Getting online with new shiny iron...

[DrKK]

I recently got interested in FreeNAS, mostly for academic reasons, just because it's so elegant and interesting, and I was looking for a fun BSD-related thing to learn about, and hopefully that I can actually use. What I've been doing for years for my home storage is just to set up a simple Windows shared directory (on an external drive) on a small nettop box in the family room. Obviously this is not ideal.

After playing around for about 3 or 4 weeks in a VM, reading the docs on ZFS, reading the docs on FreeNAS, etc, I was ready to take the plunge. I ordered what you guys consider to be a minimal, but acceptable, set up for my personal/home NAS. I really tried to talk myself into not using ECC RAM, and using a cheaper motherboard, etc. But I'm sure you're all glad I listened to you at the end. I got a SuperMicro server board, an Intel G3220, 8GB of ECC Ram, and I'll be starting with 3x2TB WD Red in a RaidZ1. I think the total was about $750, plus or minus. I am still waiting on the PSU to arrive.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting my FreeNAS up and running on real iron. Thanks, guys, for all the hard work not only on the software itself, but on everything that accompanies it, such as the site, and the guides, and so on.

I'm sure I'll run into problems, hopefully very few.

 

[DrKK]

Just want to follow up.

Everything's running awesome thus far. It's the Supermicro X10SLM+-F(-O) motherboard, I'm using the G3220 Haswell CPU (like, $70 or something), 8GB of ECC RAM, and even when I'm maxxing everything out and everyone in the house is streaming whatever they want to stream, the thing isn't even remotely breaking a sweat. Not even remotely. I can't imagine needing an expensive Xeon unit for a home server.

I am experiencing a couple of minor bugs that others have reported:

1) I cannot restart. It hangs up with the error code "19" deal that several others have reported, about midway through the boot sequence. 90% of the time, it will start from power off without a problem (but one time, I *did* get a code 19.). I have "slowed down" the BIOS and boot-up sequence as much as possible--to no avail. The problem appears to be real, and a "bug". But, it is minor, and not being able to 'restart' is hardly a show stopper. Especially with an IPMI-enabled board.

2) If I put the "syslog" dataset in there, I totally lose the ability to start proftpd daemon. Several others have reported this problem. Yes yes yes I know you can fix it by changing this and that configuration after you properly mount the filesystem off the USB thumb drive, etc. But that shouldn't be necessary. Fortunately, I am finding I live without the syslog just fine, and run my FTP as needed.

And of course, things I'd "like" that seem minor:

1) More control over the what goes on the "reporting" screen, the ability to reset some/all of them, etc, right in the GUI.
2) More control (in the GUI) of what gets reported in the daily report, and what gets reported by the ups daemon report (like right now, I only get notifications if there's a problem, and I see no way to change that in the GUI).
3) More documentation for nubcakes in general (I'm a nubcake, but I'm not stupid) on how to use some the more interesting features, like the SNMP stuff. e.g., I'd like to set up on my Windows box some process that will grab SNMP information and present it. With the given documentation, it's not at all obvious how I could do that, etc. I know it can be done, and I know if I was some kind of Linux/BSD nerd, it would be obvious how to do that.
If there's an interest, maybe I'll write up a "Getting online with a home FreeNAS if you're not a BSD/Linux person" kind of a guide. The kind of thing I'd wish *I* had had when I got started on this journey.

Anyway, thanks again. Very much enjoying FreeNAS.

 

[Knowltey]

> 1) More control over the what goes on the "reporting" screen, the ability to reset some/all of them, etc, right in the GUI.
Seconding this, Was reconfiguring the other day and had to use command line to get rid of all the graphs from volumes and datasets that no longer existed.

Also on that note as well if they could bring back the functionality to go forward and back in time on *all* the graphs at the same time would be much appreciated.