[veryniceguy2002]

Ummm... not sure whether this post should belongs to sever or network or hardware forums... so I would try it here.

Can someone recommend a network file server (is this commonly referred as Network Attached Storage or NAS?) for home use, so that I can have a central file server for my files, and I don't need to turn on a specific Mac to enable filesharing.

I prefer the following features:

1. Can share files between Mac, PC and possibly UNIX
2. Use access it using AppleTalk
3. 10/100Mb ethernet
4. Never crash (may be I'm asking too much , perhaps I should ask it odesm't crash much)
5. Hard frive can be upgradeable?
6. Easy to configure and managed
7. Cheap?

Am I asking too much already?
Thanks!

[Camelot]

Your cheapest option is going to be any old machine running a recent version of any OS.

Dedicated network storage applicances are going to be more expensive.

Pretty much any machine nowadays is going to be able to do what you want.

Virtually any Intel PC can run linux, which can run Samba for windows file sharing and NFS for Unix and Mac OS X file sharing

Almost any Mac going back to the early G3's can also run Linux, with the same features.

Any recent Mac can run Mac OS X, which comes with Samba, AppleShare and NFS out of the box.

Commodity hardware (both Mac and PC) will let you upgrade with off-the-shelf hard drives, as opposed to proprietary drives in many NAS solutions.

That said, what's your budget and scale? I have a couple of 500GB - 1TB storage arrays I'm not using

[cteselle]

I agree with Camalot.. find an old mac/pc and put linux on it.

[veryniceguy2002]

You fellows are probably right!

Would it be easy to configure Linux so that it can operate as headless mode (so that I can use one less monitor (or even keybord and mouse), and control it via telnet from another machine?

[cteselle]

It'll work just fine without a monitor...

You could even use your mac as the head since you can run x11 apps remotely if you have x11 installed (fink or apples) on macosx, or just not install x at all on linux box and save some space. Either way is totally doable.

Make sure on the pc that you use (assuming you are gonna use a pc and not a mac for you linux box), to config the bios so that the machine does not halt it if doesn't see a keboard.

good luck!