Here (link) is a recently purchased parts list and my own cost analysis. Read some of the hardware recommendation threads: Supermicro X9 or X10 series seems to be the current top choice. Mine is
not the cheapest, at $240, and includes 14 SATA ports. You'll also see the recommended LSI SAS controller to pick up on ebay for around $100 (16 SATA ports when you add the $10 break-out cable, IIRC).
If you want to run on cheaper/hand-me-down stuff, check out NAS4Free, the Chevy to FreeNAS's Mercedes.
Depends on what you mean by
Best. It (the software) is free, stable and robust, currently maintained and developed, and has an active support forum. The other free "canned" solutions I've seen (other than FreeNAS and NAS4Free) are free versions of commercial products and have limitations and restrictions. Using either of those instead of a home-brew *Nix installation (Linux or BSD) that happens to include ZFS, means the nice web front-end for administration, and a ready-to-run boot image. OTOH, if you want to use ZFS on partitions rather than whole drives to mix-and-match sizes and do wonky things not supported by FreeNAS, you can use the full *Nix install and perhaps even compile the ZFS Fuse driver yourself with the relevant options enabled.
But maybe you don't want ZFS at all. You have a list of requirements, some of which are met very well by ZFS and others that ZFS is hostile to. I wish there was something out there that's not a pig not originally meant for home/soho use. As a professional developer, I figure it would take a year of full-time effort to write something, whether mostly new code or time learning enough about existing things to splice them together, or some combination. But I don't have time for that, and I have other wish-I-could projects way ahead of it.
Sorry for rambling. I went through all this about two months ahead of you.
—John
John,
I have been puzzling over this issue for months, and until I heard of ZFS I doubted I could do anything, cheap. I have briefly examined, NFS,
ZFS, BTRFS, FreeNAS, NAS4Free, OpenZFS, Gluster, iSCSI, OpenMediaVault, Open NFS, unRAID, and a few more I can't remember right this moment.
Perhaps a little history... I got my AAS in CS in 1970. There was no four year program at the time. When I was 15 or so, I read about hexadecimal and octal computer math and memory methods. Fascinating.
I started working before my graduation and 37 years later, decided to retire. Along the way I used at least 36 computer languages on the job (at least that is how many I counted once on my resume). I might be an exceptional programmer (trying to be shy about my abilities, eh), but it turned out I was exceptional at getting projects done, on time and under budget. I read some papers over the years and it seems that 2/3rd of all IT projects fail. Either time, or cost, or both failed. Where my track record of successful projects was in the high 90 percent. Not perfect, as I can think of a few in which the target was missed, due to a 'sub-contractor' who lied about their capabilities...
One of my principals is KISS. I took over what was difficult, error prone, buggy, abortive systems, and within a few months (usually) I had made enough changes that the systems could be turned over to someone for 'maintenance'.
As I did more 'administrative' stuff, I did a lot less coding. Annoying, as I did love the analysis and coding process.
Now retired, I have 'other' things on my mind, and while I can 'do' things, I would prefer to relax.
For example, I have 3 pcs, 3 laptops and I don't know how many 'tablets' and 'pads' in my house. The 3 pcs and laptops all had Windows 7 installed. And every month I had to 'repair' someone's lack of experience or control online, which caused the pc to be relatively useless. Complain, complain. this was in 2010. I have used Windows (not because I loved it, but because I could usually get the thing I needed done) since 1993 (remember Win 3.1?).
One of the things I noticed over the years, that is a sign there is a problem on my pc, is I will get daily windows updates. DAILY. after enough of that, one day the pc will not boot and I will have to reinstall the OS, and one by one, the apps I actually use. Tedious. Further, in 2010, we had power outages that had already required me to reinstall Windows 7 Ultimate, plus the applications I use, two times!
TO fix that issue of electrical outages, I purchased a UPS. the APC Smart UPS 2200. Once that was in, things got better. But I was getting the daily updates. So, I decided to try Linux (my 4th try), with Ubuntu only on my main pc. It worked ok, and over time I found replacements for the applications I had been using, for years on Windows. Turned out I saved money with them because none of them cost money. So far, so good. Only one application I could not find a replacement for, but using WINE, I could run that application (my backup tool named Vice-Versa Pro).
After a few months, where I continued to get maintenance demands for the other Windows PCs and laptops, I began to switch them one by one to Ubuntu Linux. Amazing, NO MORE maintenance projects! Yes, there were the usual issues of 'how do I do this?', but these were moments of work, versus hours. What made it work for me, was that the family do NOT really use the PC. They use Firefox browser, the music player, and once in a while create a document.
So, after all that windbag stuff, where does that leave me today? The issue began with I had been making backups, the KISS way. Icy Docks, with 4 sata drives in them were as simple as I could get, and the cost was not large. But for safety's sake, I ended up with about 3 copies. e.g. the original on my pc, and 3 copies. In addition, on those backups are files that are no longer on my PC.
SO what to do? That is what lead me to this, now public, search for a good system and process that does not expect I be a systems administrator 4 hours a day!
What I was hoping for was a OS and / or File System combination I could use on the existing hardware I already have. When I rebuilt / upgraded my current pc, I took the parts out and put them aside, and began to consider what I could do with them that would protect the data, securely. They are good parts, not worn out, but are 'enthusiast quality'. Not server quality.
The issue I run across today, is the people supporting their application (like FreeNAS) are not from the home user or home business framework. They simply don't get the issues. If a person spends 3 hours a day being a systems administrator, how can that person run a business? That is what is missing from their perspectives. They don't mind taking 9 hours on a Saturday to do some thing on their system.
Further, They also don't mind giving instructions in 'slfjasd;j speak' that is designed to intimidate, not inform. I was so used to that at work, that I just ignored the chaff and got to the main issue.
Today, that 'main issue' is there are lots of competing products or services, using similar or same file systems, each hoping to 'catch' a new customer. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't want to be a CUSTOMER. I want to be a USER. As in, a television user. Set it up, use it, forget it.
But one issue with 'computers' and the software. ALL of them have a short lifecycle! I read an article discussing the idea of 'data' surviving for more than just a few months. They determined that if you update a modern disk (SATA), then remove it from your PC, and put it in a place where it won't get 'static attacked', the data is likely to survive 50 years. Sounds good, eh? However, will you be able to plug that disk into your system in 50 years? Unlikely...
And each time there is a 'change' in methods or hardware, the older stuff tends to get left behind. To copy data onto the new stuff can be quite the challenge.
In my case, today, I have 16 drives. smallest is 1TB, a bunch of 2TB, and a few 3TB. With about 3 copies of the same files among them. Written in NTFS, EXT3 and EXT4. If I use ZFS, I would do a small project to ensure that have those drives have the latest copy of the files I want to keep. Then put the now empty half of the drives into the ZFS system, where they would all be overwritten, formatted, etc. Then via usb, copy the copies of the files I have into the ZFS system. IN order to ensure that I can get my data out someday, I would then 'have to' put the remaining half of drives into the ZFS device and then copy all the data from one 'archive' to the new, other archive.
Whew, Now what? In two or three years a new 'thing' comes out, and I have to migrate all my data, again? That is NOT how I like to do business.
So, Lots of questions with few good answers.
Best regards, Bob Hyatt