Newbie question about home server

[mrmarkfr]

I have a WHS2011 install right now running on q6600 processor and 8gb ram, running 8 HDD drives, ranging from 1-3TB, totaling 17TB, with data replication happening with the use of a software called Drive Pool. Other than the Windows updates, which can be a pain, it works fairly well. It's in a room in the basement, and I usually use it headless through RDP for some Windows utilities programs I run on it.
My concern is that WHS2011 is being non-supported as of Apr 2016, replaced with a $400 Server Essentials, not the same product for the same use(I use the server in my house for a media server, network printer access, and daily PC backups).
I understand that FreeNAS wants 8Gb minimum, and when I redo the server, I'll go with a more modern processor/board. I have an A6-5400K, and a Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H, with 8Gb of ram coming in for another project, and I'm going to play with FreeNAS on it to see how it works in the next couple of weeks.

My question comes from a number of posts that I see on hardware questions, specifically that it's designed to run on Server Grade hardware. Am I looking at the wrong OS to use for my home server by looking at FreeNAS? I'm looking at it as a replacement for WHS2011, that will allow me to share my media on NFS shares, ideally allow me to have a USB printer hooked into it that can be shared by the windows machines, handle replication on a folder by folder basis, allow me to use a variety of drive sizes, and run a backup software system to allow me to do bare metal recoveries, just like my WHS2011 does.

 

[alexg]

I moved from WHS to FreeNAS about a year ago. I've spent numerous weekends playing around with different products that advertise as replacements for WHS. I have been in IT industry for many years and love to learn new tools and technologies. I'll be honest with you, FreeNAS requires investment of your time, ability to tinker with technology(including command line, log analysis), and proper hardware. It really doesn't target your typical home user that was happy with WHS. However, if you want your own industrial strength NAS system that supports ZFS and willing to learn, go for it. I would first recommend that you spent some time to understand the benefits of using ZFS over other file systems.

I've struggled with several issues after Samba was upgraded, but finally have it working on 9.2.1.7 release(with some manual workarounds) and it has been rock solid. I've invested into server grade hardware, ECC memory, and disk drives. I'm now running Plex for all my media and working on setting up crashplan for cloud backup.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

If you are building a whole new box for FreeNAS, finding and using "server grade" components is a non issue. Do your research and let us review your parts list BEFORE you pull the trigger on ordering it.

FreeNAS is a learning curve. I also migrated from WHS and knew nothing about this voodoo called FreeNAS. Making FreeNAS do what WHS did was not hard or time consuming. Basic file serving does NOT require you to monkey around with the command line. FreeNAS is very powerful. FreeNAS has the ability to do more things. Using these more advanced features is where the hours of research and command line come into play.

Other than slinging a file or two, what do you plan on doing with FreeNAS?

 

[mrmarkfr]

Basically I'd like it to host the NFS shares, replicate folders, and run/manage an automatic backup system to allow me to do bare metal recoveries of 7-8 pc, and use my existing mix of drives, which vary in size from 1-3TB. I'm probably going to keep a small windows machine on the side to run programs like MediaCenterMaster, and other non-Linux programs.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

The mix of sizes may be an issue. When you form an array, zfs will only use the capacity of the smallest disk for each disk in the array. In other words, if you make an array(vdev) out of three disks. One is a 1TB disk, the other two are a 4TB disks, zfs will only use 1TB from each disk. The remaining 3TB on the 4TB disks would be wasted.

How many of each disk do you have?

 

[mrmarkfr]

I have 5 x2TB, 2 x3TB and 1 x 1TB. It's looking like FreeNas isn't for me, I might be better sticking with Windows, moving to 7 or 10 or whatever is current at the time, and running drive pool on it, with some sort of bare metal backup system on it.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

I could make those disks work. Not sure what the deal breaker is for you. My friend likes unRAID. I think you can stab in any old disk and it does its thing. There are other great options out there. I also run a Windows Server with FreeNAS as the data storage solution.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Don't see any problem using those disks:
5 x2TB RAIDZ1 (media shares?)
2 x3TB mirrored (backups?)
1 x 1TB (other?)

 

[mrmarkfr]

part of the problem is that I'm running out of room, with my current implementation, I can pull out a 2TB, and replace it with a 4TB, as it fails, or if I need to, before it fails.
It looks like FreeNas is great, just doesn't look like it's going to be for me unfortunately.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Failure is a totally different subject than adding additional storage. If a disk fails in the setup i proposed, you just replace the disk, resilver and you are fine. If you want to add storage, there are multiple ways to do that.
I actually think that FreeNAS would be a great solution for the functionalities you want. Just different from what you are using now ;)

 

[mrmarkfr]

Failure is a totally different subject than adding additional storage. If a disk fails in the setup i proposed, you just replace the disk, resilver and you are fine. If you want to add storage, there are multiple ways to do that.
I actually think that FreeNAS would be a great solution for the functionalities you want. Just different from what you are using now ;)

But that's the problem. Since I'm running short on room, right now if a 2TB drive failed, I'd replace it with a 4TB, and in WHS and drive pool, it just puts it back into the pool. If I went with FreeNas, I'd have to replace the 2TB with another 2TB, or lose 2TB from my media shares, and have an orphaned 4TB.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

You want to wait for a drive to fail to add storage? Then you are not short on space. Your current drives may live for another few years.

Anyway, you can add disks as much as you like. It just works a little different then you are used to now. Perhaps another, more experienced forum member can explain a bit more than i can, my knowledge is still a bit limited

 

[mrmarkfr]

As it sits right now, I'm not out of space, but getting close. If I run out of space, I'll replace the drive with a larger one. If a drive fails, I'll do the same.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

How much data do you have? Here is a good read to understand how ZFS works.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[Fraoch]

As it sits right now, I'm not out of space, but getting close.

Be careful here. If the pool gets up to 80% capacity you get a warning e-mail. Start expanding the pool then - performance will start to be affected and will get worse as the pool gets larger due to file fragmentation. I believe you get further warnings at 90% capacity and at 95% capacity. If you hit 100% capacity you will be in a desperate state where you won't even be able to delete files to clear space!

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/disk-full-cant-delete-any-files-please-help.12252/

It's possible that FreeNAS 9.3 reserves enough space that you'll still be able to delete files:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...files-reduces-dataset-size.26771/#post-170513

but I wouldn't want to test that functionality...;)