Noob disk config question.

[parkay]

Need some ultranoob advice.

I have resurrected an old Dell 2650 server (4gb Ram, dual 2.0 GHZ Xeons, 4 gigabit NICs) to use as for storage, and am considering the multiple options that may be best for my drive configuration. I have 2 x 147Gb, and 3x 32Gb internal Ultra 320 SCSI drives running off the Dell PERC 3 SCSI card, and 16 x 147GB external ultra 320 SCSI drives running off an older Adaptec SCSI card.

Here are my questions;

1. FreeNAS software. Running off USB is not an option on this machine. Should I dedicate one of the internal 32GB drives to the system software, or should I RAID the 3 of them and split off a 4 GB volume for the OS? What is the optimum RAID level for this?
2. Should I use the hardware to RAID the 16 external drives (RAID 5 is the only option) or mount them all as separate volumes and let FreeNAS do the RAIDing?
3. What is a good use of the 147gb internal drives? Add them to the pool?
4. I only have 4gb of memory, and I believe the machine is 32 bits, however my total amount of storage will be under 4tb. Will it be safe to use ZFS or should I stick to UFS?
5. Is a hot spare an option with what I have?

I think the drives and my 4 aggregated NICs will provide enough in the speed category that the primary configuration goal should be reliability/redundancy.

Thanks in advance!

 

[cyberjock]

1. Whatever disk you use for the FreeNAS install cannot be used for anything else. You can't hack it to work or anything. If USB isn't an option, then you either do an internal disk dedicated to FreeNAS as boot media only(which internal disks aren't recommended anyway) or you give up on FreeNAS right now. FreeNAS isn't designed to be bendy with whatever whim people want to have for it. It works great for how it's designed. If you want to redesign it, you can use FreeBSD. FreeBSD is designed to be bendy and stuff.
2. If you are asking that question, you haven't RTFM or read my noobie guide. If you did, read it again. Search the forums. We've answered that question so many times I won't even entertain the question again.
3. That's strictly a personal opinion. Some would say throw them away, others would find a use for them.
4. UFS is dead. Gone. The next release of FreeNAS is 64-bit only. So unless you plan to buy new hardware or stick with a version that will quickly be outdated, buggy, filled with security issues in the future, etc you're going to need new hardware.
5. That depends. You're the best person to make that call for your situation. However, hot spares do NOT automatically replace failed drives in ZFS for FreeBSD at this time.