Mac and Windows sharing a NAS

[Euroclydon37]

My buddy is asking me for help at his work. They edit a LOT of videos and they're always having to pass portable hard drives around to share projects.

I'm trying to set them up with a NAS. Money isn't an issue, so I can make it pretty powerful. It'll involve 10gb Ethernet connections with link aggregation on the NAS computer for high bandwidth and 8 1TB SSD's in an undecided RAID configuration.

My question is two fold. First, can both Windows and Mac access the same NAS (most likely freeNAS)? And if so, could they both work off the NAS in the same manner as a local drive instead of having to transfer, work, transfer back?

I'm new to NAS and the stuff I've been reading makes me think that access from both Windows and Mac isn't a problem. But I can't get a clear answer on using NAS in the same manner as a local drive. And while I could dive in and figure it out from tinkering, they won't let me loose on it until I have answers.

 

[Eximo]

Got the title and the question backwards.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Yes a freeNAS server can be used by both Mac and Windows and mapped as a drive that you can run files right off of. This article has a good description

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/how-to-set-up-a-home-file-server-using-freenas/

Towards the end it tells you exactly how to map it as a drive on a Mac.

You could also use Windows instead of FreeNAS and map drives to a mac as well. I have that setup in my home right now.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/21600/mount-a-windows-share-in-os-x-and-have-it-reconnect-at-login/

 

[COLGeek]

My buddy is asking me for help at his work. They edit a LOT of videos and they're always having to pass portable hard drives around to share projects.

I'm trying to set them up with a NAS. Money isn't an issue, so I can make it pretty powerful. It'll involve 10gb Ethernet connections with link aggregation on the NAS computer for high bandwidth and 8 1TB SSD's in an undecided RAID configuration.

My question is two fold. First, can both Windows and Mac access the same NAS (most likely freeNAS)? And if so, could they both work off the NAS in the same manner as a local drive instead of having to transfer, work, transfer back?

I'm new to NAS and the stuff I've been reading makes me think that access from both Windows and Mac isn't a problem. But I can't get a clear answer on using NAS in the same manner as a local drive. And while I could dive in and figure it out from tinkering, they won't let me loose on it until I have answers.

The answer to all of your questions is "Yes". Both Win and OS X platforms can access the same NAS at the same time, no need for a 2 step transfer/share process. Yes, you can set up shared drives that can be used similarly to local drives. Just another mapped drive, not a problem.

FreeNAS is excellent for these capabilities, so is Windows Home Server 2011, and NAS4Free. There are other similar OSes available as well.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/the-ins-and-outs-of-planning-and-building-your-own-home-nas/

 

[Solandri]

SMB (server message block) is Microsoft Windows' way of sharing files across a network, and it's become the accepted universal standard. (Well, an accepted universal standard. The next most popular is probably NFS, but that's mostly used in Unix. And Windows support is spotty at best.) The package for accessing SMB shares on Unix systems like OS X has been coined Samba, and OS X has a version. If you use FreeNAS, you will probably want to set up the shares as SMB for this reason.

So yes the Macs will be able to access file shares on the NAS, or on Windows computers for that matter. The only hitch is that OS X stores a lot of extra file data behind the scenes on its native filesystem (HFS+). Other filesystems like NTFS or exFAT or ext3 don't have a way to store this extra data in a way which ties it to only that specific file. OS X gets around the problem by dropping a ton of ._* files and .DS_Store files all over the shared filesystem. They won't show up by default in Unix (including OS X) or Linux (any filename starting with . is hidden by default). But your Windows computers will faithfully show you each and every one of them.

 

[Euroclydon37]

Thank you guys for all your answers. I gave the correct answer to Rogue Leader because he commented first, but everyone was really helpful.