Free NAS?
Hi everyone I have a 4TB NAS connected to my Main home router which my family has been using for a while to store/backup all sorts of things. My problem is that I've gotten a Wifi extender for my room, because I'm the farthest from the router despite using it the most, and the NAS is not showing up with the new network. Before I could access the NAS through rhythmbox,kodi,caja. I could temporarily try and fix this, but also I had an idea of getting a libre NAS for my personal use. I'm 99% sure that the WDMycloud NAS is not libre, though it is likely that the internal guts of the NAS are GNU/Linux.
Any suggestions for buying a libre NAS that would work out of the box?
If none currently exist on the market, maybe some sort of regular harddrive connected to a raspberry-pi-like device? (rsbpi are not free software compatible I know).
Thanks!
Why do you still want to purchase another NAS when you can use SFTP or FTPS to share your files?
I purchased a mini PC (no bigger than an optical drive) which can be operated without a keyboard through certain BIOS/UEFI settings. (Most desktop computers' firmware refuses to boot the operating system without a keyboard.) Then I attached keyboard, mouse and display to it for once (and only once) to install a minimalist Debian (without desktop environments). I chose to install SSH server and by doing so no more packages are needed. When installation finished, set the IP address for the NIC. Now I could log out and disconnect the keyboard, mouse, and display, because everything can now be done without physical access.
I wanted to get a NAS because I have no clue what SFTP or FTPS is :D.
I was ideally looking for something libre and easy to setup. That's why I also thought of having a mini pc, hence why I referenced raspberry pi's.
If I have no prior knowledge of SFTP or FTPS, and limited knowledge of SSH. Which mini pc would you recommend?
Mine is a Lenovo ThinkCentre M92p. But also keep in mind that such desktop PC product lines (no matter they are from Lenovo, Dell, or HP, etc.) have different sizes. e.g. A ThinkCentre M92p can be either in a mid-tower chassis or in an optical-drive-sized box, or other sizes between them. The smallest variation is usually called something like "mini desktop", "ultra thin/slim", or "ultra small form factor (USFF)". You can try to search one on eBay, e.g. using the keyword "USFF".
(Note: typo fixed)
While RPi can't run 100% freesw, some simillar boards can!
See: https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
If You just need it to store files, then You have a broader choice of SoCs, since You don't have to care about graphics and WiFi :)
As a general rule, if You care about free boot firmware, avoid x86 (with exception of few older librebooted devices that don't fit this use-case.
As nadebula said, You can configure a minimal GNU/Linux and set up an sftp server or something else. I used to use nfs to communicate files between machines, but You should see which protocol best fits Your needs.
Btw, why not do sth like `apt search ftp` ;)
For SFTP or FTPS application, arm/64 processors are too weak to handle encryption/decryption computing. Hardware AES support is essential to encrypted file transfer. So Nehalem (i7 or high-end i5) or newer platform is recommended for this task. Maybe a coreboot X201 (with i5-5xxM or i7 CPU) is suitable. I once used such an X201 as SFTP server. Maximum transfer speed was about 100 MByte/s, approximately the theoretical bandwidth of GbE. The CPU usage was acceptable.