FreeNAS female n00b here,

[Annigje300985]

FreeNAS female n00b needs help!

Hi all, I was wondering if i can use the following hardware to make my own FreeNAS based nas.

I have a Asus EEE PC 900
Specifications are : Intel Atom 900Mhz processor
512MB OR 1GB memory (dont know for sure)
16GB SSD
Pre installed with Windows XP

My question is: can i use the above hardware to make a FreeNAS?

I want to attach a Western Digital 1TB External Harddrive on it.

Kind regards,

 

[dannyb78]

using externl usb disk as storage is not the top for a nas... I just use it for backups ;) but you cant do better than this with your eee.
even powering on a notebook/netbook 24/7 is not a good idea, they are not projected for this, and you can experience affidability issues.


anyway if you dont plan to deploy a raidz (3 or more disks in software zfs raid) your hardware is ok, better if you think to turn it on or off at your needs.

What does you expect from your installation? is this a backup station, a home server, a download station or ... ?

sorry for my bad english :(

 

[William Grzybowski]

Not quite.
FreeNAS 8 recommends at least 2GB to work well (and with UFS).
Also you would have no redundancy using only 1 external drive, which kind of defeats the purpose of a NAS.

 

[Annigje300985]

Well, it would be nice to store my music, video's and photo's on it to watch it with other devices. What if the filesystem is NTFS? Does it still matter with performance then?

 

[Annigje300985]

Oh and also, I have this eee from someone who wanted it to trow away (and it still works!)

 

[dannyb78]

consider using freenas .7
you'll need less hardware performance. and if your goal is create a multimedia server you'll find easiest dlna/itunes server configuration.

what kind of other devices? lots of devices can read directly from your usb devices, and for pc there are interesting solutions, like openelec, wich you can install on usb key, or win and linux softwares like xbmc....

 

[Annigje300985]

My television and my mobile for example. I dont like the idea of "grabs hdd and plugs it in" all the time, dont know how i can explain this in proper english sorry :P. Just want to have and keep the drive at one place.

 

[dannyb78]

I know what you mean, it's why I build my freenas ;)
I tell it to you just cause I tihnk tha a netbook with a usb drive attached should be not affidable, or it soulhnd't be enough.

 

[Annigje300985]

I also have a Dell computer at home, with 2.4 ghz processor (not dual) and 512 mb memory. What if I use this one instead of the notebook? Upgrading his memory shouldnt be a problem, but cant build the external hdd in it because that one is SATA and the Dell's motherboard only supports IDE.

 

[dannyb78]

you can buy a sata pci controller for less than 20USD ;) you dont need a raid controller as your freenas can easily build a software raid for you.
In near future I'm sure you'll want to have a more secure storage system, like a mirror or RAIDZ.

I've used a usb disk on my installation for some times, but it was disappearing randomly. So I bougth a controller and solved all my problems.

your 2.4GHz pc is perfect for running .7 or if you get 1 or 2GB of ram for 8 version. At this time .7 should be easier for multimedia purpose.
test both and choose your favorite, just pay attention to what version of ZFS are you using, cause you cant downgrade a volume.

if you create a volume with latest .7 you'll need to format the disk in order to use it with freenas 8

 

[Annigje300985]

Can u install FreeNAS 7 or 8 on a NTFS drive? Or do i have to format the whole disk in a filesystem that is supported? (note: The hdd I want to use has data on it and cant store it atm (unless i buy a new HDD))

 

[dannyb78]

you can (should) install it on a flash drive (not less than 2GB, I reccomend 4GB or more) and then import NTFS volumes. I always used ZFS volume so I dont have direct experience of importing NTFS volumes, I just read about it in changlists and in GUI's menu. You shouldn't have problems, but ZFS will be faster.

 

[Annigje300985]

Here's the following problem. That Dell can take up quite a space. I have my router into a closet where the energy and gas meters are and the main connection of my dsl line. Is it possible to build a "custom" case for it?

 

[Annigje300985]

Forgot to mention that i want to store the hardware there, because i have no other avaiable spaces left in the house:P

 

[Daisuke]

Sure thing you can... look online for small cases, or read the guides here how others built their NAS. My setup

Some word of advice: If you decide to go with FreeNAS .7 you will have a difficult time to transition from it to 8.x version if you have a lot of data that you cannot relocate from disks. I would start with 8.0.3 personally, even if is more hardware demanding. For minimum hardware requirements, see the FreeNAS wiki.

 

[dannyb78]

as teck said... but if you're using NTFS you'll get less problems in upgrading and downgrading form .7 and 8. anyway you loose any software raid capability and some performance.
what you can do depends only from your budget and your enterest on this project. You can simply try with eee and .7, then if you really like this buy a new dedicated hardware, such a AMD E350 miniITX with miniITX cabinet