Is JBOD possible in FreeNas?

[UrAverageStoner]

Hi.

I need some advice. About a month ago i found out about Plex and i have a huge DVD/BluRay collection. So got an old pc and set it up to do that. Then when i filled up the 2TB with dvds i brought a 4TB to fill with BluRays. Problem was my motherboard didnt support 4TB so i looked into getting a Microserver from HP.

After a lot of research i brought the HP Microserver Gen 8 G1610T (Its on its way atm). Upgrading the RAM to 16GB and i decided i really like the look of FreeNas. Spent weeks watching/reading guides and reviews multiple times. I feel comfortable setting up FreeNas apart from when it gets to the RAID part. I know what all the RAIDS do but non of them appeal to me as i already have a back up of the data (The psychical disks).

Id rather have all the space and if one dies ill re-rip the media for that drive. Time consuming but i'm 100% okay with that. I like a project haha. I read about JBOD and that sounds like what i'm after but i cant find any where that has a guide to set up my HDD in that way in FreeNas. Is it possible?

What ill be using it for:
-The server will solely be a media center and no important data at all will be sorted on it.
-2TB / 4TB WD Green HDD. (I know reds are better, I brought them when it was just a PC not on 24/7)
-Plex Media Server plugin
-Maybe SickBeard as well at a later date.

User Chris230291, Posted a similar topic but in the end someone advised on something other than FreeNas.
Iv spent a long time researching about FreeNas so i really don't want to use another service now.
All this is giving me a headache now trying to get to a point where i can say i'm ready to set it all up now. I think i need someone to hold my hand though this if they don't mind =]

If you made it this far thanks for reading it all.
- Matt

 

[mjws00]

Generally we wouldn't refer to jbod in this context.

You don't really need zfs as you aren't trying to add any sort of protection to your data. But with 9.3 you don't have a choice. I won't tell you to use another os... but I would in this scenario. (xpenology, linux, even windows)

So you have two choices:
1. Create a pool for each drive. If a drive fails you will only lose what is on that drive.
2. Stripe the drives together. You get one big storage space, but double the risk of loss as either drive failing takes out the whole pool.

Both of these kind of cripple the whole reason for ZFS on a NAS. But you do gain the niceties of the GUI for sharing and plug-ins. One thing that often occurs is that in 'theory' you won't ever put anything important on it. In practice, all that nice space is sitting there and people often use it and then get burned.

Good luck.

 

[UrAverageStoner]

Generally we wouldn't refer to jbod in this context.

You don't really need zfs as you aren't trying to add any sort of protection to your data. But with 9.3 you don't have a choice. I won't tell you to use another os... but I would in this scenario. (xpenology, linux, even windows)

So you have two choices:
1. Create a pool for each drive. If a drive fails you will only lose what is on that drive.
2. Stripe the drives together. You get one big storage space, but double the risk of loss as either drive failing takes out the whole pool.

Both of these kind of cripple the whole reason for ZFS on a NAS. But you do gain the niceties of the GUI for sharing and plug-ins. One thing that often occurs is that in 'theory' you won't ever put anything important on it. In practice, all that nice space is sitting there and people often use it and then get burned.

Good luck.

Can you tell me more about option one? Also i think i read somewhere that you have to have ZFS for the plugins to work?
I'm really new to this.

 

[danb35]

With the current version of FreeNAS, you have to use ZFS, period. Support for UFS has been dropped. The bottom line, as I see it*, is that FreeNAS is designed to run a ZFS-based NAS appliance with a nice web GUI. If you don't want ZFS, or don't want/plan to take advantage of ZFS's features like pooled storage and data integrity, I'd probably be with @mjws00 using a different OS.

That said, option 1 is simplicity itself. Go into the volume manager, select a single disk, give the pool a name, and create the pool. Lather, rinse, repeat until you've used all your disks. Each disk will be its own pool/volume, and will have its own mountpoint (/mnt/vol1, /mnt/vol2, etc.). You can put your data wherever you want, and share it however you want, but you wouldn't be able to have a single share cover both volumes.

