Hello from Canada eh

MEC-777

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
Messages
12
Hey all. I'm new to NAS systems and networking in general.

Just built a new NAS on a tight budget recently and have been learning a lot in setting it all up. :) Will be used primarily for personal data backup of home devices and as a Steam games file cache.

Specs:
Intel G4400
4GB 2666 DDR4 ram
Gigabyte Z170-HD3
Kingston A400 120GB SSD (for OS)
3x 2TB Barracuda 7200 HDDs in RAID5 (Z) (for redundancy)
Cooler Master 1000w PSU (it's what I had lying around of decent quality)
Antec 1080AMG server tower chassis
IMG_20190318_185217.jpg

IMG_20190318_185610.jpg


Cheers.
 
Last edited:

seanm

Guru
Joined
Jun 11, 2018
Messages
570
4 GiB RAM is not enough, FreeNAS's minimum requirement is 8. Performance will improve with even more.
 

Yorick

Wizard
Joined
Nov 4, 2018
Messages
1,912
Okay I am reading “RAID5” - which means either you are not running FreeNAS or you like living dangerously.

ZFS really needs raw access to the disks to do its thing. If there’s a RAID controller in between, ZFS loses visibility and your ability to recover from drive failure is ... shaky, let’s say.

You are also running below the recommended minimum of 8GB for FreeNAS. It will still work, but you are at risk of running out of memory. You certainly wouldn’t want to add any plugins or jails.

If this is really RAID5 and FreeNAS, before you add any data to that, blow it away and start over without any RAID. In fact set BIOS to AHCI, not RAID mode. Then use a raidz1 in FreeNAS.

Make sure you are okay to lose these data. As in, you have a backup elsewhere, or this is only the backup. If you have RAM errors, you won’t catch it because it’s not ECC, and if a drive fails and then another fails during rebuild, you are out of luck.

I think this is a perfectly fine setup for a budget NAS. You just want to be clear on the limitations you imposed, and manage your risk accordingly.
 
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
1,644
Welcome! Suggest you start jour journey with FreeNAS by studying the following documents:
 

MEC-777

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
Messages
12
4 GiB RAM is not enough, FreeNAS's minimum requirement is 8. Performance will improve with even more.
DDR4 ram is very expensive. 4GB is all I could afford for the time being, to get it up and running. I'll add another stick later on, but so far I haven't seen more than 3GB usage thus far.

Okay I am reading “RAID5” - which means either you are not running FreeNAS or you like living dangerously.

ZFS really needs raw access to the disks to do its thing. If there’s a RAID controller in between, ZFS loses visibility and your ability to recover from drive failure is ... shaky, let’s say.

You are also running below the recommended minimum of 8GB for FreeNAS. It will still work, but you are at risk of running out of memory. You certainly wouldn’t want to add any plugins or jails.
Technically, it's RAID Z in FreeNAS, correct. Like I mentioned, I'm quite new to NAS systems and networking. By definition of RAID 5, that's how I understand the way I have setup the drives. My apologies if I described this incorrectly.

See my above response in regards to the ram. I'm only using this for simple data backup and nothing else, really. I was aware of the minimal specs when I built it, and after doing some research, concluded it should be fine with 4GB for the time being with my intended usage. ;)

But thanks for the tips, none-the-less. Appreciate the suggestions.
 

Yorick

Wizard
Joined
Nov 4, 2018
Messages
1,912
So it’s raidz1 on a JBOD setup from the motherboard controller. Good!

And yeah, if you’re using this “as the backup”, or one of them if you’re following 3-2-1, you are golden. This will work with 4 GiB RAM, no matter the minimum requirements.

If your hosts are Windows, look into Veeam Agent for Windows free. I switched from Acronis 4 months ago and love the software. Simple, fast, “just works” - goodbye Acronis and its idiosyncrasies. There’s something to be said for the “teaser software” from an Enterprise backup vendor :).

Where the RAM limitation will hit you:
- I want to serve lots of small files via share. You’ll not have enough ARC to get decent performance.
- I want to run plugins / jails such as Plex media server. 8 GiB minimum, 16 GiB recommended.
 

MEC-777

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
Messages
12
So it’s raidz1 on a JBOD setup from the motherboard controller. Good!

And yeah, if you’re using this “as the backup”, or one of them if you’re following 3-2-1, you are golden. This will work with 4 GiB RAM, no matter the minimum requirements.

If your hosts are Windows, look into Veeam Agent for Windows free. I switched from Acronis 4 months ago and love the software. Simple, fast, “just works” - goodbye Acronis and its idiosyncrasies. There’s something to be said for the “teaser software” from an Enterprise backup vendor :).

Where the RAM limitation will hit you:
- I want to serve lots of small files via share. You’ll not have enough ARC to get decent performance.
- I want to run plugins / jails such as Plex media server. 8 GiB minimum, 16 GiB recommended.
Thanks, good to know. :)

Hosts are mainly Linux devices (laptops) and 1 Windows desktop (for gaming). I've already setup an NFS share directory for backing up data from the Linux devices. Just struggling to understand and properly setup permissions at the moment...
 

jgreco

Resident Grinch
Joined
May 29, 2011
Messages
18,681
DDR4 ram is very expensive. 4GB is all I could afford for the time being, to get it up and running. I'll add another stick later on, but so far I haven't seen more than 3GB usage thus far.

We've never actually identified the cause of the problems that caused ZFS and FreeNAS to panic and occasionally destroy pools when deployed with less than 8GB RAM. (Especially 4GB).

Just sayin'.

Signed,
The guy who raised the minimum requirement to 8GB.
 

MEC-777

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 21, 2019
Messages
12
We've never actually identified the cause of the problems that caused ZFS and FreeNAS to panic and occasionally destroy pools when deployed with less than 8GB RAM. (Especially 4GB).

Just sayin'.

Signed,
The guy who raised the minimum requirement to 8GB.

Noted! I will get that upgraded as soon as I can. Thanks for the heads up! ;)
 
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