FreeNAS vs OMV and filesystems oh my!

[badboyz84]

I'm planning on building a NAS server to store my media files and stream them with xmbc.

I have been doing a lot of reading but just getting overwhelmed...

Trying to decide on FreeNas or OpenMediaVault and then what file system should I use?

My main issue is I currently have drives at different sizes and want to be able to grow the nas in the future but with 1 disk at a time. I have read that for zfs you must grow with 2 disks at a time so I guess that options out.

Currently I have a 1tb disk and a 2tb disk, I plan on buying another 2 or 3tb disk during the sales this weekend.

So I guess my main issue is what filesystem would allow me to stream 1080p movies over the network and allow me to mix disk sizes and grow the pool at 1 disk at a time?

Also any major differences between freenas and omv when used as a media server? I have seen there are guides for setting up sabnzb on both platforms.

Thanks!

 

[cyberjock]

There isn't anything that will let you mix and match drive sizes. That's just a limitation of reality. Mixing of drives will always limit you to the smallest drive.

 

[badboyz84]

well thats disappointing... What about being able to increase the pool with just 1 new drive instead of 2?

 

[bollar]

well thats disappointing... What about being able to increase the pool with just 1 new drive instead of 2?

This is something appliance NAS can do (Drobo, ReadyNAS XRaid, etc.), but this isn't a design goal for ZFS.

Maybe something like unRAID Server can do this, at the expense of being a proprietary system.

 

[cyberjock]

well thats disappointing... What about being able to increase the pool with just 1 new drive instead of 2?

You didn't read my guide in my sig did you? :)