I would like to build a NAS/Server with the following specs:

AMDx2 3800+ AM2
ASUS M2NPV-VM (NForce 4)
CORSAIR 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 533
Old WD 120GB IDE drive for OS
New 4x400GB WD HD for RAID 5 array.
OS: Fedora Core or Ubuntu

I would like to build this computer as a NAS and a basic web server. Instead of using any PCI SATA RAID cards I would like to use the built in NV raid. Through researching this I have found out the NVraid is basically software raid. I have read about using dmraid to control / make raids using NVraid but I haven't really found anything that in depth about dmraid. Basically I would like to know if anyone has any experience building an array using NVraid under any Linux distro. Also this will be my first experience really getting in to Linux so any advice would be helpful.

One more question. I plan on buying an Apple to use as my main desktop and I will still be using a Dell laptop with WinXP. I have read about using Samba for file sharing but I have also heard Netatalk is faster to use with Apple hardware. Does anyone know the best way to share files between both XP and OSX?

Sorry for the kind of long post. I appreciate any and all help.

Instead of dumping all that money in to hardware for a box that will essentially be sitting there doing a whole lot of nothing, you would be lots better off buying a hardware RAID controller. 3Ware makes good ones, if you're bargain hunting you can pick up a 6 port Dell branded SATA RAID controller off eBay for well under $150 if you look around.

You could get by with something like a Pentium 3 if you're doing RAID in hardware, plus you'll probably get a bit better throughput as well. Samba is still probably the best bet for file-sharing.

i've got a 533 K6-2 prestario that i was gonna use as a server
just dont know if i should buy like 5 LAN cards and use it as a router/smoothwall-firewall/file server/web server, or just buy a router and use a few IDE hdds

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Smoothwall it's own O/S? In other words, how could you run Smoothwall and a file/web/etc server on the same box?

Linux supports nvRAID, but not nvRAID 5 last I checked. The better option will be to use native Linux software RAID, which will work with any drives that are not already RAIDed by the BIOS. In other words, you can just leave them as simple drives, and then configure Linux software RAID on top of that to create a RAID 5 array. This is the better option here, and it will probably perform better.

A high-end option is a full, expensive, hardware RAID solution. Note that most "hardware" RAID solutions are actually software-assisted RAID solutions, which Linux does not like -- ref. the term "fakeraid".

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html

Note also that your performance will generally be limited by the networking, once you've gotten a certain level of RAID performance.

to be quite honest i have no idea. i've never setup a smoothwall before and know very little of what it is capible of. Of the few things that i do know is that it is a hardware firewall, which is based on linux (which i have Very little experence as well)
I think that since it says this on the front page of www.smoothwall.org
"SmoothWall includes a hardened subset of the GNU/Linux operating system"
I think that I can run a web/file server on it as part of linux. Though if someone could clear this up for me that would be grand!
so...its more a Firewall router with NAS now...could it work? should i start another thread on this?

The apple will be able to see and read the XP machine. But not the other way. So setting up a shared drive on the XP machine will work. A Nas Is another option. Or use a USB drive or memory stick.

You have that backwards, Smoothwall is a software firewall. A hardware firewall is something like a Cisco PIX. Last time I used Smoothwall was ages ago, but I wasn't too impressed with it's functionality. I am fairly certain you cannot run anything but Smoothwall on a Smoothwall box. You would probably be better off running a plain jane Linux distribution, and then making that into a firewall by adding a second NIC and using iptables. It's difficult to learn, but there are lots of HOWTOs and mailing lists out there.

Of course, any firewall guru will tell you that a firewall should not also be a NAS or any other type of server, because that just compromises the security of the firewall and whatever apps you have running on it. Now that I've said that, for a home scenario it's probably fine.

You have that backwards, Smoothwall is a software firewall. A hardware firewall is something like a Cisco PIX. Last time I used Smoothwall was ages ago, but I wasn't too impressed with it's functionality. I am fairly certain you cannot run anything but Smoothwall on a Smoothwall box. You would probably be better off running a plain jane Linux distribution, and then making that into a firewall by adding a second NIC and using iptables. It's difficult to learn, but there are lots of HOWTOs and mailing lists out there.

Of course, any firewall guru will tell you that a firewall should not also be a NAS or any other type of server, because that just compromises the security of the firewall and whatever apps you have running on it. Now that I've said that, for a home scenario it's probably fine.

what i meant by hardware firewall is that it is not run on your machine, it is a dedicated piece of hardware that acts as a firewall i.e. it takes care of the problem before your software firewall (norton or zone alarm or whaterver you use) has to deal with it further

Then I'd say it's a dedicated firewall.

I didnt know there was any difference
whats a hardware firewall then? i seem to remember they cost an arm and a leg

A hardware firewall is an appliance you buy that just does firewalling like a Cisco PIX, SonicWALL, Check Point, etc. Typically they are expensive and not targeted for home users.

Hi, in my home we have 5 imac pc's one centos fileserver for personal storage, a freenas server, another linux box which acts as my router, supplying dhcp address through my switch, my wife just switched to a mac for a windows pc running xp pro, freenas has an option for apple file protocol, and xp machines can also see this share, i've completely integrated my network with both systems, my mcs are running osx 10.3, i have no probems, I've been windows free for only 6 months, and I'll never go back to the darkside!

to be quite honest i have no idea. i've never setup a smoothwall before and know very little of what it is capible of. Of the few things that i do know is that it is a hardware firewall, which is based on linux (which i have Very little experence as well)
I think that since it says this on the front page of www.smoothwall.org
"SmoothWall includes a hardened subset of the GNU/Linux operating system"
I think that I can run a web/file server on it as part of linux. Though if someone could clear this up for me that would be grand!
so...its more a Firewall router with NAS now...could it work? should i start another thread on this?

No, you can't run a web / file server on Smoothwall. Well, I guess you could, but it would kinda defeat the purpose of having a firewall. Smoothwall is a Linux distribution with all the unncessary stuff stripped out, stuff not needed for a dedicated firewall. It has a minimal Apache running off of port 81 and 445, but it's accessible only internally. Same thing with ssh server running off of port 222.

It has no compiler, no script interpreters like Perl or python, no ssh, telnet, ftp client. That way if someone breaks into your smoothwall box (very unlikely, unless you modified the heck out of it), they can't use that box as a launching point for attack (to you or someone on the Net).

Combining NAS with a firewall is absolutely the dumbest thing you could do. Anyone trying to break into your network will see your firewall first. That is the first point of attack. Once they break in, if your NAS is on the same box, they don't have to go any further to get your precious data. Not to mention that installing NAS related stuff on your firewall will break all kinds of security.