After many days of research, investigation, trial and error I have one conclusion when it comes to 700gb+ archive solution. But before I get to that these are my pros and cons for each candidate.

I spent most of my time with Freenas, it’s free and the OS is robust, but I struggled with it. Every time I got it running it kept coming up with new problems after a few days especially with the Raid 5 configuration; it seemed it always rebuilding itself. The final straw was when I had one drive ‘apparently’ fail in the Raid 5 but it reported the drive was online! It was too annoying in the end for the level sophistication and capacity I needed.

I like Ubuntu, I’m a huge fan but I had to admit to myself it was because of the geek in me. I cannot fault it other than the fact it is not as established as Windows or OS X.

If I were to describe an Operating System that was reliable, stable and quick you would probably think Linux or OS X. In fact I’m trialing the Windows 7 Beta. I initially had a hard drive fault which I mistakenly blamed Windows 7 for. The SATA drive was corrupted which meant I mis-diagnosed the problem. I have put Windows 7 thought a battery of tests especially with the hard drives. The 4 x 1TB Western Digital drives are all running perfectly. Sharing is easy and it means I can run things like Lightroom and (cough) games on the old machine! Far more versatile than Ubuntu and Freenas.

So, there you have it. My choice for backup server is Windows 7 (beta). This version expires in August but it’s a good sign when a Beta version is showing good signs of a stable Operating System!

See also FREENAS