Turn spare PC into NAS

[iodex]

I have a spare computer and I am toying on the idea of turning it into a NAS. My idea would be to be able to access this PC from anywhere in the world. For instance if our family was on holiday then we could send our pictures, videos, etc to the NAS.

Is this possible and what software would we need.

Thanks

IODEX

 

[lucasbytegenius]

Yes it is possible, however I haven't tried accessing it from outside my home network yet.
The best free software you can get is FreeNAS at www.freenas.org.
It takes a bit to set up, but works fine.

To access the server from outside your home network you would have to configure your router, forward ports etc, perhaps another member can help you better on that than I can

 

[brian]

Yes it is possible, however I haven't tried accessing it from outside my home network yet.
The best free software you can get is FreeNAS at www.freenas.org.
It takes a bit to set up, but works fine.

To access the server from outside your home network you would have to configure your router, forward ports etc, perhaps another member can help you better on that than I can

Yes you would need to set the server to have a static address on your network (192.168.1.10) for example. than on your router you would need to forward the ports that it uses. Im not sure what freenas uses port wise, but standard ones are 80 (http) 443(https) 445 (SMB). Since you have a dynamic address (most likely) you will want a static address you can always go to. sign up for a account at dyndns.org they provide free URL's. On most routers they have a spot for Dynamic DNS, in there you link up your account. Every time your address changes it will update on dyndns and you can always access your files.