shaitand

Definitely +1 for iscsi. Also for fiberchannel support. NFS is not the future, NFS is old, antiquated, has issues with things dropping suddenly. ISCSI is more efficient and Fiberchannel is even better yet. There is definitely nothing wrong with being able to function as a basic DIY san with an unraid array, leaving one box spec'd for storage and using a different host (maybe even a second unraid box) to run vm's and function as a NAS. It gives much better performance and lets you leverage two servers, possibly older, optimized for each function instead of trying to bunch everything together into a single modern monster machine. Tech is the biggest employer in the US and these are the kind of features people who work with tech enterprise stuff look to hack together with inexpensive previous generation datacenter gear in their home networks/labs. At work you'd use a $5k-$20k san appliance but at home you still want those capabilities on smaller and cobbled together gear. Fiberchannel is quite viable in a home setup if you use a couple point to point links and leave the switch out of the equation. Don't be a purist on the SAN/NAS concept like FreeNAS and similar or seperate those features out into an overpriced commercial product, those niches are filled and with the benefit of open source. Be a hybrid and provide the capabilities that take a person all the way from their first network storage option all the way through having 200 4k blu-rays backed up and serving it up without transcoding to 4 tv's in the house simultaneously while also running webservers, dns, assorted smart home apps, etc. You know, like GEEKS do at home. At least that is the only way I'd be likely to buy.