Hi all,
I've recently been put onto FreeNAS by a good forum I'm part of, the system and this community here looks fantastic! I've read a LOT of FAQs, threads, blogs, recommendations, some wikipedia etc to upskill myself but there's a fair bit to learn. I have a pretty good idea what a vdev and zpool are, I know you can't add drives to a vdev but you can create more vdevs and add to a zpool. I've never used FreeNAS, but I figure it's capable and mature so it'll be fine. I'm fairly technical, some Linux experience, background as a developer, software engineering degree with electronics and experience building computers, Amazon certified solution architect.
Note that I'm in New Zealand so getting hold of good hardware can be difficult. SuperMicro boards aren't sold here at reasonable prices, so I have to import to NZ via a reshipper, which is expensive and can be slow. I may be able to get gear from Australia though. The Fractal 304 case that costs about $50 in the US costs $200 here, for example, but I can get a cheap enough case. It would be cheaper and easier to go with a standard Asus/Gigabyte board and an i3 but I want something durable, reliable and well understood by the community.
Motivation: I'm starting to experience bit rot on my NTFS/Win7 system (md5 checksum failures) so I'm wanting to build a home NAS based on ZFS so my important data can be housed securely. Commercial NAS's don't have the data integrity I want. I'll want 2-4TB of data that's secured well (RAID Z1), along with another 2-4TB that I don't need protected - single drive ZFS or even NTFS if it's supported. Everything is backed up offsite to disk and critical data to Crashplan so if the whole lot fails, burns, etc, I'm not super concerned, so RAID Z2 isn't required for me. I'll probably go 3 x 3TB disks just because I like having free space, probably 1-2 WD Red, one Hitachi, perhaps a Seagate but I've been burned with them before.
Data integrity is my main concern, not performance. Typical clients will be watching one 720p movie at a time (two maybe, one day) and processing 500+ RAW images at a time using Adobe Bridge - though most likely I will do my photo processing off local SSDs. I don't work with video. Because I want reliability I will likely use a SuperMicro motherboard and 4-8GB ECC RAM. I'm unlikely to transcode anything on the server. There's a chance I'll want to virtualise one day, so the server can do other things for me since it's on all the time.
I have some specific questions (sorry, there's a bit of a list):
1. Which SuperMicro board should I get? I've had the A1SRi-2758F Atom based board recommended but there are so many it's hard to choose. I've read disparaging remarks about the A1SRi-2758F. I'm fairly convinced that an Atom CPU will be up to the task, i3 etc not needed.
2. Do these atom CPUs need cooling? If so do they come with a cooler?
3. Is any specific brand/model of RAM recommended? I'll read the hardware compatibility list once I choose a motherboard.
4. I will have offsite backups, but bit rot or copy problems can occur, and silent corruption of copying/files shouldn't be mirrored. Can anyone recommend the best way to back up a FreeNAS system offsite? Ideally in a format that's easily accessible from Windows if I need to recover a single or multiple files - fat32 or ntfs is easiest, and a backup program can help. Right now I use Robocopy but if I corrupt a data file that corruption is mirrored. The backups could run from my windows machine or the server.
5. Does the case matter much? I can't get the Fractal cases for reasonable prices in NZ. Vibration I'll want to control, I'll keep heat down, and I'll have a good modular power supply. I can't find a compact case with good drive storage, I'll likely have to go mid tower.
6. Is it pretty easy to add more SATA ports via an expansion card on those Atom boards?
7. Does having one RAID Z1 pool then 1-2 other existing drives (NTFS, FAT, or ZFS) sound reasonable? I read somewhere only ZFS is supported in later versions, which I haven't researched yet.
8. I won't need the NAS on all the time. Is there an easy way to have it either power up/down at specific times, or will power saving be enough? Having an Atom CPU means lower power consumption so not a huge deal.
