NAS - Network Attached Storage

Hardware

• 1 x ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

• 1 x Intel Pentium G630 Sandy Bridge 2.7GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80623G630

• 2 x Kingston HyperX Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 

• 1 x CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 430W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

• 4 x Western Digital Red 3TB SATA3 64MB Cache 3.5in Internal Hard Disk Drive HDD (Part#: WD30EFRX)

Software

FreeNAS 8.0

I tried FreeNAS as it has been widely publicized. It is based off BSD UNIX and is lightweight. Actually it is too light weight. In order to use other advanced features such as torrent client, audio services, etc you have to install plugins. These are a super pain in the ass, nothing anyone without moderate to advanced knowledge of BSD UNIX could do.

NAS4Free

NAS4Free is lesser known and has a web server, torrent client, audio services all ready to go out of the box. It worked great but whenever I would transfer multiple files at the same time all the transfers would crap out. I also ran into tons of problems with file and folder permissions working properly.

Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server worked great. No permission problems, all the apps I want, and it handles multiple file transfers like a champ. Now don't get me wrong I am not a fan of Microsoft's ethics and business practices, but until Google or someone else makes a better product this is my choice.

I am running RAID 5 so there is 9TB of usable space on this array. On CAT6 cable with 9K MTU jumbo frames I am maxing out my gigabit network at about 110-115MB/s. (10MB/s you figure is going to overhead)