Seeking a Microsoft-free NAS RAID-1 external drive

[christopher94523]

I tried the bug-ridden NetGear ReadyNAS Duo and sent it back after Support's addendums to their setup-lacking documentation all failed.

I would like to find a two-bay one drive mirroring the other RAID1 box that has no:

SAMBA
SMB
Active Directory
CIFS
TotalNET
SharePoint

and that does have

NFS
AFP

Microsoft taints and ruins everything it tries to re-write as proprietary or as being servile to Microsoft. It's just like Plesk ruining what an terminal window and Webmin do so easily.

I want sharable folders and files that use group-and-user permissions, not silly SharePoint.
I want to edit my web files with Dreamweaver and BBEdit, and then will FTP them from my iMac or Mac Mini up to the appropriate domain.

It's simple.
It has worked for over 30 years.
It doesn't need greedy MS code breaking it.
It doesn't need silly audio servers when iTunes and NiceCast can already grab input from any external drive.
It doesn't need frilly photo or movie servers when the connections are local.
It just needs file/folder access and the ability to set permissions, groups, and ownership.

I want two 1TB or 2TB drives.
I must be able to SEE what's on both drives and to get reports about block/sectors failures.

Suggestions are very appreciated.

Thanks much,
christopher94523

 

[christopher94523]

Oh yeah, it could have AFP, but I do not want it clogged up with Time Machine code that expects that that is my goal when it is not.

I do not keep data on my internal Mac drives (that's proved better left for OS and Apps only).

Thanks again,
christopher94523

 

[christopher94523]

I have decided to go with a simulated RAID1 setup.
There is no micro-OS so it is dependent upon 1+ systems on the system, and the overhead of approximately 500MB on each drive in the NetGear ReadyNAS Duo system is not lost.

The folders and files (defined by LAN groups, users, and file permissions, need SharePoints like a "hole in the head".
They're just an over-complexed and proprietary-izing misuse of what already works by the as-per-usual standard-breaking and poor-coding-practices of Microsoft.

So, I will use RAID-free software (to attain Microsoft-free-ness) to do my backups from a 2TB external hard drives to a second 2TB hard drive.
I will access 3 external drives that hold data for 4 commercial domains on one hosted VPS server (FreeBSD with incredible support), 8 non-commercial domains on a second hosting company's VPS server (CentOS with little-to-no support), and for 20,000+
Currently I am looking at two packages wherein we would alternate copy-backups from the same external
drive to another external drive on the same LAN:

1) ProSoft Engineering's Data Backup 3 - $59 (unclear regarding licensing re: our 2-system use);
2) SiberSystems GoodSync for Mac - $39.90 (2 licenses).

Your comments and suggestions are most welcome.

 

[golojo]

Hi,
Did U look at freeNAS ( http://freenas.org/ )?
I think it will answer Urs specs and more. I use it for more than 2 years, stopping it for upgrades only.

 

[christopher94523]

Wow! How nice to still see MS-free tools. Thanks. I have always respected the GNU folks but not the "Open Source" people (because they have no presence except "voluntary") and gave away both CSS to Microsoft and MySQL to Oracle by being responsibility-less morons. I expect no less from the code. In fact, Mozilla browser code sucks when it isn't leaking memory all over the place. I will look at freeNAS and appreciate your suggestion. Thanks much! I sense that the only way to avoid MS's reduction of robust RAID technology down to its own can only be remedied for me by using simple software that incrementally copies from one external drive to another. I am deciding, currently, between SiberSystems GoodSync for Mac and Prosoft Engineering's Data Backup 3. Others?

best,
chris