Maximum PC

I am currently working for a local non-profit that has pretty much no technology budget. All of their current hardware is donated, and its a mess. They are running old G4's(non-Intel) with OS X 10.4, a Mac server (Intel) with 10.6, a few XP machines, and 2 Windows 7 machines.

I need a large redundant (Raid-1 or Raid-5) for hosting photos and videos clips. I would need 6-8TBs, and I need a file system that plays nice with the mix of operating systems.

Oh, and my budget is like $600 if I am lucky.

Anyone ever been in boat I am in? I am looking for suggestions from working environments. I know I can make a NAS for cheap, but its the file system compatibility I am worried about.

Thanks!

FreeNAS will work for you with both Mac OS X and Windows.

It has a very small footprint and is easy to install/maintain.

n0b0dykn0ws

What file system do you format the drives with so that both Windows and Mac computers can read/write?

Thanks!

OS X supports SMB.

The actual file system under that doesn't matter, because OS X simply transfers data to the server through SMB, and the server actually writes it to the drives. FreeNAS also supports AFP, but I would stick with SMB because OS X and Windows will be able to access the shares.

There's a list of supported file systems halfway down the page.

n0b0dykn0ws

There's also WHS2 which costs $60. Free is good, but "easy for all" is also good.

But will WHS2 do host based RAID internally?

I know 2008 R2 does, but I don't know how bastardized WHS2 is.

Even more of a problem is that they killed Drive Extender.

n0b0dykn0ws

First, it does cost money so it may be a poor option; but it's an option none the less. I just brought it up in case 3rd life isn't the only one going to manage it/is the only tech savvy person involved. I left a church in a bit of a bind by not making it point and shoot so I thought it was worth bring WHS2 up.

WHS2 supports RAID but I haven't tried any Southbridge-based chips other than an ICH9R in the final version...there was no RAID support (that I could find) during the Vail Beta program. I've tried the Adaptec 6405 in there, but the Java based manager was either clunky or didn't play well in WHS2.

Drive Pooling's absence is a non-point currently. It was great back in the day when you started with 250G drives and wanted to basically add more/larger drives and let the OS act like it's the same drive, but in this day where $50 nets 1TB before sales or rebates not many people really mind. Myself, I like dedicating drives in WHS to different tasks so it works perfectly. However, this is a donation based server and pooling may be of interest. Drive Bender is an Add-on/plug-in that brings pooling right back into the OS, and I believe they're the ones that did the WHS1's drive pooling in the first place (could be wrong though).

I think n0b0dykn0ws has the best solution, but I'd make sure more than one person can work with FreeNAS from top to bottom.