I saw an advertisement of a NAS-server in a brochure. On the NAS-server was an OS preinstalled. Probably the OS of the manufacturer.

My question: what is better? To use FreeNAS or the software of a manufacturer. What do you use? Why? And how is the software of a manufacturer compatible with Linux? Tell me your experiences since I have none.

its 6 in one half a dozen in the other. it also depends on the brand of NAS you are talking about.

FreeNAS is for if you have the hardware and just want to build the NAS yourself. the software is solid and works very well. IIRC FreeNAS is BSD based.

You have companies like Buffalo who use Linux as their OS for all of their NAS devices and if you crack them and root them you can use ssh and other wonderful Linux network connection tools to access their NAS devices, but it does cancel your warranty under them.

So if you have a computer case that can hold 4-12 HDDs with a MB, PSU, CPU, RAM, NICs that can support it just laying around why not build a FreeNAS box. If not shop price, customer reviews from 3rd party suppliers of the various NAS devices on the market and compare with the cost of building and managing your own hardware.