blur:Ragnor: Check this thread on gpforums, dstruktiv built a DIY NAS using FreeNas 8 and ZFS... he had some trouble to begin with but ended up with results ~70MB/s
http://www.gpforums.co.nz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=427056
I'm not sure I see the point of a DIY NAS when they are so cheap to buy. I mean to say, why try to re-invent the wheel? The one (and only) advantage that I can see might be the ability to have up to say 8 drives, or what even your motherboard is able to handle, but that seems about all.
(... holds breath and waits to be shot down in flames...)
You are probably right for the majority of users. Power users will need more bays and want more control.
But just thinking of the benefits off the top of my head......
You say up to 8 drives? why stop there.
The case I just bought has 24 hot swappable 3.5 inch bays. over kill? yes probably.
You can choose the motherboard, how much ram, ecc memory or not etc etc OS, you can choose the file system, you can choose how you want it set up, zfs, zfs raid1, zfs raid2, mirror, you can choose to run other services / programs as it is a full OS etc. With ZFS the more memory you have the better.
For me, I didn't want to be restricted in expansion and want to be able to change things as I want to.
A lot of these NAS boxes suffer from bitrot problems, unless they are running something like ZFS. So data can silently be corrupted.
But yes, I do agree, for most, some of the premade NAS boxes are great and cheap too.