FreeNAS appropriate for simple mirroring of qty 2 drives?

[15896]

Using this as a Plex media server.
Current PC specs as follows:

Ubuntu as the OS
4 GB ram
2x 3TB HDDs (HDD1 primary and HDD2 secondary)

>> manual syncing of HDD2 with FreeFileSync software every time I copy a new movie to HDD1.​

1x 3TB HDD external drive

>> manual syncing of this drive once per month... disconnected from the wall and stored in my closet for safe keeping. I realize if my house burns down I am SOL, I'm okay with that. Lightning strikes are what I'm most worried about.​

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I just bought qty 2 4TB drives that I intend to add to the system, and I'll eventually get a 4TB external and do the same that I've been doing for the 3TB. Under Ubuntu, my plan (currently) is to set them up all as separate drives (making 3tb-HDD1, 3tb-HDD2, 4tb-HDD3, and 4tb-HDD4). Plex will read/scan for movies from 3tb-HDD1 and 4tb-HDD3. FreeFileSync will be used to sync HDD1 to HDD2 and HDD3 to HDD4.

From what I've read, ZFS is intended for 3+ drives in a single raid configuration. My box has/will have 2 sets of mirrored paired drives.

Does FreeNAS make sense for me to install? Will it make my life easier?

One of my concerns was with the 4GB of ram that was installed. The FAQ states that you should have 1GB per TB of storage with ZFS, but whether that is applicable for a simple mirror I cannot figure out. (I would think that's more aimed at RaidZ...etc)
Do other people have boxes set up like this? From my searching, I feel like I'm the only one that has (essentially) two drives...

Thank you for the help.

 

[dlavigne]

From what I've read, ZFS is intended for 3+ drives in a single raid configuration. My box has/will have 2 sets of mirrored paired drives.

That is for RAIDZ. ZFS also supports mirrors with 2 or more drives.

Regarding RAM, put in as much as you can. You can never have too much RAM.

 

[joelmusicman]

The general philosophy for FreeNAS is to provision all your storage upfront (as that is what businesses would do). You can add mirrored pairs to a pool and that is an acceptable way to expand storage. Most home users prefer RAIDZ2 over mirrored pairs as you'll end up with more storage drives with a 6+ drive array with better resiliency to boot.

FreeNAS handles the replication of your drives, so you don't need to worry about syncing drives together.

8GB ram is HIGHLY recommended for FreeNAS as there are some reports of data loss below this amount.

 

[15896]

What setup do you suggest for someone with 2x3TB drives and 2x4TB drives? I'm open to all ideas... what's the best way to go about this?
+ 1x3TB external backup
+ 1x4TB external backup

I'd like to stick with just the 4GB stick of ram.

UFS filesystem?

 

[HoneyBadger]

You can do UFS, but then you lose ZFS's built-in data integrity checking.

With that said if you aren't running ECC RAM in your machine, you should not even consider ZFS.

In your configuration you can do two separate UFS mirrors (or if it is ECC and you can upgrade to 8GB, two separate zpools)