For RAID 1, Windows vs. NAS/Linux ??

would appreciate some input from you guys that have "been there; done that" for a RAID 1 [mirrored drives] redundancy setup.

I have a server setup doing file-serve for a small LAN - running windows xp pro with accounts for the users. its getting a good deal of traffic and ~ 1GB of data at the moment. it is not redundant and is not currently backed-up! yikes.

so, going to setup a RAID 1 operation and move everything.
Its fairly easy and inexpensive to get an intel-based minitower having the onboard Intel Rapid Storage IC SATA controller - they started shipping these in the Core Duo era and continue. With either XP Pro or Windows 7 it should be fairly easy to use their utility to do the job.
But what advantage, if any, might one of the proprietary Linux NAS boxes have?

Either approach is going to be subject to the weakest link: Windows is porous and subject to hackattack. Linux shouldn't be, but is it? rather, is the proprietary implementation used by some of the NAS vendors?
Some of these are reviewed here http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401086,00.asp
but who knows the integrity behind the reviews? tough times in the PC industry make for some unreliable hype

what say ye?

 

We went with the ReadyNAS duo boxes due to very low power use. They are easy enough to set up, but as you said they do not help the Windows vulnerabilities. Not much fun to see you have a very reliable source for trashed data.
You will need a good incremental backup plan as well. We use a local drive for daily and weekly incremental and upload from east to west coast / west to east coast servers monthly. Our data needs are fairly modest so it works well.

 

If you have the hardware for the Windows build, you can install Linux.
I have used Nas Lite from http://www.serverelements.com/ and don't forget FreeNAS, or my latest build UnRAID from http://lime-technology.com/
There are plenty of guides on setting up various distros as file servers too.
But doing your own hardware over the NAS boxes, gives you room to grow.