Linux

All,

I am most familiar with Solaris, and I am in the process of learning Linux (Fedora 5), and one of my tasks is to replace our current NAS solution. We currently use EMC Celerra, but it is way too expensive for what we use it for. So I have looked into Linux.

We mostly we have a Windows world here and they need access to a UNIX system because our main system (similar to SAP) has a Windows front end but a Unix back end, and they also sends print jobs to the Unix box. I thought about Samba as a replacement but I need to set a limit on the directory size for each user.

We do use Active Directory here, not sure if that helps but I figured I would throw it out there. Also, most people use it as a 'home' directory. I need to set limits per person (per home dir).

If this is confusing, please ask and I will try to explain more.

Thanks!

Hmm, you could do that on Linux, with samba by using quotas on the backend filesystem.
However another possibly interesting option since you are coming from a Solaris background:

Sun X4500 a.k.a thumper ((optional) ... another x86/x64 box with external storage so long as it's on the HCL would work just as well)

Running on Solaris10 using ZFS as the backend filesystem and samba on top, using the builtin quota and reserve mechanism. Not only would this give you the features you require, but also you have the SAN/NAS like snapshot features eg instant point in time snapshot, snapshot rollback, snapshot backup ( full or incremental ), additionally it makes it very easy to add extra storage later if you need it.