Operating system

We decided at the outset that we would run the server on open-source software.

A server expert recommended FREENAS (and offered free backup). It’s true that serious server users seem to prefer FREENAS, but, after some research, it seemed more appropriate to business-oriented users. The eventual pick was Openmediavault. Apart from being fairly new, it seemed to be aimed at the less experienced user (hah!).

You download the openmediavault .iso image from Sourceforge.net/projects/ openmediavault/files. It’s available for a variety of hardware platforms, including Raspberry Pi and Odroid. The 350 MB download provides an .iso image that can be used to create a bootable disc.

Programmes are available for writing this image to a bootable disc. You could use an optical disc, but we hadn’t yet installed a DVD-ROM drive and the idea of the USB boot alternative appealed, despite the warning by openmediavault’s developers that although this is a perfectly workable option, it’s compromised by the way the OS works and really needs a USB flash drive with wear levelling, which basically means none of them. (Putting the OS on a hard drive effectively limits space on that drive to just the size of the OS.)

The Disk Utility program bundled with Macs makes it easy. All you need to do is Open Disk Image, navigate to the ISO file you want burned and click OK. Then you insert a suitably sized blank disc and click Burn. Alternatively, you could use the Command Line (Terminal). You can find a step-by-step method at osxdaily.com; it’s actually quite straightforward.