* I'm just a user, so "as I see it" may not count for much at all--but that's the conclusion I've reached after spending some time on the forums and the product itself.

 

[UrAverageStoner]

With the current version of FreeNAS, you have to use ZFS, period. Support for UFS has been dropped. The bottom line, as I see it*, is that FreeNAS is designed to run a ZFS-based NAS appliance with a nice web GUI. If you don't want ZFS, or don't want/plan to take advantage of ZFS's features like pooled storage and data integrity, I'd probably be with @mjws00 using a different OS.

That said, option 1 is simplicity itself. Go into the volume manager, select a single disk, give the pool a name, and create the pool. Lather, rinse, repeat until you've used all your disks. Each disk will be its own pool/volume, and will have its own mountpoint (/mnt/vol1, /mnt/vol2, etc.). You can put your data wherever you want, and share it however you want, but you wouldn't be able to have a single share cover both volumes.

* I'm just a user, so "as I see it" may not count for much at all--but that's the conclusion I've reached after spending some time on the forums and the product itself.

I feel i have to stay with freenas now because i know how it all work and how to set it up. The way you wrote option 1 is exactly what i want anyways i think. Feeling more optimistic.
I plan on having 4HDD's eventually so i might set up a raid when i have more drives to do that.

 

[Tywin]

You don't really need zfs as you aren't trying to add any sort of protection to your data. But with 9.3 you don't have a choice.

I've seen this sentiment a fair bit on here, and I just wanted to point out that there are absolutely use-cases where you want some ZFS features without requiring redundancy. FreeNAS itself demonstrates this by making the boot volume ZFS now. Snapshots, rollback, and data validation are really the big draws to ZFS, and they aren't directly tied to redundancy.

 

[UrAverageStoner]

I've seen this sentiment a fair bit on here, and I just wanted to point out that there are absolutely use-cases where you want some ZFS features without requiring redundancy. FreeNAS itself demonstrates this by making the boot volume ZFS now. Snapshots, rollback, and data validation are really the big draws to ZFS, and they aren't directly tied to redundancy.

I'm getting a bit confused now. Not sure what to do. I need someone to tell me what to do haha

 

[mjws00]

Just follow danb35's advice. It really is that easy. Ignore the other drivel.

 

[Tywin]

I'm getting a bit confused now. Not sure what to do. I need someone to tell me what to do haha

My comment wasn't really directed at you OP, sorry =P

 

[cyberjock]

User Chris230291, Posted a similar topic but in the end someone advised on something other than FreeNas.
Iv spent a long time researching about FreeNas so i really don't want to use another service now.
All this is giving me a headache now trying to get to a point where i can say i'm ready to set it all up now. I think i need someone to hold my hand though this if they don't mind =]

I'd still say that the advice is still perfectly valid and applies for your situation as well. The question now is do you:

1. Ignore that advice.
2. Decide to change the way you want to use your server to be a bit friendlier with FreeNAS.
3. Give up on FreeNAS and continue using whatever OS you were using before.

I wouldn't do #1.

Even if you ignored #1 the CTO of iXsystems has made it pretty clear to a few users that if you are going with single-disk zpools you probably aren't using the right tool for the job (that is to say that FreeNAS probably isn't what you should be using).

 

[UrAverageStoner]

Just follow danb35's advice. It really is that easy. Ignore the other drivel.

Seem like my best bet so far. He wrote it out well so i should find it easy setting up. Touch wood.

 

[Forssux]

You could google nas4free it still uses UFS,JBOD and has NTFS.
In fact nas4free used to be called freenas until a firm bought the name.

 

[danb35]

It's allowed to give the link to www.nas4free.org. But why resurrect a long-dead thread to give the reference?

 

[Forssux]

It's allowed to give the link to www.nas4free.org. But why resurrect a long-dead thread to give the reference?

Maybe because I was searching for this myself.
Maybe I though that other people would search for this info as well and now they have a answer.

And Long dead? It's been only 4 months...