or new server/PC hardware. Here is a list of some best free and open source NAS Operating system available on the Internet.
Overview
we are going to
Part 1. 8 Best Free and Open source NAS software
#1. FreeNAS
Official Site: http://www.freenas.org/
FreeNAS is an Open Source Storage Platform and supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems. It is an operating system that can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share data over a network. FreeNAS is the simplest way to create a centralized and easily accessible place for your data. Use FreeNAS with ZFS to protect, store, backup, all of your data. FreeNAS is used everywhere, for the home, small business, and the enterprise.
#2. Openfiler
Official Site: https://www.openfiler.com/
Openfiler is an operating system that provides file-based network-attached storage and block-based storage area network. It was created by Xinit Systems, and is based on the rPath Linux distribution. It is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2. Its software stack interfaces with open source third-party software.
#3. Rockstor
Official Site: http://rockstor.com/
Rockstor Personal Cloud Server is a powerful local alternative to public cloud storage that mitigates the cost and risks of public cloud storage. A lot of important data is stored on laptops, desktops, mobile devices, external hard-drives and various cloud storage services and the data footprint continues to increase as users generate and access more data.
#4. NAS4Free
Official Site: https://www.nas4free.org/
NAS4Free is an Open Source Storage NAS (Network-Attached Storage) distribution based on FreeBSD. The NAS4Free operating system can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share computer data storage over a computer network. 'NAS' as in “Network-Attached Storage” and '4Free' as in 'Free and open source', NAS4Free is the simplest and fastest way to create a centralized and easily-accessible server for all kinds of data easily accessed with all kinds of network protocols and from any network.
#5. Nexenta Community Edition
Official Site: https://nexenta.com/products/downloads/download-community-edition/
NexentaStor is an OpenSolaris or more recently Illumos distribution optimized for virtualization, storage area networks, network-attached storage, and iSCSI or Fibre Channel applications employing the ZFS file system. NexentaStor supports iSCSI, unlimited incremental backups ('snapshots'), snapshot mirroring (replication), continuous data protection, integrated search within ZFS snapshots, and an API.
#6. Amahi
Official Site: https://www.amahi.org/
Open Source Nas Backup Software Mac Free
Amahi is software that runs on a dedicated PC as a central computer for your home. It handles your entertainment, storage, and computing needs. You can store, organize and deliver your recorded TV shows, videos and music to media devices in your network. Share them locally or safely around the world. And it's expandable with a multitude of one-click install apps.
#7. CryptoNAS
Official Site: http://cryptonas.senselab.org/
The CryptoNAS live-CD is made for people who want to encrypt their data without bothering about complicated technical issues. A computer running the CryptoNAS live-CD works as a fileserver (NAS) that encrypts your private data. The CryptoNAS-Server package adds a user friendly, web-based frontend for harddisk encryption to an existing fileserver.
#8. OpenMediaVault (OMV)
Official Site: https://www.openmediavault.org/
openmediavault is the next generation network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. It contains services like SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, DAAP media server, RSync, BitTorrent client and many more. Thanks to the modular design of the framework it can be enhanced via plugins.
Part 2. Best Movie Backup Tools for Free NAS
After you have a free NAS software for building our Home Theater, you also need a movie backup software to help you backup all your video files onto your free NAS software and organize all your video files in oneo format so that when you watch movies via NAS on your HD TV in Home Theater， you don't worry about the video format/codec incompatibility issues. Below are two popular video and audio backup software that also can convert video and audio formats.
1. Free Movie Backup Software
Free Video DVD Converter Ultimate is a tool that is especially designed to convert both DVD and video files to a wide range of video formats which are supported by PCs and mobile devices. With it, you can manage and organize your various video files and DVD collections to free NAS in AVI, WMV, MOV, FLV, MKV, 3GP, MPEG, MP3, M4A, AC3, WMA, AAC and more format. In case you need to, Pavtube Free Video DVD Converter Ultimate enables you to perform a few basic adjustments to the movies you want to export. With the help of some practical sliders, menus and check-boxes, the application allows you to trim a clip, crop the image, add watermarks and subtitles.
10 Minutes Guide to Backup DVD and Videos to NAS
1. Click 'File' > 'Load Video/Audio' or 'Load from Disc' to load DVD and video files.
2. Choose output format by clicking 'Format' button. You should choose the format according to your NAS supported file format and your usage in your home theater.
3. Hit on 'Convert' to start to organize the DVD and video files to one format for NAS store and use in Home Theater.
2. Paid Movie Backup Tool for Free NAS Users
Pavtube Video Converter Ultimate is a top-ranked video converter + Blu-ray Ripper + DVD Ripper to cahnge the format of a video/Blu-ray/DVD file in order to make it playable onto a specific device or across a whole range of hardware or software products through your free NAS software. It supports to input various video formats and remove Blu-ray/DVD copy protection then to shift the video to H.265/HEVC, H.264, MP4, MKV, MPEG-TS, AVI, MP3, AAC and more so that you can play videos, DVDs and Blu-rays on TV via NAS.
You can configure your video and audio encoder codec, bitrate, sample rate, bitrate, channel and do some simple editing jobs to make the output videos. Loading files from a disc or from a local folder is as simple as it can get and users can work with a plethora of formats for both video and audio streams. There is also a preview tab for examining the selected video while capturing screenshots is a one click job, thanks to the button placed right beneath this area.
10 Minutes Guide to Backup Blu-ray, DVD and Videos to Free NAS
1. For video and audio files, just drag and drop the files into the software. When you need to load Blu-ray and DVD discs, you should first insert the disc to Blu-ray drive. You are allowed to rip Blu-ray/DVD with forced subtitles to NAS.
2. Click 'Format' bar, from its drop-down option, select the format you want. You also can directly 1:1 backup Blu-ray and DVD to video folder without quality loss.
3. Click “Settings” on the main interface and you can adjust A/V parameters. After finishing all the settings, go back to the main interface, press the right-bottom “Convert” button to start organizing video/Blu-ray/DVD to NAS.
Best Nas Backup Software
Compare Free and Paid Movie Backup Tool for NAS Users
Open Source Nas Os
| Free Movie to NAS Backup Tool | Paid Movie to NAS Backup Tool |
| Backup Video/Audio | |
| Backup Blu-ray | |
| Backup DVD | |
| 1:1 Entire Disc Copy Blu-ray and DVD | |
Directly Main Title Copy Blu-ray/DVD | |
| Convert to MKV, AVI, MOV, FLV, etc | |
| Convert to MP4 | |
| Convert 2D to 3D | |
| Compress 4K to 1080p | |
| Edit Video | |
| Adjust A/V parameters |
Comments are closed.