NAS4Free is an embedded Open Source Storage NAS (Network-Attached Storage) distribution designed for home users and small businesses primarily, but could potentially scale to larger projects.

The NAS4Free operating system can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share computer data storage over a computer network. 'NAS' as in “Network-Attached Storage” and '4Free' as in 'Free and open source', NAS4Free is the simplest and fastest way to create an centralized and easily-accessible server for all kinds of data easily accessed with all kinds of network protocols and from any network.

Some users assume that NAS4Free is a “fork” of FreeNAS. This is absolutely NOT the case. NAS4Free is the direct continuation of the original FreeNAS code that was under development from 2005 till 2011 under the name FreeNAS.

After the FreeNAS name was legally acquired by iXsystems, Inc. (year 2011), the code was unable to be developed any longer under the same brand name, for this a name change was necessary. The founder of FreeNAS (Olivier Cochard-Labbé) donated us the copyright protected source code that IXsystems could not use to release. IXsystems forbid us to release new builds based on the original code under their brand name. Because of the code copyright that was not handed over to IXsystems a full rewrite for FreeNAS was needed. FreeNAS by IXsystems was born on May of 2011. To continue our only option was to leave the FreeNAS project after so many years and to start under our own name NAS4Free.

At the time we began publishing the new name and development restarted, we took the opportunity to upgrade the base system as well. NAS4Free went up from FreeBSD 7 to the FreeBSD 9.x releases, allowing support for a lot of newer hardware too. This brought us great advances in the ZFS file system as well. All these changes should vastly increase our ability to offer you an even better NAS system than ever before. The first NAS4free release under the new brandname was on (2012-03-22).

The power of NAS4Free's configuration is its WebGUI. It simplifies administrative tasks so that almost any user can manage their system with ease.

NAS4Free supports sharing with UNIX-like, Apple, and Windows systems (and others that use compatible network protocols).

Some supported protocols include: CIFS/SMB (Samba), Active Directory Domain Controller (Samba), FTP, NFS v4, TFTP, AFP, RSYNC, Unison, iSCSI (initiator and target), UPnP, Bittorent and Bridge, CARP and HAST protocols.

It supports ZFS, Software RAID (0,1,5), JBOD, UFS, Disk Encryption, and S.M.A.R.T with Email notifications.

NAS4Free can be booted of from a LiveCD or LiveUSB, and optionally installed on Compact Flash, USB flash drive, SSD, Hard drive or a number of other bootable devices. (NAS4Free also supports advanced formated drives using 4kb sectors)

NAS4Free is build on FreeBSD 10.2 and supports ZFS v5000.

We also have thought about the all FreeNAS 7 users. (Note: All current FreeNAS 7 users can easy migrate using our releases)

See our Download Options (before downloading anything)

Latest Release 10.2.x series: 2016-04-15:

• NAS4Free build 10.2.0.2.2545
• Upgraded FreeBSD to 10.2-RELEASE-P14, NAS4Free 10.2.0.2.xxxx is our current developing tree, it's the base version for all future releases.

Latest Beta release: 2016-06-05: Download Options (read before downloading anything)

• NAS4Free BETA build 10.3.0.3.2676
• Upgraded FreeBSD to 10.3-RELEASE-P5, NAS4Free 10.3.0.3.xxxx is our current developing tree, it's the base version for all future releases.

Latest ARM release: 2015-12-31:

• NAS4Free ARM build 10.1.0.2.2258

• Always Read the readme.txt before you download and install, it often contains very important information!

The NAS4Free team hopes you enjoy your experience with our software and that it is the perfect NAS solution for your home or business!

• Features
• What NAS4Free is and is not
• Warnings
• Screenshots
• License
• Contributors
• Bug Tracker

• Download Options
• Setup and User Guide
• WebGUI Interface and Setup
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• HowTo
• Hardware Compatibility Lists & Users' Hardware Lists

• Donate the NAS4Free Project
• Forum NAS4Free - Where you can find info or getting help and answers to some questions.
• How to contribute
• Translations: Register to contribute

• IRC: freenode.net #nas4free What is IRC?

• A podcast about NAS4Free: http://knightwise.com/kw405-nas4free-as-your-cross-platform-network-filehub/
• freenas-vs-nas4free shootout: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/the-ars-nas-distribution-shootout-freenas-vs-nas4free/8/

*Listed in alphabetical order:

Aspen Systems inc. (USA)

• Aspen Systems inc. : Professional HPC Clusters and Services.

Jet Stream (USA)

• Jet Stream : Leaders in video surveillance management and storage.

A big thank you goes to Andrew from CwLinux Limited http://www.cwlinux.com

They have donated us an nice CW12832 128×32 Graphical LCD screen.

*If you like to add your company also or need more info? please contact: info@nas4free.org

• FreeNAS : NanoBSD based NAS OS developed by iXsystems, Inc. (since late 2011)
• OpenMediaVault : NAS Project based on Debian