First Freenas build Storage question.

[M3okas]

So hello guys. I Need some help regarding my storage. So this is what I got
1 Terabyte ssd 500mb reading/writing
1 Terabyte HD 130mb or 230 mb writing/reading.

The first one is for main storage, and the other one is going to be a backup of the first one.
Is this ok??? And what type do I Chose Mirror or other one???

Second question...
Is missing the boot drive should I buy one 120gb Ssd or HD ???

Third question...
Is a 32gb usb ok for backup the boot drive???

That’s all, I know simple questions but I don’t want to screw anything after have my photos, music and videos there .

 

[joeschmuck]

I'll try to answer your questions in a nice way. I will assume that this is a Testing System for you before you buy more hard drives to store your data on.

1. Your SSD as a vdev (storage), unless it's a high-end model, will die a fast death with all the access's FreeNAS will do to it (specifically a scrub).
2. Do not mirror dis-similar drives. While you may be able to get away with it, a SSD and a HD are very different and capacity ratings are typically different with a SSD being normally less.
3. The boot drive configuration can be backed up via the GUI to any location/computer and takes up very little space, my current backup file is less than 1MB.
4. The boot drive, while many of us prefer a small cheap SSD to a USB Flash drive, you could use an 8GB minimum Flash drive. A SSD of 32GB to 120GB is ideal (pick the cheapest price) as it provides significantly faster software upgrade times and in general do not fail like a Flash drive does.

My advice is to create a single vdev drive using the 1TB HD and do not use the 1TB SSD unless it's a high-end version that can handle the stress of FreeNAS, or your SSD could be dead prematurely. Play with FreeNAS and then figure out if you like it and how much storage capacity you will need, then double it. Next is to figure out how many hard drives and the capacities you need, this depends on RAIDZ1, RAIDZ2, Mirrors, etc... We can help when you get that far but there are some nice guides in the Resources section of the forum that discuss all of that. If the 1TB HD is fine for storage and you maintain a backup copy of your data elsewhere then you could get away using the one hard drive however realize that if the drive fails, you data is basically gone. FreeNAS is about the ZFS file system and it's redundancy. A better system would be to at least mirror two 1TB hard drives when you get to that point.

I hope this helps.

 

[M3okas]

I'll try to answer your questions in a nice way. I will assume that this is a Testing System for you before you buy more hard drives to store your data on.

1. Your SSD as a vdev (storage), unless it's a high-end model, will die a fast death with all the access's FreeNAS will do to it (specifically a scrub).
2. Do not mirror dis-similar drives. While you may be able to get away with it, a SSD and a HD are very different and capacity ratings are typically different with a SSD being normally less.
3. The boot drive configuration can be backed up via the GUI to any location/computer and takes up very little space, my current backup file is less than 1MB.
4. The boot drive, while many of us prefer a small cheap SSD to a USB Flash drive, you could use an 8GB minimum Flash drive. A SSD of 32GB to 120GB is ideal (pick the cheapest price) as it provides significantly faster software upgrade times and in general do not fail like a Flash drive does.

My advice is to create a single vdev drive using the 1TB HD and do not use the 1TB SSD unless it's a high-end version that can handle the stress of FreeNAS, or your SSD could be dead prematurely. Play with FreeNAS and then figure out if you like it and how much storage capacity you will need, then double it. Next is to figure out how many hard drives and the capacities you need, this depends on RAIDZ1, RAIDZ2, Mirrors, etc... We can help when you get that far but there are some nice guides in the Resources section of the forum that discuss all of that. If the 1TB HD is fine for storage and you maintain a backup copy of your data elsewhere then you could get away using the one hard drive however realize that if the drive fails, you data is basically gone. FreeNAS is about the ZFS file system and it's redundancy. A better system would be to at least mirror two 1TB hard drives when you get to that point.

I hope this helps.

Yes it does thk mate. Cheap 120 ssd for boot another identical hd drive for mirror. Understood.

 

[Chris Moore]

Do some reading about FreeNAS. The idea is to use a pool of drives to create redundant (safe) storage instead of using just one drive that can fail and leave you with nothing. Start here:

Hardware Requirements
https://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

Forum Guidelines
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Overview of ZFS Pools in FreeNAS from the iXsystems blog:
https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/zfs-pools-in-freenas/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/