Need a Little File Server?

Instead of paying hundreds of dollars more for a dedicated NAS (or paying about the same for a basic, slower NAS), consider the nifty HP ProLiant N40L MicroServer, which is on sale at Newegg for $250. It is a fantastic little system and all you need to do is add FreeNAS to get something more robust for file serving and the like than what you receive in, say, a Netgear ReadyNAS. (A comparable ReadyNAS or Synology DiskStation would probably run you $450 or more.) The system can handle at least 8TB of hard disks (4×2TB), if not more, and can be upgraded to 8GB of RAM. With FreeNAS's support for ZFS and Z-RAID, you can get a very reliable, very speedy file server for very little and it is based on open standards to boot.