If you absolutely must, use a WiFi bridge. You're certainly within a tiny minority if that is the case.

I'd rather have real problems fixed than WiFi support added.

Ubuntu Server seems to be the standard non-ZFS open source solution. Other, more focused options exist.

Well of course. Only the new versions boot from ZFS and can thus roll back easily.

Actually, FreeNAS 9.2.1.6 and newer abstract it all away. Set up shares, set up their owner(s). Owner configures permissions from a client machine. I believe AD integration works similarly.

If you're using ZFS, prepare for major pain... If you aren't, why on earth would you use FreeNAS?

Way out of date? Compared to what, the FreeBSD nightlies?

I'm guessing it did not serve data stored on a ZFS pool via several protocols while still allowing for proper permissions.

Are you a FreeBSD admin? If not, you have no chance in hell of getting something usable in a decent amount of time.

You do have that chance with FreeNAS.

If you're ok with sub-100Mbit speeds, get a WiFI bridge.

Alternatively, solve your problem and run a cable.

You can't easily do much cheaper than the FreeNAS Mini. FreeNAS is not something you throw on an old computer.

The Hardware sticky over at the FreeNAS forums pretty much answers your questions: https://forums.freenas.org/ind...

The cheapest alternative for FreeNAS is probably something along the lines of:
Supermicro X10SLL-F + 8GB ECC DDR3 + Intel G3220 + case and PSU

miniITX would be more expensive, most likely.

NAS OS is restricted to doing NAS duty plus run arbitrary software via Jails. News at 11.

If only you could fork the project...

https://github.com/freenas/fre...

My honest opinion as a FreeNAS forum regular:

FreeNAS does not forgive not reading the documentation. There's a lot to read. The advantage of this is that most questions have been answered.

The UI was confusing in 9.2.1.x, and probably will be, to a lesser extent, until FreeNAS 10.1 is released (about a year from now).

My perception is that the devs, while not interested in flashy noob-friendly interfaces, are interested in improving the interfaces and making them easier to use for somewhat experienced users.

As an example - there isn't a shiny UI that presents drive temperatures and SMART data. All such queries must be done via the CLI, individually, for each drive. However, this isn't needed at all: e-mail alerts are automatically sent (if properly configured, of course) if something is wrong (Drive temperature above 40 degrees Celsius, bad sectors and so on...).

There's no reasonable excuse to want wireless networking in a server.

So, the moron gets access to classified documents and tries to sell them to the Egyptians?

What was the thought process behind that brilliant idea?

"Hmm, no, the Russians or the Chinese wouldn't want these schematics... The Ehyptians, on the other hand... They're *totally* planning on building some aircraft carriers!"