Computer Storage Solutions

Ok this is the situation, i’m going start software engineering and network engineering however presently i do a bit of graphics as well, i’m thinking of upgrading my current computer setup and i need to store files and programs in a seperate machine for 1) Safety 2) Clearing up space on the working machine 3) Sharing, My question is, Should i buy a server or NAS? Can you also explain what makes the difference?

A server is a complete computer with shared drives or directories. An NAS is a drive (or drives) shared on the network with minimal additional firmware. You could always turn an old computer into an NAS by running FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=30&id=sug:en ) and adding a TB or ten of storage to it. That’s about the cheapest way. (Even a 5 year old computer is probably faster than your LAN if it has a Gigabyte NIC.)

We use both - NASs mainly for off-line storage (we have a few million tifs - if they’re more than a year old they go to a huge NAS), backup, etc. Files in daily use sit on servers. At home we have 2 large drives, each attached to a computer by USB, and they’re shared to the LAN.

For safety, all data is backed up to at least 2 flash drives whenever it’s changed. (Karen’s Replicator, and making sure the flash drives are plugged in, takes care of that. http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp )