Cheap, Active Directory, Room to Grow...

[Phi Kai]

Hi!

I've recently started working on my network at home again. For about a year i've had an Old Compaq DL380 G1. I had the SCSI drives running the OS and had a 200GB IDE drive inside for storage...GAH only 200GB ...

It's mostly a project for learning and I run Windows (Server 2k3) because the work environments I'm in all use Windows Servers. I recently picked up a Dell PowerEdge 2650 (I <3 it). I've popped ESXi on it and its running 3 Virtual Servers.

Anyway...storage is kind of an issue now. I'd like to get a NAS, not because I couldn't make a server or tower work for it...I mistakenly sold off my last unused tower before I realized its possibility for a NAS... I'm looking to stay on the cheaper end...I don't have a number, but the cheaper the better.

What I need out of the NAS is support for Active Directory...now I've seen some stuff about using LDAP/Samba? to accomplish this on Linux NAS's...but I'm sure how that works or if that would be the best way to go? I'd also like Room to grow...not as important because I've made 200GB work for several years now, but I was hoping I could find a diskless system and start small and grow as needed.

What are my options for things that work well in a windows environment?

Thanks for the suggestions...and sorry if this has been covered...I searched around bit and have googled tons, just can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for.

~Kai

 

[thiggins]

There are plenty of inexpensive, BYOD NASes that have AD/NT Domain support. Just use the AD/ NT Domain filter over at the NAS Charts. What this means is that the NAS is supposed to be able to join an AD/NT Domain and use its user and group lists for its share permissions.

That said, it's not something that I test and the implementations do vary. So I'm afriad that others who have used NAS AD features will have to chime in.