Considering building my own server, using FreeNas8

[leifdreizler]

Hey!

So I have become increasingly interested in doing a home server and FreeNas 8 seems like a good idea. I had a few questions though.

1. How expandable is Raid-Z? Could I get (3) 2TB drives now, and easily add a 4th later?
2. How does Time machine function with FN8? I have some movies, TV shows, iTunes that should be accessible to all users, and a Time machine drive that would only be used by me. Can Time machine be a single disk that is not part of the Raid-Z pool? No redundancy on this disk is fine. For example, (4) 2TB drives accessible by all users, and a single 1TB drive that would be just "on its own"
3. Would this setup work well? I would either have (4) 2TB drives, or (3) 3TB drives. WD Reds. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/k8y9

Thanks for taking the time to read!

-Leif

 

[JaimieV]

1. Nope. You can't simply add a drive to the set, you have to either upgrade all disks (one at a time) to larger, or add a disk/mirror/RAIDset to the pool and expand the volume onto it.
2. Really well, I have five Macs all TM'ing onto my two FreeNAS8 boxes with no issues. Using them as TM sources at installation time (for Migration Assistant to pull data from) also works fine.
You can set up a single disk (ZFS will call it 'striped' even though there's only one) and set it up as its own volume for TM.
3. If you have 3x3Tb drives, you can't sensibly do the TM thing (unless you mean to add another separate drive)... otherwise, sure. Set them up as a RAIDZ1 and enjoy.
WD Reds haven't really been around for long enough to pick up a rep yet, though Anandtech likes them. You should follow the usual recommendations of not buying them all from one batch - if you do, they're more likely to all fail at the same time. Personally, I like to pick them up from the shop myself to avoid the last-mile dropped disk syndrome.

 

[leifdreizler]

quick reply! thanks. Sounds like it may be better just to go big and get more space than I will (Currently) need. Both 3x3TB, and 4x2TB would become 6TB of usable space, correct?

To make sure I understand you correctly, I could get a few disks in raid-z, and then have 1 separate disk that is just used for time machine. Can you have multiple macs time machine to the same drive, or do you need to partition them to each have their own space?

Bonus question: Is any old sandisk flash drive fine for FN8 itself? What if this drive somehow dies, can I use 2 flash drives and like... idk Mirror themselves against eachother?

 

[JaimieV]

Happy to help! Correct, both would be 6Tb.

Yes, you can do eg 3x3Tb RAIDZ1 as one volume, then create another volume on another disk. Multiple Macs will happily coexist on one TM destination, that's exactly how I do mine. However, you may get some amusement if you ever run out of space on the TM destination, so try not to!

Use any old USB stick (4gig and up). There's no mechanism for mirroring those, the right way is to save the configuration settings when you're set up, then if the first stick goes south you just need to make a new stick from the ISO, boot off it and upload the config to it.

Or even just set up a new stick, autoimport the ZFS volumes, and set it up from scratch. That works too. One of many nice things about ZFS is that it carries all its own config with it, and with the bootable stick you can press any old PC into service if the original machine pops.

 

[leifdreizler]

This is sounding pretty sweet... May have to pick up a few drives and build myself a little system. I will probably just re-purpose an existing drive for the TM. This may be a black friday induced project haha.

 

[Stephens]

Please don't put that 1 disk in the same pool with the RAIDZ1. If it fails, it'll take out the RAIDZ1. Also, please read noosauce80's ZFS primer. Just do a search on "noobsauce80" and read any of his posts. It's linked to in his signature.

 

[leifdreizler]

I think the idea was to have a pool of (4) 2TB drives in raid-z. And a single drive that is just chillin doing time machine over the network, that isnt part of the raid pool.

Unless, you can have part of the (4) 2TB pool that can be used for time machine, but I figured it would just be easier to keep them separate. I will check out noobsauce80's FAQ thingy. Thanks!