Freenas for noobs? I want something like Windows Home Server

[tormi]

Hi guys!

My first post here. Have been reading throught the Noobie part of the forum and what I am looking for is a guide :) A guide for freenas noobies like myself.

My background:
Windows guy, have been using WHS 1 + 2 the last 3 years or so. Also I have a XBMC machine set up in the living room. My house has 1 server (soon running Freenas I hope), 2 laptops + 1 gaming rig + 1 HTPC (might be expanded by Apple TV or rasperry pi in the near future).
I have some but very little knowledge of FreeBSD server where I used to run some websites of earlier.

What I want from my Freenas (when I am going to start setting it up tomorrow) is as follows.

1. Beeing able to back up important files from my windows machines -> RSync will take care of this I have read. Is there any other solutions?
2. A place to store some of my videos + all my music
3. Logitech media server running on it.
4. Set it up with MySql as a centralized storage database for at least my XBMC database. (And maybe a website or two for intranet use...)

So first question, is this possible? Do you have any good suggestions on my way or any good links to provide me with?

So what next? I just learned about the ZFS filesystem today...

If I have understood correctly and please correct me if I am wrong. This FS will provide me with the opportunity to add for instance four harddrives with different sizes giving me a pool with the storage space of all of them combined. It also gives me the opportunity to have some of my files backed up to 2 harddrives preventing the most important documents with a double protection. This would sound like WHS v1 Drive Pooling technology.

Now I hope somebody can come along and help me out and confirm my information + give me some tips on the way.

Does the ZFS demand certain Motherbords or is this the requirements I need to fulfill:
Full ZFS
4GB Disk Space
6GB+ RAM

I have an EVGA 680i motherboard with 8gb mem installed and if thoose requirements are the one needed I am set to go.

I also heard of Nas4free including a file manager and understand this is not part of FreeNAS.

How do you copy files from windows to the Freenas server?

PS: Anybody know the chance of my network card beeing supported based on the MB? Because I tried installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS today, planning to try out Ahami, but I did not get any network connection. Hopefully FreeNAS is more forgiving in this department. I also have a PCI card based on Realtek 6891SC (I think it was).

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[ProtoSD]

So what next? I just learned about the ZFS filesystem today...

If I have understood correctly and please correct me if I am wrong. This FS will provide me with the opportunity to add for instance four harddrives with different sizes giving me a pool with the storage space of all of them combined.

Any help greatly appreciated!

It really sounds like you need to spend some more time reading the FAQ and Noobsauce's guide to ZFS, links are in my signature below. There are also a bunch of YouTube videos. Spend the time to learn it correctly now, or you'll be wasting the time trying to recover from problems later.

 

[cyberjock]

It really sounds like you need to spend some more time reading the FAQ and Noobsauce's guide to ZFS, links are in my signature below. There are also a bunch of YouTube videos. Spend the time to learn it correctly now, or you'll be wasting the time trying to recover from problems later.

+1. You have alot of questions that are answered in my guide and the FAQ.

 

[tormi]

+1. You have alot of questions that are answered in my guide and the FAQ.

Thx for answers + thx alot for the guide, reading it now. I didn't expect an indepth answer to all my questions but are my main goals achievable with FreeNas?

Anyhoot back to reading :)


PS: The presentations gives me this when trying to download:

"The webpage at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57989017/FreeNAS Guide PDF.zip might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address."

 

[Stephens]

FYI, I just successfully downloaded the presentation from the link in your post above.

 

[tormi]

FYI, I just successfully downloaded the presentation from the link in your post above.

Aaargh.... its my work network then. They restrict us from doing fun stuff during work hours.... How rude!

:)

 

[babaroga]

1. Beeing able to back up important files from my windows machines -> RSync will take care of this I have read. Is there any other solutions?
2. A place to store some of my videos + all my music
3. Logitech media server running on it.
4. Set it up with MySql as a centralized storage database for at least my XBMC database. (And maybe a website or two for intranet use...)

So first question, is this possible? Do you have any good suggestions on my way or any good links to provide me with?

So what next? I just learned about the ZFS filesystem today...

If I have understood correctly and please correct me if I am wrong. This FS will provide me with the opportunity to add for instance four harddrives with different sizes giving me a pool with the storage space of all of them combined. It also gives me the opportunity to have some of my files backed up to 2 harddrives preventing the most important documents with a double protection. This would sound like WHS v1 Drive Pooling technology.


How do you copy files from windows to the Freenas server?

I also have a PCI card based on Realtek 6891SC (I think it was).

Any help greatly appreciated!

1. Have not tried, but should be working, somebody please advise more
2. Yes, I have been transferring my stuff from Win2k8R2 Server over past few weeks
3. Yes you can, here is the link to the thread http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...ech-Media-Server-(formerly-Squeezebox-Server)
I am yet to install it
4. I believe that you should be able to install MySQL in the jail as well, have not tried.

ZFS is a file system that has a feature of auto correcting corruption errors that can occur in the drive hardware by having CRC for each file written. Once you make a ZFS pool, you can extend the pool by adding more drives in other RAIDZx configurations, having something equivalent to RAID1+0, or RAID5+0 etc.etc.

Drive pooling in WHS1 is different cattle of fish altoghether, google ZFS and find explanation in Wikipedia with formulas on how to calculate free space.

To transfer files onto FreeNAS from Windblows machine, simply create CIFS share and copy files from Win --> FreeNAS. That is the easiest way. On the other hand, there are 1000 ways to skin a cat ;)

Not sure about NIC you are talking about, I have HP N40L Microserver and everything works out of the box. Also, IntelPro dual GBit NIC works.

Regards
Darko