I run since couple of years a WD ShareSpace, very stable and especially with a very friendly config-GUI. The reason why I got for my lab another WD product “Sentinel DS6100”.
I must say I was suprised and very uppset, this high end product is running an unstable OS, hard to configure, and not-ewasy to use config-GUI/Interface.
I came from the UNIX/Linux world. I was a UNIX sysadmin for 13years (Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, SCO BSD to name a few) back when people didn’t know what Linux was. Granted Linux is a great OS, is very embeddable and runs behind a lot of products out there including ESX. However, when it comes to an integrated small office environment you can’t beat Windows Server, especially 2008+. AD, group policy, NTFS ACLs etc all work in an integrated manner to provide central administration, security and management of end user devices etc. The DS is aimed at the small businesses, not as a standalone storage device. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to run Linux and there are other small servers similar to the DS out there that you can use e.g. the HP Microserver.
While I understand why some Users would prefer Linux for personal use, the WD Sentinel DS6100 was designed for business and office use. As such, Microsoft Windows is unquestionably the best option.