Thefinaleofseem
Cadet
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2014
- Messages
- 3
I'm looking to put together a FreeNAS build, but I'm not terribly familiar with the possible hardware options and ramifications. I've read through some build threads, but I'm not entirely certain how applicable they may be for this or if hardware recommendations have shifted since they were written.
Use Case: A while ago, I picked up a 3TB external drive and ripped all of my DVD/BluRays to it with MakeMKV, which means no additional compression, so the files aren't exactly petite. 3TB was plenty at the time, but now things have grown to where 3TB is getting pretty cramped. I've also found that I'd like to access these videos easily from more than one computer, and also have a desire to store other backups on a network drive as well. Having tinkered with FreeNAS in the past, building one would be ideal. However, I don't want to blow the budget, either. I'm hoping to find a good compromise between price and performance.
Expectations: This NAS would be wired into a gigabit ethernet network. I'd like that to be the bottleneck, or at least close to it. 100MB/sec+ if possible. However, I'd also like to utilize a RAID 5 with ZFS, probably starting out with 3x3TB hard drives and expanding from there if the need arises. I know that a RAID of any kind is not a backup, but redundancy is good. Saves me from having to spend eons ripping my movie collection again if a drive dies. I'd also like to keep it pretty inexpensive, close to $300 if possible (not counting the drives), but I realize that may not be feasible.
Thus far: I've scoped out some builds and I've done some reading on FreeNAS along with some ups and downs, but I'm still trying to nail down a decent build for my needs:
Use Case: A while ago, I picked up a 3TB external drive and ripped all of my DVD/BluRays to it with MakeMKV, which means no additional compression, so the files aren't exactly petite. 3TB was plenty at the time, but now things have grown to where 3TB is getting pretty cramped. I've also found that I'd like to access these videos easily from more than one computer, and also have a desire to store other backups on a network drive as well. Having tinkered with FreeNAS in the past, building one would be ideal. However, I don't want to blow the budget, either. I'm hoping to find a good compromise between price and performance.
Expectations: This NAS would be wired into a gigabit ethernet network. I'd like that to be the bottleneck, or at least close to it. 100MB/sec+ if possible. However, I'd also like to utilize a RAID 5 with ZFS, probably starting out with 3x3TB hard drives and expanding from there if the need arises. I know that a RAID of any kind is not a backup, but redundancy is good. Saves me from having to spend eons ripping my movie collection again if a drive dies. I'd also like to keep it pretty inexpensive, close to $300 if possible (not counting the drives), but I realize that may not be feasible.
Thus far: I've scoped out some builds and I've done some reading on FreeNAS along with some ups and downs, but I'm still trying to nail down a decent build for my needs:
- My understanding is that either a decent CPU (as in not an Atom or other low-end piece of poo) and/or a dedicated RAID card are necessary for this level of performance. ZFS itself also carries significant overhead. Low power is also highly desirable since this will be on 24/7, so a low-power CPU is desired, which might make the low-end CPU + dedicated card a better way to go, but I'm not sure what kind of balance needs to be struck. I've also read that ZFS doesn't always mesh terribly well with hardware RAID, but that may be old info or dependent on the hardware being used.
- How is onboard RAID with FreeNAS? I haven't seen much about that. I know that a good dedicated card will kick the stuffing out of an onboard RAID solution, but the latter may be good enough for my needs.
- If a dedicated RAID card is the way to go (must have 4+ ports), then I realize that cheapies aren't going to be much better than an onboard RAID or even a software RAID. A nice card with at least a decent degree of onboard processing would be best, but again, I don't want to blow the budget.
- Realtek ethernet cards don't seem to be a prime choice, but the little boogers are everywhere in onboard ethernet ports. I see that Intel or Chelsio cards are recommended. As above, are there any solid recommendations on a particular model that has a good balance of price/performance?
