[vox-tech] Promise SmartStor NS2300N NAS success & mount questions

[Aaron Brayton]

Bill,

Thanks for sharing your info about your NAS.  I'm looking into if that 
device will serve my purpose, which is the same as yours, or if it's too 
big.

I am concerned about being able to easily see it on the network.  From 
what you wrote I'm under the impression you have yet to get it up and 
running and mounted, yet alone automatically mounted.  May I ask that 
you post an update with the settings you've used once you get it working?

I wish I could be more help, but I'm a novice with Linux, but I'm 
extremely happy with it as an alternative to MS.

Thanks!
Aaron



Bill Kendrick wrote:
> Upon a recommendation from Brian and Harry from SacLUG, who
> went to Fry's with me yesterday, I purchased a Promise Technology
> SmartStor NS2300N NAS enclosure.  Together with a 1TB drive,
> it ended up being about $70 cheaper than a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo
> (with a drive built-in, but only 500GB) that I was seriously
> considering.
>
> It does NFS, SMB, FTP, and has a bunch of other features I
> may never use.  It can be managed via a web interface, which
> is great.  (Just like the Brother networked printer I also
> bought recently -- and also for a lot cheaper than I would have
> expected -- it was a no-brainer to set-up, and does not require
> a Windows box or funky drivers to use, though it does come with
> a CDROM with Windows and Mac(?) management apps.)
>
> I like that I can set up users and groups, and am trying to
> think of best way of setting up some public and private
> directories on the drive.  The main way they'd be accessed
> is via mounting them on a pair of Linux laptops, and since I'm
> not an fstab expert, I'd love some assistance with that. :)
> (I used to run a Samba server, but that box has been retired and
> recently wiped clean, to be donated to someone who needs a PC.
> Everything it did has been replaced by simpler, stand-alone
> devices.)
>
> The purpose of the drive is mainly:
>
> 1. central repository for all of our ripped audio,
>    such that Amarok can access it easily
>
> 2. central repository for all of our family photos
>
> 3. data backups (laptops, webserver dumps, perhaps even some
>    work stuff, just to have something off-site)
>
> The ReadyNAS Duo apparently has Bonjour, and I don't believe
> the device I bought does.  Brian was telling me that Bonjour is
> a way of broadcasting the availability of the drive, so that
> PCs on the network can discover it.
>
> Assuming I DON'T have this available to me, I guess I simply
> need to add some lines to /etc/fstab for the folders in question,
> providing the username/password (or pointing to a
> root-only-readable password file, if I recall).  Then users
> (my wife and I) would need to issue "mount /whatever" to mount
> the drive.  (I also need to remember how to give specific users
> permissions to mount, so that sudo isn't involved each time.
> Is it via sudoers?)
>
> My biggest concern is making sure everyone who should be able
> to read/write to public space can, and that permissions and
> ownership make sense on the laptops.  This might require making
> separate users on each laptop...?
>
> I have to make one complaint... the command-line example they
> provided for mounting on Linux/Unix was not only full of typos
> (forgot "/" when they were explaining "mkdir /SmartStor",
> and included a space between "/" and "SmartStor" in the mount
> example), but it simply didn't work, even when I accounted for this.
>
> Anyway, tips here would be welcome.  (Otherwise, just consider
> this a report of: "this device works pretty nicely with Linux" :) )
>
> PS - We're using Kubuntu 8.10 on our laptops.
>
> Thx & happy new year,
>
> -bill!
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