It depends what you mean by "small" - the ReadyNAS Pro holds 6 drives and it's about the size of a shoebox, relatively small compared to a full PC case. 80MB/s on a single GigE port is readily achievable.

It looks like FreeNAS has come some ways in the past few years - just started looking at it again today. With support for ZFS and what should be a relatively painless installation (there are a number of install guides). Then there are also a few alternatives which sound a little more challenging, like OpenIndiana and Nexentastor (wow, what a name). Performance is up on all of these compared to a few years ago, so too is the usefulness of their management UI's.

Nice enclosures with drive caddies still cost a premium, so there's really no way around that. eBay has some interesting deals, but I don't know how the hardware will stand up in the "real world." 16 drive rack-mountable system ready with support for 12 drives - using the other 4 requires a controller upgrade.



Edited by hybrid8 (27/09/2012 15:51)
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Bruno
Twisted Melon : Fine Mac OS Software