I am running a NAS that needs to connect to a server (the NAS isn’t powerful enough). I also need to connect my NAS to a Windows, Mac, and Linux device (Linux being the most important, then Mac, then Windows). Out of SMB, FTP, and NFS, which one would be the best, quickest, and most secure for my situation? My NAS supports multiple sharing protocols, but I don’t want to deal with mixed up permissions and conflicts later on.
You can use both without issue. I use NFS to share between two Linux servers (unraid and proxmox/dockers) and then some of those same folders are shared via smb for desktop windows or Linux laptop.
Depending on your use cases and apps, file locking can be problematic when sharing across SMB and NFS simultaneously, their locking semantics are slightly different
Fair enough, I primarily use NFS for Linux to Linux sever communication and high file access.
Smb is mostly for moving files around occasionally
Not sure if trying to run a database over smb is a good idea but I do it on NFS all the time
Regardless it doesn’t have to be exclusive. OP can change it up depending on the application