NanoNAS

NanoNAS is v2 of the Linux distribution NASLite. For x86-based computers, with PCI interface, the entire OS fits onto a 3.5 inch floppy disk, providing a way of using the computer as network-attached storage. It supports serving files to clients running Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.
Other versions are available which support different networking protocols, or booting the operating system from CD-ROM, USB Mass Storage device or hard disk drive.
All versions of NASLite and its variants, contain GPL'd and proprietary components. The GPL'd components are available to the end user per the GPLv2.
Networking Capabilities
NanoNAS turns its target machine into a simple file server. Since file serving takes up very little processing speed as opposed to network speed or hard drive speed, it is able to run on comparatively old computers with little processing power. As it runs from a floppy disk, hypothetically all (usually four) IDE channels can be used for harddrives. NanoNAS can also support additional IDE controller cards.
NanoNAS has two variants supporting different file serving protocols. These are Samba to support serving to Microsoft Windows client machines or AFP to serve Mac OS X computers. It also supports remote administration via telnet, and includes a web server to display usage and error logs.
Compatibility
Since it is based on Linux, NanoNAS (like other Linux distributions) supports new larger hard drives that often are not supported by older machines, by bypassing the BIOS and directly accessing the harddrive(s), greatly increasing the usefulness of an older computer for serving large amounts of data.
NanoNAS runs well on obsolete hardware, but requires at least a computer with PCI interface. Other minimum requirements are a Pentium CPU, 32 MB RAM, a PCI megabit ethernet card, IDE hard disk drive, and a conventional floppy disk drive.

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