This post was published 5 years 8 months 4 days ago. Therefore, it may well be out of date. Do not reply on the contents of this post being accurate. If you need extra space for storing data or if you want if you want to store your data centrally on your LAN with some useful extra functionality I recommend you check out FreeNAS.
FreeNAS is a free NAS (Network-Attached Storage) server, supporting: CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS, RSYNC protocols, local user authentication, Software RAID (0,1,5) with a Full WEB configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 16MB once installed on Compact Flash, hard drive or USB key. The minimal FreeBSD distribution, Web interface, PHP scripts and documentation are based on M0n0wall.
Very simply … take an old PC, add a few large capacity hard drives and load FreeNAS (very clear instructions available) and hey bingo you’ve got a robust, secure, efficient network storage server.
I see it being useful for small businesses, families or people like me who have multiple computers. Really, it’s useful for anyone who wants to share large volumes of data.
Currently, my NAS box has a capacity of just under 1TB and I’m using it to store copies of my DVDs (currently taking up about 400GB) and as a central place to store my Mac, Linux and Windows backups.