Hi from UK

[OJ2k]

Hello. Noob just joined, but been lurking for a week. Amazing how much I’ve learnt - particularly grateful to jgreco and cyberjock + guide.

After a two commercial (home) NAS failures I’ve lost faith in off the shelf solutions (QNAP & Synology) that I can’t really fix myself. Fortunately I’m pretty good at backups. But the worst bit is that after a few days reading I’m deeply shocked how I’ve been living at risk of bit rot all this time; in fact I’ve seen corruption in a few jpegs over the decades and never knew why. I’m only a home user, but keeping my data safe is important to me. So, I’m going to try FreeNAS, with ECC RAM, after reading some very well written justifications on this forum.

My only worry is that I’m going to be able to learn enough to stay safe. I’m just about comfortable with the command line, and I’m eager to learn. Hopefully that’ll be enough, since I can never go back to ignorance!

 

[DrKK]

I think you'll be fine.

If you've been reading the forum, particularly cyberjock's stickies and presentations, and you're following along well enough, then almost certainly you have enough sense to handle a FreeNAS box.

Don't be afraid. If you set up your zvols intelligently, run your scrubs, and your SMART tests, and do due diligence monitoring the operating conditions (temperatures, etc), get the email working, etc., your odds of ever losing a byte of your data, or having a problem that we can't easily help you with, are exceptionally low.

We do recommend that you start with fresh hardware, designed with something like FreeNAS in mind.

The "classic" build we are recommending for small home servers begins with a SuperMicro X10SLM motherboard. This has the right NICs and chipsets for this application. You can get a complete setup, case, RAM, motherboard, hard drives, for about a 5TB pool, and still be under $1000, brand new stuff, all stuff we recommend.

If you give us more information on what you want to do, we can suggest what level of CPU you might use, etc. For example, the Intel G3220 (and its relatives---like the G3240) work awesomely with ECC RAM in this board, and for most home users not doing encryption or heavy CPU usage stuff (Plex transcoding, for example), this $50 CPU will get the job done easily.

 

[OJ2k]

That Supermicro board is the one I was hoping for, but having done the maths the system unaffordable for now - children are unexpectedly expensive! Lucky for me I've a friend who thinks he made a bad purchase with an Asrock C2750D4I for his new web server (reasons beyond me) and will sell it for a good used price if I want. I'd have to buy ECC RAM, but can test the board first, which seems to get a good mentioned around here sometimes.

In terms of aspirations...

Short term:
2 or 3 disk mirror (thread here)
Encryption
Scheduled rsync backups to an ext4 Linux box

Medium term:
Plex trial (never used it before)
Disaster recovery rehearsals by borrowing a mirror disk and taking to another PC.

Long term:
Proper Supermicro system with optimal RZ2 as/when the need arises.

 

[Ericloewe]

Well, the Asrock C2750D4I will certainly work very well with FreeNAS - it's the board used in the FreeNAS Mini. It has to be a very good used price to end up lower than the X10 Supermicros, though, considering the C2750D4I's retail price.

 

[DrKK]

Yeah, a C2750D4I is more expensive than a SuperMicro X10SLM plus an Intel G3240 CPU.

At least in this country.

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeah, a C2750D4I is more expensive than a SuperMicro X10SLM plus an Intel G3240 CPU.

At least in this country.

Pretty much everywhere. I think Amazon.de had them at 400ish€, when an X10SLM+-F plus a G32xx typically runs ~250ish€.

 

[SusiBiker]

Hi all. First post :)

I'm in pretty much the same boat as OJ2K...

Been using Synology hardware quite happily (in some ignorance), but noticing that some of the latest CVE's took 20-odd days to be rolled out to end users. Others have taken longer. Not a moan at Synology as I realise they have a hard-enough job making sure that patches do not destroy systems, but having just been told that the Synology VPN-server has a hard-coded *publicly-known* root password, that was the final straw. Love the hardware, love what they are trying to do (one box suits all), but add to that the prices for Synology systems that have more than 24 HDDs are way too expensive for me, I thought I'd give 'home-grown' a bash.
Currently running a DSM2411+/DX1211 (24xHDDs), and a DSM1513+ (5xHDDs).

As with a lot of people, my aim is to make a redundant and reasonably secure NAS that can serve my local network and be accessible to me via a VPN (VPN running on a dedicated box, with separate a dedicated Sophos UTM box firewall (or similar)).
I'm going to look at the recommended setups for FreeNAS and see how we go.

I'll try really hard not to be a Pain, and promise to RTFM, etc, before asking questions.

Best Wishes,
Susi xx

 

[gpsguy]

Susi, welcome to the forums! Gee, someone who actually plans to RTFM, without being asked to.

As a side note, a number of the users here are using pfSense for firewall, VPN, etc. The requirements for it, are minimal compared to what's needed for a Sophos (formerly Astaro) UTM. That being said, I've been an Astaro user for ~6 years and have it deployed in two businesses. For a commercial user, it can be pricey, but it's worth it for me. For a home user (free license), it's a great deal.

 

[SusiBiker]

Susi, welcome to the forums! Gee, someone who actually plans to RTFM, without being asked to.

As a side note, a number of the users here are using pfSense for firewall, VPN, etc. The requirements for it, are minimal compared to what's needed for a Sophos (formerly Astaro) UTM. That being said, I've been an Astaro user for ~6 years and have it deployed in two businesses. For a commercial user, it can be pricey, but it's worth it for me. For a home user (free license), it's a great deal.

Hi gpsguy. Thanks for the warm welcome. :)
I'll give pfSense a good look-over, and thanks for the suggestion.
I had an old Kloss MPC with a 4GHz P4 sitting round here doing nothing and have been running the Home-User version (9.2) for a couple of weeks. For what I am doing, it has been good so far, but then it always is good, until it fails... ;)

Thanks again,
Susi xx

 

[crisman]

Hi SusiBiker,

If you are really satisfied with the Sophos UTM so its better use it for VPN services on your local LAN than simple use the service in the Synology´s and also gives you extra free protection (antivirus/Spam, IPS, etc..).
I'm also a user of Sophos UTM in a separate box and all access to my lan (VMWare ESXi, NAS, and PC's) are all behind the UTM.