What NOS should I look at for < 5 seat network and a decent need for speed

Software & Operating Systems BSD
1

Hey Everyone,

I am disabled (very bad back, and legs from accident) and finally ready to go all in on my YouTube channel. As part of that, I am going to have a Network that I really don’t envision being over five or six user stations and a couple of specialized network use stations. And I am trying to decide on the best NOS software for me.

I already have the 10GB switch (SFP+), the WIFI 6 WAP in the middle of the house The first Network box is going to be the NAS/File Server. I am allocating for a Software Raid 5 of 5@8TB drives to start with. Primarily to hold Video files for Archive, redundant backup, and file consistency. I also plan to implement home built router in my rack to hook in the WAP, and communicate with the Internet. This machine will also have the POE switch for the Subnet that will have the security cameras from around the house attached to the network.

I have used a variety of topologies and NOS’ in my life from CORVIS Omninet in 1982, To a linux box a couple of years ago. I am probably most familiar with Windows Server 2003, and even have my own copy of the software. But after using RSTS and VMS, on DEC equipment, Novel, Windows Server, Linux, Unix V, I can usually fake my way through any of the OS stuff between the internet and a decent book. I prefer not to do that though, and I am afraid that I will have to spend more time learning DaVinci Resolve for Video Editing, at least on the front end.

So I am debating, should I run FreeNAS and just make improvements as I go. Start off the bat with something like Suse Linux or Centos.

Thanks in Advance,

The Salty Codger.

2

What do you mean by NOS? Network OS?

I’ve been doing this professionally since 1996 and never heard the term used before. Maybe it’s older than me?

The main factor as I see it will be your software requirements, but from what i see they’re just basic NAS and firewall/routing?

Server 2003 is well beyond end of support (no security updates - and has a number of serious, in the wild exploits for it so… new hardware drivers, etc.), so i wouldn’t use that. Not sure it will even boot on some new hardware, i think we’re starting to see legacy-free UEFI now?

FreeNAS may be worth a look for the NAS, as it also supports both virtual machines and jails; you can spin up different operating systems or jails (essentially sort of like FreeBSD containers, or Solaris Zones if you’re familiar with those) for different jobs using the same box, and it is fairly appliance-like, just need to ensure you have plenty of RAM in it.

For the router i’d use pfsense.

Both are FreeBSD based, both are well-tested and well-maintained projects that are appliance-friendly to use.

Either SuSE or Centos will also do the job, but if the main job is a NAS, then i’d just use FreeNAS, ditto for the firewall/router box with pfsense.

You can spend a lot of time screwing around with a generic linux/bsd/windows install to make them do the job of pfsense or FreeNAS, but as far as I’m concerned its wasted effort; there’s a lot neat things you get “for free” that you’d need to manually configure on other platforms like SMART disk monitoring, email alerts, performance monitoring graphs, etc. etc.

edit:
pfSense also has either per incident or a support subscription available (and fairly good, fairly focused documentation) if you get stuck. Contrast this with a generic linux install where you’ll be chasing down docs or support for individual packages all over the place.

3

Plain old Debian (except switch to testing to get a rolling release of everything closer to upstream - new kernels, new user land and the works).

No virtualization or FreeBSD driver bs.
Setup unattended upgrades, make sure you can receive email from the box and off you go.
Setup backups with rsync and/or rclone and you’re done.

Biggest issue relative to old days is hardware is a lot more unreliable than 10-20 years ago. You need to make up for it with software. Checksum everything and monitor things.