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I have a client that requires a massive amount of storage space but:

  1. Doesn't want to spend very much money
  2. Needs remote users (across the country) to be able to pull data from it and store to it, as well.

Can this be done with an NAS Server such as the Western Digital Sharespace Network Storage System? I do not believe the client wants to spend over $1400 and HP is offering 8TB for $1299.

Also, if anyone has any other ideas besides using NAS, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help.

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  • Does the client have any hardware laying around that could be repurposed?
    – Chris Thorpe
    Mar 19, 2010 at 0:00
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    Does anyone else ever get sick of companies\customers saying " I want a lot of stuff, but I don't want to pay a lot for it"? Why do the principals of economices seem to not apply to the IT world? My boss wants a world class, "never fails" infrastructure, but he doesn't want to pay for redundancy, maintenance and support contracts, etc, etc. It drives me crazy. Sorry for the rant.
    – joeqwerty
    Mar 19, 2010 at 2:34
  • joeqwerty, I completely understand. This happens much too often.
    – JB
    Mar 19, 2010 at 12:06
  • You say “massive amount of storage,” but don’t say exactly how much. Also does that budget include redundancy and backups?
    – David
    Apr 20, 2010 at 3:47

4 Answers 4

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Look at Nasuni Systems. I don't know what they charge, but generally a NAS gateway into the "cloud" I believe.

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The WD Sharespace will allow the remote access you want but you should have a look at what the client is uploading/downlaoding and total number of users. From WD.. "Access your files anywhere, anytime using MioNet remote access services from WD." It also supports FTP. We have used a few for local access and they are a solid unit with some nice features. Buffalo also makes some good units Buffalo Network Devices

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  • Mionet is horrible. If it is anything like their Mybook World Edition, it might run Linux. It was CPU-bound on the data-transfer with that product.
    – Warner
    Mar 18, 2010 at 20:04
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http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

how about 67 TB for less than $8000 :-)

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  • $7,867 is slightly more than $1,400 last time I checked.
    – ThatGraemeGuy
    Mar 18, 2010 at 21:46
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    sorry, I was using windows calculator.
    – The Unix Janitor
    Mar 18, 2010 at 22:10
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So, the requirements are 1. Solid product with a lot of features that 2. Costs little to no money? This sounds like a job for open source!

For the NAS part, take a look at OpenFiler. It's a great application that let's you roll your own NAS/SAN device. It installs via a bootable CDROM image and is managed via a web GUI, so you don't even need any Linux experience.

To give the remote users secure access to files on Openfiler, set up a firewall that also functions as a VPN endpoint. My personal preference is a dedicated Linux server running Shorewall and OpenVPN. Shorewall is extremely powerful/flexible but unless you're familiar with managing firewall rulesets in a corporate environment, it has a steep learning curve. A better solution for a small biz client might be loading DD-WRT onto a Linksys WRT54GL and using that in conjunction with the OpenVPN on DD-WRT instructions.

Good luck!

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  • Thank you all for the answers. I greatly appreciate it. The product has been ordered and it is on its way. If I have any questions, I'll be sure to get back to you guys.
    – JB
    Mar 19, 2010 at 12:09
  • What product is that?
    – jamieb
    Mar 19, 2010 at 15:51

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