Off the Shelf NAS box I can put freenas on????

[archalien]

dont want a full pc to run freenas

would like to buy an off the shelf nas product, ditch factory software/firmware and stick freenas on it.

Tried with seagate free agent goflex net, but custom compiling marvel kernel was way too hairy and fraught with peril.

Anyone know of nas product I can get that accepts a freenas installation easier than my previous attempt?

Thx for ne suggestions/links

 

[sjieke]

Why would you want to install FreeNAS on a pre-built nas?
If you by a pre-built nas you also pay for the OS/Firmware. Most off the shelf products have only 1 GB of RAM and cost a lot more then if you would assembly one yourself.
For example:
Pre-build: QNAP TS-439
* CPU: Intel Atom D425 (1.8 GHz, Single Core)
* RAM: 1 GB
* Nice case with 4 hot swappable bays
* Price: more than 600 Euro (without disks)
Home build:
* CPU: Intel Atom D525 (1.8Ghz, Dual core)
* RAM: 4 GB
* Nice looking case with place for 6 internal hdd's (Lian Li PC-Q08B)
* Price: around 250 Euro (without disks)

The only advantage the pre-build one has is it's OS/Firmware with plugins that just works without you doing much and the nice case with hot swappable bays.

 

[cubix]

nice case with hot swappable bays.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811123154&cm_re=chenbro-_-11-123-154-_-Product

 

[sjieke]

Thanks for the link to the chenbro case. I did know that case, but wasn't able to find a supplier in my region (Belgium) for it, so I ordered a Lian Li case. Hot swappable bayes wasn't a must have for me, only a nice to have. The chenbro case is also a lot more expensive than the Lian Li.

Aside from that, my reaction was just to let the topic starter think about why he would buy a pre-build NAS to put FreeNAS on it. In my opinion it's a waste of money. If I would buy a pre-build one, I should defenitely use the firmware included. According to me that's the main reason they are more expensive than the DIY alternative.

 

[archalien]

DONT WANT A FULL PC TO RUN FREENAS

While I appreciate the effort, I guess in the zeal to tell me what they might do the missed the first line of my post....*scrathces head*....???

Anyone else interested in helping answer the question I asked?

 

[Bohs Hansen]

zfs is out of the question if you go for a prebuild NAS. Only the atom based ones come close to half the memory suggested for zfs, and then you'd be 25-50% cheaper of building your own.

40% of the price of a prebuild NAS is the OS/software and plugins for it.

My guess is you just dont want the hassle of assembling it yourself, the problem however is that most relative priced prebuild NAS are ARM and not x86 CPU's, and that makes it a lot more complicated as you can't use the default compilation of install images made for x86 (like FreeNAS), which again only brings you back to the atom based NAS', and they start high up there on the price scale

 

[Tekkie]

No need to be offensive, perhaps because the FreeNAS8 system is meant to be installed on 'PC'-hardware the question of not wanting a FULL PC is hard to answer.

You could start by looking at this page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/FreeNAS-8/ as you can see FreeNAS8 is only available for x86/64bit hardware, which means that a COTS NAS box would need to be 'full' PC to run it, which I guess answers your question. ;)

However you are in luck because iXsystems does do COTS FreeNAS solutions: http://www.ixsystems.com/freenas/ also the company behind the FreeNAS8 project.

 

[sjieke]

What do you define as a 'FULL PC'?
According to me a full pc is a case with
* a power supply
* a mohterboard
* a CPU
* some RAM
* some disks to store data

Now, what do you get if you by a pre-build NAS, a case with:
* a power supply
* a mohterboard
* a CPU
* some RAM
* some disks to store data

Seems to me we have a full pc here.
So if you could clarify what should be in a full pc and is not in a pre-build NAS, we can make better suggestions.

 

[Milhouse]

Only one choice: HP Proliant MicroServer N36L

Perfect for FreeNAS 7 and 8, can be had for under £150/$220, small, quiet. All you need to supply are the disks (although an additional 4GB RAM wouldn't be a bad idea as ZFS loves memory).

 

[Bohs Hansen]

Thats indeed a nice model, and shows clearly how much you pay for the OS on the normal prebuild NAS' with less power. Didn't know this one yet

 

[Tekkie]

That is a nice little device, didn't know about it either. Nice find. :)

 

[survive]

Hi guys,

There's a thread about the Microservers here:

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?32-Freenas-8-on-Hp-Microsvr-Nl361

archalien,

to answer your question, I think some of the QNap boxes run Intel "guts" and might be able to have FreeNAS loaded onto them but I think it's going to be tough to find somebody who has actually done so. As you might have detected in the prior posts, the general consensus is that doing so is simply silly and will most likely lead to poor results if it works at all.

-Will

 

[archalien]

Thanks for the effort again guys!
I guess better stated, if it requires anything more that a wall-wart for power, its not what I want/need.
While it may seem silly to some of you, those are the specifications I have to work within.
I have tried pogoplug, both the 2.5 and 3.5 hdd variations from seagate and WD's offering in the same space, hardware was great in every instance, but the software was so horrible and ill suited for my needs that they had to all go back.
freenas offers what I need from a software standpoint, zfs is not a deal maker for me so I would like to have it but its far far down on my needs list. I will be perfectly content to run it on lower end hardware.
I just need to marry the software to the hardware. All hardware suggestions have thus far been way outside of the realm I need to be in.
Money and effort are not issues, it has nothing to do with a lack of ability to install and configure hardware or software or a money issue as price is not a concern for me.

I was hoping there was something out there someone had done.
If not Im screwed, and will need to pay someone a fortune to get freenas built for marvel....ughz (not so much)
Im still open to suggestions, but please respect that regardless of how silly it might seem I am only interested in a device much smaller than what has been suggested so far.
thx for your time.

 

[survive]

Hi archalien,

Exactly how small do you need to go? If we had a better idea what exactly you were trying to do we could help you better. Now that we know size matters we can take that into account. Based on your initial question I was thinking you wanted something like a 4 bay QNAP box:

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=134

with freeNAS on it.

Is there anything here:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=309&name=Mini-Booksize-Barebone-Systems

that might work? You wouldn't have space for much storage, but there are some tiny systems available.

There's also this place out of the UK that might be able to give you some ideas.

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/

Once again, give us more details about your requirements and we can help you to meet them!

-Will

 

[SoftDux-Rudi]

If you want to load FreeNAS onto a commercial NAS, and you haven't brought one yet then look for one that has an Intel chipset and try and find one with the most amount of RAM and biggest CPU possible.

Also, do some research on the internet on the brands & models which you can get hold of in your country and see if someone has hacked it before - i.e. see if the device has a VGA port, or if it hasn't got one, if the motherboard has a PCI / PCI-E slot for a graphics card.


I took one of our spare Thecus 8800 PRO NAS boxes some time ago and soldered a VGA connected to the motherboard, after I discovered that it has a VGA chipset onboard, but the connector wasn't soldered to the motherboard. Then I connected a VGA monitor to it, connected a USB keyboard and was able to change the BIOS to boot from USB. It has a Core2Duo CPU with 4GB RAM onboard which is sufficient for ZFS.

The only problem I had with it is that it kept loosing the ZFS pool when I rebooted, but I didn't look any further into this again since I just wanted to see if it was possible.



I'm pretty sure if I had any other off-the-shelf NAS boxes available, I would try the same :)