Thinking of changing from WHS to NAS software, but which one.

razy60

Hi, I currently have a hp microserver n40l running WHS 2011 but am considering moving to NAS software.
Which would be suitable freenas or xpenology or something else?
I have only just started looking so any help is appreciated.
The reason for this is that I don't use the server for much more than media streaming/storage to Plex or Kodi and occasionally Powerdvd so WHS is being wasted plus its a bit of a resource hog.

Cheers

bubblegum57

I looked at freenas, apart from the, in my mind complicated setup.The N40 might not meet the specs.

FreeNAS Home Server Build

I did by a fluke manage to get dsm 6.1 xpenology installed on an old nuc. But didn't see any benefits.

I think there is talk, that xpenology is coming to end of life. But who knows.

I also looked at Open media vault, there is a good guide on youtube.

I also briefly tried ubuntu, & ubuntu server, but gave up due to my lack of technical ability.

chazman88

Check out unRaid.

I’ve been using it for years and has always been superb. Loads of people running it with a N40l.

razy60

Do any of these like freenas, unraid, xpenology, etc run off Purely the USB like a Linux os can or do they need to install some software on any of the drives, as I don't want to overwrite the WHS just yet in case of problems and if I find I dislike how it runs I want to be able to revert to WHS.

bubblegum57

xpenology, is just the boot up device, which open up the dsm webpage, so it just runs off the usb.

I can't remember what happened about the other ones.

razy60

The reason I ask is a lot of the searches I have done seem to indicate that they write something to each drive or they suggest that they create some sort of raid array.

bubblegum57

As an experiment, I tried to install Omv on a nuc with a single drive

The YouTube guide talked about two drives in a raid

Look at some YouTube videos to see if any of them are suitable

ChuckMountain

Is that a particular problem in its own right though?  Presumably, it has served you well for the last x years, are there any particular symptoms causing you issues at the moment?  The old adage if ain't broke don't fix it could apply

I would potentially be more concerned about the age of the N40L and what happened if say one of the PSU, MB etc failed, what would I do in that scenario.  Don't get me wrong I love the little boxes and had an N36L when they first came out but have retired it some time ago as I needed much more space and power.

Would you consider getting a new NAS box and migrating?

razy60

Not a particular problem more of an experiment, I was going to disconnect the WHS drive put a version of whatever on a USB and try that. But if it starts trying to create raid arrays or writing anything to the storage drives then that would cause issues.

ChuckMountain

Fair enough

If you do move to a different OS the likelihood is that to use the full features they may well want a different disk format so you would to move the data somewhere else.