FAQ

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h1. What is Aurinoco's NAS service?

Aurinoco's NAS service provides networked file systems such as Windows shares.

h2. Features

* Provided by monitored servers in A/C rooms with UPS backup and Diesel generators

* Primary and standby servers.

* Synchronisation to standby via snapshots.

* Backup via snapshots to third server, retained for 28 days

* Space in increments of 100 GB, max 80% utilisation.

* Group and user administration

h2. Cost

The NAS service requires disks and associated servers.  Thus it has a real cost in hardware that has to be bought outside Auroville.  So Aurinoco must charge.  Prices were calculated to cover actual cost only.

  * Rs.10 per GB per year, increments of 100 GB

  * Rs.5,000 per year contribution to server costs

  * Free buildings, AC, de-humidification and UPS

  * Free systems administration

The contribution to server costs is based on ten clients.  If there are more, we will drop the server contribution and increase the per GB per year to give a lower overall cost to each client and an more equitable division of server costs amongst the clients.

h3. Cost comparison with commercial offerings

Direct comparisons are impossible because:

* Typical commercial offerings do not include mirrored disks for primary storage, a standby server or backup.  

* Remote commercial offerings are accessed at Internet speed rather than Aurinoco's in-Auroville network speed

For example, a Hetzner "storage box":https://www.hetzner.com/storage-box is cheaper than Aurinoco's NAS service.  In May 2018 and ignoring any currency conversion costs:

* Hetzner BX10 has 100 GB for Eur 2.90 pcm > Eur 35 pa > Rs.2,800 pa.  Aurinoco's NAS service for 100 GB would be 6,000 pa.

* Hetzner BX30 has 1 TB for Eur 7.90 pcm > Eur 94 pa > Rs.7,500 pa.  Aurinoco's NAS service for 1 TB would be 15,000 pa. 

h1. Supported networked file systems

h2. CIFS share (previously SMB share, commonly known as Windows share)

The service is waiting for its first client.

h2. NFSv4

In development.