I'll no doubt have other questions as I learn. Thanks for any advice or opinions :)
I've recently been put onto FreeNAS by a good forum I'm part of, the system and this community here looks fantastic! I've read a LOT of FAQs, threads, blogs, recommendations, some wikipedia etc to upskill myself but there's a fair bit to learn. I have a pretty good idea what a vdev and zpool are, I know you can't add drives to a vdev but you can create more vdevs and add to a zpool. I've never used FreeNAS, but I figure it's capable and mature so it'll be fine. I'm fairly technical, some Linux experience, background as a developer, software engineering degree with electronics and experience building computers, Amazon certified solution architect.
Note that I'm in New Zealand so getting hold of good hardware can be difficult. SuperMicro boards aren't sold here at reasonable prices, so I have to import to NZ via a reshipper, which is expensive and can be slow. I may be able to get gear from Australia though. The Fractal 304 case that costs about $50 in the US costs $200 here, for example, but I can get a cheap enough case. It would be cheaper and easier to go with a standard Asus/Gigabyte board and an i3 but I want something durable, reliable and well understood by the community.
Motivation: I'm starting to experience bit rot on my NTFS/Win7 system (md5 checksum failures) so I'm wanting to build a home NAS based on ZFS so my important data can be housed securely. Commercial NAS's don't have the data integrity I want. I'll want 2-4TB of data that's secured well (RAID Z1), along with another 2-4TB that I don't need protected - single drive ZFS or even NTFS if it's supported. Everything is backed up offsite to disk and critical data to Crashplan so if the whole lot fails, burns, etc, I'm not super concerned, so RAID Z2 isn't required for me. I'll probably go 3 x 3TB disks just because I like having free space, probably 1-2 WD Red, one Hitachi, perhaps a Seagate but I've been burned with them before.
Data integrity is my main concern, not performance. Typical clients will be watching one 720p movie at a time (two maybe, one day) and processing 500+ RAW images at a time using Adobe Bridge - though most likely I will do my photo processing off local SSDs. I don't work with video. Because I want reliability I will likely use a SuperMicro motherboard and 4-8GB ECC RAM. I'm unlikely to transcode anything on the server. There's a chance I'll want to virtualise one day, so the server can do other things for me since it's on all the time.
I have some specific questions (sorry, there's a bit of a list):
1. Which SuperMicro board should I get? I've had the A1SRi-2758F Atom based board recommended but there are so many it's hard to choose. I've read disparaging remarks about the A1SRi-2758F. I'm fairly convinced that an Atom CPU will be up to the task, i3 etc not needed.
2. Do these atom CPUs need cooling? If so do they come with a cooler?
3. Is any specific brand/model of RAM recommended? I'll read the hardware compatibility list once I choose a motherboard.
4. I will have offsite backups, but bit rot or copy problems can occur, and silent corruption of copying/files shouldn't be mirrored. Can anyone recommend the best way to back up a FreeNAS system offsite? Ideally in a format that's easily accessible from Windows if I need to recover a single or multiple files - fat32 or ntfs is easiest, and a backup program can help. Right now I use Robocopy but if I corrupt a data file that corruption is mirrored. The backups could run from my windows machine or the server.
5. Does the case matter much? I can't get the Fractal cases for reasonable prices in NZ. Vibration I'll want to control, I'll keep heat down, and I'll have a good modular power supply. I can't find a compact case with good drive storage, I'll likely have to go mid tower.
6. Is it pretty easy to add more SATA ports via an expansion card on those Atom boards?
7. Does having one RAID Z1 pool then 1-2 other existing drives (NTFS, FAT, or ZFS) sound reasonable? I read somewhere only ZFS is supported in later versions, which I haven't researched yet.
8. I won't need the NAS on all the time. Is there an easy way to have it either power up/down at specific times, or will power saving be enough? Having an Atom CPU means lower power consumption so not a huge deal.
I'll no doubt have other questions as I learn. Thanks for any advice or opinions :)
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