SoonerLater
Explorer
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2013
- Messages
- 80
[EDIT COMPLETE]
I'm trying to help a friend who has no centralized file storage for his small lawfirm (just him and one assistant). They currently store all files on his or workstations. There's no strategy and they lose lots of time just trying to find things.
I volunteered to build him a NAS out of cast-off parts. What I have to work with is a Dell XPS 8300, a several years old 2.5" 5400rpm 60gb drive from an old laptop (for OS installation), a 14 month old WD Black 7200rpm 6tb and a brand new matching 6tb drive. The system has 8gb of non-ECC ram. In a few months, a 120gb SSD is going to be available and I'll clone the OS drive and replace the 60gb mechanical with the 120gb SSD. Other than the foregoing, this is all the hardware I'll have to work with.
The SOLE propose of this box is to be a file server, so no jails, no Plex, no FTP, etc. I'll setup a big Samba share and that's where everything will go (organized into logical child directories). I'll be the Admin (he and she a super low tech). I'll have one of the workstations run something like Acronis for daily cloud backup and daily on-site backup (to a USB drive attached to one of the workstations.
There are a few threads here that mention anyone using an XPS 8300, so I'm mildly confident that I can install and run FreeNAS on this, but of course, won't know until I try.
So why this post?
Should I bother to run FreeNAS on this meager pile of iron and silicon? I presently have Ubuntu Server running on it. I created a simple RAID1 mirror using Mdadm, but the reporting and monitoring tools are rubbish. I need some way of the system notifying THEM (and me) if a drive fails. The process of setting up recurring email reports is a huge pain. For reasons too long to explain, I've no hope of any remote monitoring (except using a tool like TeamViewer to get into a workstation AND then remotely view the FreeNAS status webpage.
So... FreeNAS is 1000x better than Ubuntu+Mdadm, but would you install FreeNAS on this hardware?
I'm trying to help a friend who has no centralized file storage for his small lawfirm (just him and one assistant). They currently store all files on his or workstations. There's no strategy and they lose lots of time just trying to find things.
I volunteered to build him a NAS out of cast-off parts. What I have to work with is a Dell XPS 8300, a several years old 2.5" 5400rpm 60gb drive from an old laptop (for OS installation), a 14 month old WD Black 7200rpm 6tb and a brand new matching 6tb drive. The system has 8gb of non-ECC ram. In a few months, a 120gb SSD is going to be available and I'll clone the OS drive and replace the 60gb mechanical with the 120gb SSD. Other than the foregoing, this is all the hardware I'll have to work with.
The SOLE propose of this box is to be a file server, so no jails, no Plex, no FTP, etc. I'll setup a big Samba share and that's where everything will go (organized into logical child directories). I'll be the Admin (he and she a super low tech). I'll have one of the workstations run something like Acronis for daily cloud backup and daily on-site backup (to a USB drive attached to one of the workstations.
There are a few threads here that mention anyone using an XPS 8300, so I'm mildly confident that I can install and run FreeNAS on this, but of course, won't know until I try.
So why this post?
Should I bother to run FreeNAS on this meager pile of iron and silicon? I presently have Ubuntu Server running on it. I created a simple RAID1 mirror using Mdadm, but the reporting and monitoring tools are rubbish. I need some way of the system notifying THEM (and me) if a drive fails. The process of setting up recurring email reports is a huge pain. For reasons too long to explain, I've no hope of any remote monitoring (except using a tool like TeamViewer to get into a workstation AND then remotely view the FreeNAS status webpage.
So... FreeNAS is 1000x better than Ubuntu+Mdadm, but would you install FreeNAS on this hardware?
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