Hi from yet another FreeNAS Noob

[Mark Ward]

Hi All,

I have just taken advantage of the HP cash back offer in the UK and bought a Gen8 micro server. After doing my research FreeNAS fits my needs (and way more) as the HP will be replacing my Qnap which is only used for Media Streaming, file sharing across windows Pc's, family web site and the odd FTP session. I have added 16GB ram and will be putting 4 * 4TB WD Red hard disks in and will be installing FreeNAS onto a USB stick. I have some slight concerns around the Celeron chip but I cant do much about that at the moment due to funds. The only thing that I am having confusion over is how to configure the hard disks. I have read some other threads but there is so much information out there with varying options and suggestions. Anyway, excellent forum and no end of information and helpful people.

Eventually my intention is to buy another Gen8 to 'tinker' with

 

[DifferentStrokes]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy your stay. When grabbing the USB drive to install FreeNAS on go ahead and get two. You can install the OS on a mirror. That way when one of the USB drives fail you can still run okay.

 

[Mark Ward]

Thanks for that tip, I did buy two to start with anyway but hadnt thought about using the other one for that. Would I not need to back up any config files too in order for FreeNAS to know about disk arrays and other settings?

 

[Bidule0hm]

You still need to backup the config just in case (RAID doesn't replace backups) but it's easy, takes 10 sec and the file is less than a MB so there's no excuse to not backup it :)

 

[DifferentStrokes]

If you search the forum, there is a script that you can run as a cron task nightly to backup your config file. I believe the post was by @cyberjock. Good luck.

 

[Jailer]

How you configure those drives is something you'll have to research a bit and make a decision based on your own risk assessment and how much you value your data. But the use scenario you have described I would go for a RAIDZ2 configuration. This gives you good redundancy as any 2 of the 4 drives could fail without the loss of data. And make sure you keep a backup of your data in another location as well.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

@Jailer makes a good point here. As nice as parity drives are, it isn't the same as a backup of the data somewhere else.

 

[Mark Ward]

Thanks Guys, RaidZ2 was the way i was thinking so Im glad I was on the right track. Lots of space given over to redundancy but probably worth it in the end. The Qnap only has 1.5tb now and that has lasted me nearly 4 years so i think 7tb should keep me going. Once I have migrated everything of the Qnap then I intend to use that as the data backup solution. I am all set to go now with the install apart from one thing holding me up, I dont have a spare keyboard / mouse to hook up to the HP server to do initial setup LOL. I will need to pop to Argos and spend another £7

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

You could make a case for RAIDZ1 in some usage scenarios, e.g. if this was only a backup destination for data that's also backed up elsewhere. However, RAIDZ2 seems like a good choice for what you describe, since you'll be using large disks and you don't need to maximize capacity.

 

[travanx]

I started off with 5 disks in RAIDZ1. I didn't care if I lost what I was originally putting on the system, but then ended up putting some things I don't want to lose. The original thought was this would be purely to stream media. I was watching my media from a USB hard drive hooked to my router through USB.

Until I redo this, crashplan has been a good way to target specific folders to backup (mainly pictures). I would go RAIDZ2 if I did it again as I see I will be switching out the hard drives for larger versions sooner than I thought, and that may be a huge PITA if it goes south in RAIDZ1. Eventually I am going to build another FREENAS server for my business which is running on a Synology 2 drive system.

Another thing I wish I did was buy 3 of the same USB sticks. When 1 went out, I tried to stick another of the same size, different brand, in to mirror and it wouldn't work. Would have been much easier to take a 3rd stick already sitting on the shelf to replace.

I only have a keyboard hooked up to the server, and at first just used my main PC's keyboard to set it up.

 

[Mark Ward]

Well all up and running without too much hassle, the install took a bit longer than expected (about 20 minutes) but having read a thread on here this isnt uncommon when installing to a USB stick. Have to admit i did a reset after ten minutes first time around as i thought it had crashed. I have got Plex setup and done a couple of tests just to make sure it works and it does. Coming from a windows background I am struggling a little with the dataset concept but basically aren't they partitions? Intend on spending the weekend having a tinker with groups and users now and setting up FTP.

 

[Bidule0hm]

I am struggling a little with the dataset concept but basically aren't they partitions?

Very basically: yep, you can think of them as partitions ;)

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Well all up and running without too much hassle...

I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Plan to experiment for several weeks at least before you commit anything important to the system. That way if you decide you don't like some of your early decisions and need to, say, reconfigure your pool, your risk level and inconvenience will be lower.
2. Again, before committing anything important to the system, consider doing some hardware burn-in testing.