Comparing FreeNAS, FTP server, SMB server, multimedia server...

[harp]

I thinking about some central LAN file server, on where I can put some files from other devices, or access to them, and maybe play some movie without download...

I never study this, but when I see that freenas need few gigabyte of ram to recommended working, some wiered partition, I wonder if I miss somewhat in the midletime...
Also exist "turnkey file server", and other turnkey products that I can not distinguished what is major difference and how it perform - no experiance at all.

What is general difference between this products, and what be most useful on very old hardware (xp generation 1gb)? I am also concern about using storage disk on other pc directly if I must...

???

[CapLeaker]

Check out Synology, unless you get cheap or free power...

[harp]

No, I do not want commercial solution, rather to build from old scratch and learn something
For power consumption, it will not always be powered, but only on demand from magic packet.

[stj]

you probably wont get freenas to build on anything old - it has high demands.
try this interesting article
https://rigorousthemes.com/blog/best...s-alternative/

[harp]

Thank you for the link, it seems that omv just fits in what I need. But, I am still confused, what is mains differences between any nas os and other specific server who serve files...

Have anyone tested different solutions to serve files, and what is concluded?
Is only difference in name, I guess not?

[stj]

just the name,
the problem with freenas is they started adding stuff like ZFS which is server oriented and does realtime checksum calculation/compare on the files to check for corruption.
this is great but it needs a huge amount of ram and cpu power.

[CapLeaker]

freenas is a RAM hog