Who This Is For
Beginner to intermediate.
Think of it like a family filing cabinet everyone can reach. Instead of every laptop hoarding its own copy of everything, there's one drawer, one system, one place anyone actually looks.
What You'll Build
A secured shared folder available from at least one Windows or Linux system.
Prerequisites
- A spare desktop, mini PC, or purpose-built small NAS
- At least one extra disk for data, separate from the OS disk
Plan Your Disks
- OS disk, small, dedicated to OpenMediaVault itself
- Data disk(s), where shares actually live
- Backup disk, ideally separate again, per the 3-2-1 rule
Install OpenMediaVault
Install onto the OS disk, then log into the web admin interface to continue setup.
Create Users and Groups
Set up individual accounts rather than one shared login, this matters for permissions and for knowing who changed what.
Format and Mount Data Disks
Storage → Disks → format, then Storage → File Systems → mount.
Create a Shared Folder
Storage → Shared Folders → Add, pointing at a path on your data disk.
Configure SMB (Windows/macOS)
Services → SMB/CIFS → enable, then add the shared folder under Shares.
Configure NFS (Linux/Proxmox)
Services → NFS → enable, then add the shared folder with appropriate client access rules, this is the easiest way to give Proxmox an NFS backup target.
Permissions Model
- Service-level permissions (who can access the share at all)
- Filesystem ownership (Linux user/group on disk)
- ACLs for finer-grained control when needed
Security & Backup Notes
- The NAS itself needs backing up too, its configuration, not just the data it stores
Troubleshooting
- Most first-time issues trace back to a permissions mismatch between the SMB/NFS service config and the underlying filesystem ownership, check both layers
Lab Finish Line
A secured shared folder available from at least one Windows or Linux system.