Ok, so what is Free NAS? It is a light weight Linux OS that turns a computer into a Network Attachable Storage server. I have to say that it was pretty easy to setup. I went to their website, downloaded an iso, burned the iso to a CD, booted from the CD on the old PC, installed the OS to the hard drive, and then configured a static IP address so I could access the web control console. The initial setup is pretty easy, and after you get that going you can get into the more advanced settings through the web interface. Meaning you can plug a PC in a power outlet and a network cable and never think about again (until something breaks that is). Now there are a lot of things in FreeNAS that I will probably never use, but I will tell you how am I using it and why I like it. I am going to plug in my external hard drive to it and share all the data on the Free NAS amongst my home network. I'll use it as a central location for files like music, movies, programs, and homework. This way I can set up my other computer and laptop to just browse to it and access any of the files.
It's a simple concept, take some hard drives and make them network addressable by any PC on your network. Take it a step farther and you can set up any computer in the house to stream music or movies from it. I will be using Elisa to view the movies on both my desktop PC and laptop soon. In the future I hope to network a big screen TV to the NAS as well.
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