I have a lot of big files on my laptop, and my laptop has only 40GB hard disk. Most of the times I download videos from youtube and google videos. All these are filling up my hard disk. Also I want to share these videos with everyone in my team, cos most of the videos are tech videos.  I also have with me tons of tutorial files written on to DVDs and Cds.

So to share the files with everyone I decided to buy a network harddisk. But the costs are a bit high for 1000 GB device (around 20K). Why would I buy a 1000 GB network storage for 20K when I can buy two 500 GB HDDs for 5K each, and then setup them in one of my old PCs.

And the search for a good software led me to FreeNas.   FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server, supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, AFP, RSYNC, iSCSI protocols, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a Full WEB configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key.

Ill be soon setting up freenas and giving it a try. Will post the details after doing so.