I just joined the forum today. I have been eyeing FreeNAS for years. Last time I checked there was going to be a migration from FreeBSD to Linux. Now it appears that FreeBSD 8 is back on. I'm very pleased with that choice as I prefer the stability of BSD over Linux for critical functions such as Routers, Firewall, Access Points, and Network Attached Storage. I have been building my own (DIY) Routers, Firewalls (started out with monowall), and Access Points using pfsense based on FreeBSD and am very happy now that I have been using those network appliances for years with high reliability. I'm still a huge Linux fan and my daily desktop is Kubuntu while I use the windows platform for development tools that are required for work that only run on windows.
*nix has been a very big interest of mine for more years that I'd like to admit. While I'm not really all that competent at BSD type *nixes, I do know Linux very well but I do think that the FreeBSD OS a great choice for embedded appliances.
Currently I have a Core2 Duo 2.2 GHz machine with 3GB RAM (should probably add more) and an OS drive and 4 SATA raid1 drives (1 500 GB ext4 raid1 volume and 1 750 GB ext4 raid1 volume) running ubuntu. My primary backup data is from an ext4 linux partition on my laptop and this solution works just fine with rsync for me. However, I would like to transition to FreeNAS with ZFS running raid1. I think that now is a good time to make the move.
My understanding of ZFS is still pretty limited at this time. It appears to be a filesystem and a volume manager in one that is a great fit for enterprises that required high capacity storage, reliability, and recovery. What I'm currently looking into is the interoperability of ZFS and ext4 and NTFS. If linux ext4 works as desired then I'm guessing that any apple data will be interoperable.
My typical configuration is to backup my linux laptop data partition (data only no OS or apps) to the ext4 partition so that when my laptop hard drive dies (as it does about every 2 years) then I reinstall the OS (kubuntu) and apps and restore the data partition from my linux desktop server to my laptop and I'm back up and running shortly with only losing about a day or less of email and some work.
I'm in the process of researching whether or not I will have any FreeNAS interoperable problems if I use ZFS with ext4 and NTFS filesystems across a network.
For the linux platform as long as I can perform the rsync as root and that FreeNAS should be able to meet my requirements for the linux platform.
For the windows platform (xp, vista, 7), the new capability that I want to add is to backup Windows (XP, Vista, and 7) data to ZFS and be able to restore the data to the NTFS drives from ZFS after a hard drive failure occurs. If I can backup and restore an iTunes directory and still have it work from the NTFS->ZFS->NTFS transition, then the FreeNAS/ZFS solution should meet my requirements for supporting the windows platform.
The FreeNAS project supports more features than I need at this time which is great. In the future I might consider trying to store a Windows XP disk image onto ZFS as it's very painful (very time consuming) to restore a Windows XP install to a hard drive from scratch.
I'm continuing to scan the FAQs and the documentation for answers. If anyone is using FreeNAS in the manner that I desire with success then please drop me a quick reply or a reference to some FreeNAS and/or ZFS project documentation. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Anthony
*nix has been a very big interest of mine for more years that I'd like to admit. While I'm not really all that competent at BSD type *nixes, I do know Linux very well but I do think that the FreeBSD OS a great choice for embedded appliances.
Currently I have a Core2 Duo 2.2 GHz machine with 3GB RAM (should probably add more) and an OS drive and 4 SATA raid1 drives (1 500 GB ext4 raid1 volume and 1 750 GB ext4 raid1 volume) running ubuntu. My primary backup data is from an ext4 linux partition on my laptop and this solution works just fine with rsync for me. However, I would like to transition to FreeNAS with ZFS running raid1. I think that now is a good time to make the move.
My understanding of ZFS is still pretty limited at this time. It appears to be a filesystem and a volume manager in one that is a great fit for enterprises that required high capacity storage, reliability, and recovery. What I'm currently looking into is the interoperability of ZFS and ext4 and NTFS. If linux ext4 works as desired then I'm guessing that any apple data will be interoperable.
My typical configuration is to backup my linux laptop data partition (data only no OS or apps) to the ext4 partition so that when my laptop hard drive dies (as it does about every 2 years) then I reinstall the OS (kubuntu) and apps and restore the data partition from my linux desktop server to my laptop and I'm back up and running shortly with only losing about a day or less of email and some work.
I'm in the process of researching whether or not I will have any FreeNAS interoperable problems if I use ZFS with ext4 and NTFS filesystems across a network.
For the linux platform as long as I can perform the rsync as root and that FreeNAS should be able to meet my requirements for the linux platform.
For the windows platform (xp, vista, 7), the new capability that I want to add is to backup Windows (XP, Vista, and 7) data to ZFS and be able to restore the data to the NTFS drives from ZFS after a hard drive failure occurs. If I can backup and restore an iTunes directory and still have it work from the NTFS->ZFS->NTFS transition, then the FreeNAS/ZFS solution should meet my requirements for supporting the windows platform.
The FreeNAS project supports more features than I need at this time which is great. In the future I might consider trying to store a Windows XP disk image onto ZFS as it's very painful (very time consuming) to restore a Windows XP install to a hard drive from scratch.
I'm continuing to scan the FAQs and the documentation for answers. If anyone is using FreeNAS in the manner that I desire with success then please drop me a quick reply or a reference to some FreeNAS and/or ZFS project documentation. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Anthony
