Novell Storage Services (NSS)
Novell® Storage ServicesTM (NSS) is an exciting, new modular storage services product that runs on NetWare® 5. In addition to the traditional NetWare file system, administrators and users can now take advantage of this new product, NSS.
NSS offers more flexibility for storage and file management than ever before. Here are some of the advantages:
- NSS is ideal for systems with large files and volumes, or large numbers of volumes, directories, and files. NSS allows up to an 8 Terabyte file size and holds up to 8 trillion files in an NSS volume. You can also mount up to 255 NSS volumes on a server. You no longer need to worry about file or volume limitations; you are limited only by the capacity of your storage devices. See The Benefits of NSS.
- With NSS, hard disk space can be fully utilized. Unused free space on all hard drives in unpartitioned space attached to your server or in NetWare volumes (including Sys) can be combined in to a storage pool and used to create NSS volumes. See What Free Space NSS Can Use.
As future storage device types appear on the market, new NSS modules can be developed to recognize the devices for the pool. This means that no matter what type of device you have attached to your server, NSS will recognize it and be able to use the available free space for NSS volumes if the device can be written to.
- NSS and the traditional NetWare file system run side-by-side. You can create up to 64 NetWare volumes or 256 NSS and NetWare volumes combined, including Sys. The choice is yours as long as you have at least one NetWare volume, Sys, on each server. See Advantages Over the NetWare File System.
- NSS volumes mount rapidly and with less RAM than ever before. You can mount any number of NSS volumes and any size NSS volume with as little as 1 MB RAM. See Quick NSS Volume Mounts.
- NSS is now the default method for mounting CD-ROMs as volumes, offering much faster access to multiple CD-ROM drives installed in towers.
Before you begin, first read Understanding to become familiar with NSS, then go to Planning and Setup Examples for examples of how to create an NSS volume.