Hello from VA

[thenile]

Over 16 years IT experience currently working as an R&D engineer around virtualization for ISP. I volunteer at my church as needed and I was tasked take a look at affordable storage system for video files. Hoping to get some recommendation from the FreeNAS community.

TheNile

 

[Jailer]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[gpsguy]

Welcome to the forums!

Not to dissuade you from looking at FreeNAS, are you aware of the MS Charity licensing for 501(c)(3)'s? You can get MS software at rock bottom prices.

 

[thenile]

Welcome to the forums!

Not to dissuade you from looking at FreeNAS, are you aware of the MS Charity licensing for 501(c)(3)'a? You can get MS software at rock bottom prices.

Thanks, Are you talking about OneDrive cloud based storage from MS ? If that is the case , they can not use that to the locations that do not have a reliable internet access. The requirement is on-premises.

 

[gpsguy]

No.

Are you talking about OneDrive cloud based storage from MS ?

MS offers 501(c)(3)'s "charity" licenses at bargain prices. As I recall, Server 2012R2 Standard cost the church about $100. Server CAL's were only a couple of dollars each.

The only reason, I mention Windows Server, is that some organizations are looking for a cheaper (free) alternative and end up looking at FreeNAS.

I bought all their MS licenses: server, desktop OS upgrades, Office ProPlus, etc. via the open license plan. When Office 2013 cost my workplace $300+ for a license, the church was paying about $70.

I led church IT as a volunteer for 27+ years. About 18 months ago, the church administrator blindsided me by hiring someone for $95/hour to do the work I was doing for free (without even offering it to me). I'm an IT Pro with 30+ years of experience. They even had the audacity to try to get me to help (for free) the contractor diagnose new problems that he had created. I gave them the keys to the store and quit.


Enough about Windows - this is the FreeNAS forum.

FreeNAS has a number of features, including the use of software RAID. No need for a hardware RAID controller or the concern that if a hardware RAID controller fails, you need to source an identical one. ZFS is a great filesystem.

If you decide to go this route, please look at the resources section of the forum. Read the documentation and ensure that your "server" meets the requirements.

If you prefer an offline version of the docs, you can download it a copy via the link in my signature file.

 

[thenile]

Will definitely look at the docs first.
Regards.

 

[Mirfster]

Hoping to get some recommendation from the FreeNAS community.

Welcome, there are few of us Virginians here as well. Not that location makes much of a difference.. ;)

I led church IT as a volunteer for 27+ years. About 18 months ago, the church administrator blindsided me by hiring someone for $95/hour to do the work I was doing for free (without even offering it to me). I'm an IT Pro with 30+ years of experience. They even had the audacity to try to get me to help (for free) the contractor diagnose new problems that he had created. I gave them the keys to the store and quit.

Dang, that is all kinds of wrong on their part...