Looking for recommendations for DIY fileserver for home storage

[loch_nas]

I don't understand why 2 more disks in vdev would increase the size of the backup when the data amount stays the same. The only difference I see is, as Chris explained, the size of unused space.

 

[Evertb1]

Hey Chris, I don't want and need so much storage space as this would also require more additional backup storage solutions. RAIDZ2 will prevent a fail against 2 drives failing and this is what I was thinking in the first place. Any 2 drives can fail but I will still keep my data, also 8TB of storage won't be such a hassle to backup either as compared to 16TB. Thanks for your help!

I agree with @Chris Moore. With 4 drives you will not go much beyond 37% practical usable storage of your raw storage capacity (take 20% free space in account). With 6 drives in a RaidZ2 configuration this will be around 51% pratical usable capacity. There are several calculators available on the web. I use this one: http://wintelguy.com/zfs-calc.pl
Yes FreeNAS is free but ZFS can be expensive:)

 

[smartyarts]

I have decided to add one more drive so I will have a practical usable storage capacity of 8.256944 (10.405093-20%) terabytes (?) according to the ZFS / RAIDZ Capacity Calculator. That would be totally sufficient for my private needs, I guess. If I insert that additional drive into my system, will I be able to expand my 4-drive RAIDZ2 to a 5-drive with the storage manager? Currently I have data on that 4 drive setup, will it be destroyed when I expand, or is there a way to expand without data loss?
What does resilvering mean? Rebuilding the raid maybe?
What does scrubbing mean?
Thanks for your help
kind regards
Marcin

 

[smartyarts]

One more thing: the CPU I'm using is a Intel Pentium G4560. During boot of FreeNAS I see a line telling me, that the CPU is unidentified, is that a concern? Can I do something about it? Or shall I simply ignore it?

 

[Chris Moore]

I have decided to add one more drive so I will have a practical usable storage capacity of 8.256944 (10.405093-20%) terabytes (?) according to the ZFS / RAIDZ Capacity Calculator. That would be totally sufficient for my private needs, I guess. If I insert that additional drive into my system, will I be able to expand my 4-drive RAIDZ2 to a 5-drive with the storage manager? Currently I have data on that 4 drive setup, will it be destroyed when I expand, or is there a way to expand without data loss?
What does resilvering mean? Rebuilding the raid maybe?
What does scrubbing mean?
Thanks for your help
kind regards
Marcin

No, you can't expand the array. The pool must be destroyed and a new pool created. That's why we were suggesting the changes before the build.
Don't forget to do drive burn-in.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Evertb1]

One more thing: the CPU I'm using is a Intel Pentium G4560. During boot of FreeNAS I see a line telling me, that the CPU is unidentified, is that a concern? Can I do something about it? Or shall I simply ignore it?

Just check the Information you find in the GUI (System -->> Information) and see what it shows for the platform. If that's OK you can ignore the information during boot it I think.

 

[Nick2253]

What does resilvering mean? Rebuilding the raid maybe?

When an array becomes degraded because of a member loss, the process of replacing that member is known as resilvering: https://lonesysadmin.net/2012/03/23/why-is-it-called-resilvering/

What does scrubbing mean?

Checking all the data on disk for errors (it compares the data to its checksum).

 

[smartyarts]

OK, great under SYSTEM Information the CPU is correctly identified. Thanks Evertb1!

 

[smartyarts]

Ok, so I have a 6 drive RAIDZ2 setup, eventually decided to take 6 drives. How do I burn the HDs in? I read the https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/howto-hard-drive-burn-in-testing.21451/ but how can I just run a batch script to do the burn in and leave the computer do the entire test on all drives because as I understand this will probably take the whole week to finish right?

 

[danb35]

No need to run a batch script, really--just kick off the process and wait. Using tmux, you can run all the badblocks tests at the same time. See https://www.familybrown.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=fester:hvalid_hdd for excruciating detail.

 

[smartyarts]

Thanks danb35 for that link, it was very helpful and exactly what I was looking for! I burned in the disks and had no errors, so I will setup the storage now!

 

[smartyarts]

I have one 500GB Hitachi HD and one WD RE 1TB HD that I would like to use in my FreeNAS system, how can I mount these as individual drives?

 

[danb35]

how can I mount these as individual drives?

Create separate pools on each disk.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have one 500GB Hitachi HD and one WD RE 1TB HD that I would like to use in my freenas system, how can I mount these as individual drives?

Curiosity. What would you use the small drives for?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[smartyarts]

Temp data mainly, I just have these drives left over and selling them would be of no financial benefit - who buys old used HDs? :D So I will use them until they die for something that wouldn't hurt when they do... or maybe I just put a 2nd backup on them, disconnect them and store them in a safe place, what do you think?
I also have 5 WD RE 250GB from my hardware raid setup left over, but these are too small, too loud and not really useful for anything, don't you think?

 

[Chris Moore]

Temp data mainly, I just have these drives left over and selling them would be of no financial benefit - who buys old used HDs? :D So I will use them until they die for something that wouldn't hurt when they do... or maybe I just put a 2nd backup on them, disconnect them and store them in a safe place, what do you think?
I also have 5 WD RE 250GB from my hardware raid setup left over, but these are too small, too loud and not really useful for anything, don't you think?

I have sold some of my old drives on eBay. I have had to relist some of them several times to get them sold, but at least I got something for them. If I recall correctly, I sold some 250GB drives not that long ago. You might give it a try. Be sure to do a disk wipe on them first.

I tried to use them for a long time but I got tired of all the power consumption and heat production, plus they are so slow. I only have a few of those old drives at this point. I should relist them again...

 

[Nick2253]

Also, old drives might be more valuable than you think. Lots of positively ancient hardware is still widely used in businesses around the world, and much of that hardware has very weird support. For example, a company might be using an old NAS, and that NAS only works with drives under 250GB because of some weird artificial hardware limitation. To that company, your drives are as good as gold!

 

[Chris Moore]

To that company, your drives are as good as gold!

The place I work, when it comes to certain systems, will replace a drive with the same model that failed even if it is more expensive than a current model in a larger capacity because they are afraid that the current model might not be compatible.

 

[smartyarts]

I just realized that my WD 1TB RE has a broken SATA port but the pins are still intact and 1 of the pins seems to be pushed back when I put the HD into my USB3.0 dock in order to do a backup. I pulled them back with a plier and luckily the drive has been detected correctly when I connected it internally. Backing it up right now.