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NAS4Free - The Free Network Attached

Storage Project

NAS4Free is an embedded Open Source Storage NAS (Network-

Attached Storage) distribution designed for home users and small
businesses primarily, but could potentially scale to larger projects.

The NAS4Free operating system can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share
computer data storage over a computer network. 'NAS' as in Network-Attached Storage and '4Free'
as in 'Free and open source', NAS4Free is the simplest and fastest way to create an centralized and
easily-accessible server for all kinds of data easily accessed with all kinds of network protocols and
from any network.

History

Some users assume that NAS4Free is a fork of FreeNAS. This is absolutely NOT the case. NAS4Free
is the direct continuation of the original FreeNAS code that was under development from 2005 till
2011 under the name FreeNAS. it's Our team who did made FreeNAS famous around the globe with
the regular releases of the FreeNAS 7 series we did made for you!

After the FreeNAS name was legally acquired by iXsystems, Inc. (year 2011), this original code was
unable to be developed any longer under the same brand name, for this a name change was
necessary. The founder of FreeNAS (Olivier Cochard-Labb) donated us the copyright protected
source code that IXsystems could not use to release. IXsystems forbid us to release new builds based
on the original code under their brand name. Because of the code copyright that was not handed over
to IXsystems a full rewrite for FreeNAS was needed. FreeNAS 8 by IXsystems was born on May of
2011, it was their rst product. To continue our only option was to leave the FreeNAS project after so
many years and to continue under our own new name: NAS4Free.

At the time we began publishing the new name and development restarted, we took the opportunity
to upgrade the base system as well. NAS4Free went up from FreeBSD 7 to the latest FreeBSD
releases, allowing support for a lot of newer hardware too. This brought us great advances in the ZFS
le system as well. All these changes should vastly increase our ability to oer you an even better
NAS system than ever before. The rst release under the new brandname was done on date
2012-03-22 providing you the rst of the NAS4Free 9.0.0.1 series.

NAS4Free is intended to be installed, most often, in its Embedded form. This provides the installed
system a high degree of damage resistance (against accidental or intentional tampering) and allows
you to update VERY easily. Full installs do NOT have this resistance to damage and are dicult and/or
annoying to update.

Technology

The power of NAS4Free's conguration is its fast responsive WebGUI. It simplies administrative tasks
so that almost any user can manage their system with ease.

Wiki NAS4Free - https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/

Last update: 2017/10/28 23:22 index https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/index

NAS4Free supports sharing with UNIX-like, Apple, and Windows systems (and others that use
compatible network protocols).

Some supported protocols include: CIFS/SMB (Samba), Active Directory Domain Controller (Samba),
FTP, NFS v4, TFTP, AFP, RSYNC, Unison, iSCSI (initiator and target), UPnP, Bittorent and Bridge, CARP
and HAST protocols.

It supports ZFS, Software RAID (0,1,5), JBOD, UFS, Disk Encryption, and S.M.A.R.T with Email
notications. And for the most advanced users under us, you can also use the integrated virtualbox-
ose to run virtual machines managed by noVNC and phpvirtualbox.

NAS4Free can be booted of from a LiveCD or LiveUSB, and optionally installed on Compact Flash, USB
ash drive, SSD, Hard drive or a number of other bootable devices. (NAS4Free also supports
advanced formated drives using 4kb sectors)

Current Releases

NAS4Free is build on FreeBSD 11.1 for 11.1.0.4.xxxx series, we only oer you 64-bits versions!

We also have thought about all FreeNAS 7 users. (Note: All current FreeNAS 7 users can easy migrate
using our releases) Save your cong and install nas4free. Only what is left now is to restore your
saved cong in the webgui.

See our Download Options (before downloading anything)

With over 2.000.000 downloads to date, we oer you our latest releases:

NEW 11.1.0.4 Release: 2017-10-28:

NAS4Free build 11.1.0.4.4812

Upgraded FreeBSD to 11.1-RELEASE-P2.

Unless you know WHY you're downloading the embedded.img.xz le, then you really don't want the
embedded.img.xz le. You need the LiveCD/LiveUSB for the initial embedded installation!

Latest Beta release: 2017-2-07: Download Options (read before downloading anything)

Sorry, no new beta versions at this time.

Latest ARM release: 2017-08-19:

NAS4Free build 10.3.0.3.4529

Upgraded FreeBSD to 11.1-STABLE.

Always Read the readme.txt before you download and install, it often contains very
important information!

The NAS4Free team hopes you enjoy your experience with our software and that it is the perfect NAS
solution for your home or business!

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About

Features
What NAS4Free is and is not
Warnings
Screenshots
License
Contributors
Bug Tracker

Documentation

Download Options
Setup and User Guide
WebGUI Interface and Setup
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
HowTo
Hardware Compatibility Lists & Users' Hardware Lists

Community

Donate the NAS4Free Project

Forum NAS4Free - Where you can nd info or getting help and answers to some questions.
How to contribute?
Translations: Register to contribute

In the IRC channel, don't ask if anyone can help you, wait 10 minutes, and then leave. That helps
nobody.

Just ask the question(s) you really have.

If someone can help, then sooner or later you'll get a response. (may take over an hour) A lot of
people idle in the IRC channel, and just never leave, but that doesn't mean that they'll be available to
help immediately. If you don't or can't just ask your questions and wait around for an answer, the IRC
channel may not be a good option for you.

IRC: freenode.net #nas4free What is IRC?

NAS4Free in the Media

A podcast about NAS4Free:

http://knightwise.com/kw405-nas4free-as-your-cross-platform-network-lehub/
freenas-vs-nas4free shootout:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/the-ars-nas-distribution-shootout-freena
s-vs-nas4free/8/

Wiki NAS4Free - https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/

Last update: 2017/10/28 23:22 index https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/index

Partners & Sponsors of NAS4Free

*Listed in alphabetical order:

Aspen Systems inc. (USA)

Aspen Systems inc. : Professional HPC Clusters and Services.

Jet Stream (USA)

Jet Stream : Leaders in video surveillance management and storage.

Hardware Donations

A big thank you goes to Andrew from CwLinux Limited http://www.cwlinux.com, who donated a nice
CW12832 12832 Graphical LCD screen.

If you would like to add your company or need more info, please contact info@nas4free.org

Related Projects

FreeNAS : NanoBSD based NAS OS developed by iXsystems, Inc. (since late 2011 started from
FreeNAS 8 and up)
OpenMediaVault : NAS Project based on Debian

From:
https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/ - Wiki NAS4Free

Permanent link:
https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/index

Last update: 2017/10/28 23:22

https://www.nas4free.org/wiki/ Printed on 2017/11/11 07:34