[LUNI] Linux equivalent for this?

[D. Wade]

My good but Windows-touting friend and I were perusing the Seagate Mirra 
redundant file server [1] 
<http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/mirra_personal_server> 
in a store and the Freedom9 freeStor box [2] 
<http://www.freedom9.com/products/product.php?p=17> online.  Both are 
nice in that they offer redundant storage across multiple disks, with 
other features like rollback to previous versions of files, easy config 
of users/shares, backup of workstations, etc., all with no-brainer 
interfaces [3] <http://www.freedom9.com/emulators/emu_17/Login.htm>.  
But at almost $400 for 250 gigs it seems like we could build something 
similar for much less. 

Of course we have different ideas about how we might go about it.  He's 
recommending Windows 2003 Advanced Server and various M$ feature names 
which make me cringe.  I suspect that Samba, Subversion, rsync, and a 
few other utilities could do the job.  However I'm still more of a 
hobbyist than a server guru, so both the store-bought and the Windows 
solutions (ack) would be up and running before any good linux solution I 
could put together.

My question to the community: are there any recommended distros or tools 
expressly for the purpose of SOHO file server / workstation backup 
system which offer redundancy and easy config, or does Windows win?   
We've got a ton of ready-made firewall distros, what about this niche? 

My googling and distrowatch haven't helped me much, so any suggestions 
very much appreciated!
-- Derek W.


LINKS
[1] 
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/mirra_personal_server
[2] http://www.freedom9.com/products/product.php?p=17
[3] http://www.freedom9.com/emulators/emu_17/Login.htm