USB External drives supported?

[b0redom]

Hi All,

I am using FreeNAS in a SOHO environment. I am running out of space.

I currently back up my iMac to an AFS share on my FreeNAS. to a locally USB attached drive and to Dropbox, so I'm not too worried about redundancy.

My FreeNAS TimeMachine AFS is using ~ 3.5TB of space.

I was considering buying an additional external USB3 8TB disk, and attaching it to the FreeNAS box. I'd then set that up with either ZFS or UFS and set it up as an AFS share, and move my FreeNAS Time Machine backup to that.

Is that a supported configuration?

I also have a 'scratch' area on my FreeNAS, so I'd consider another 8TB for that, and reserve the RAID-Z2 resiliance for data which I really care about. Documents, photos, etc.

Any reason I shouldn't do the above?

 

[melloa]

I'd start with the specs for your server, including motherboard, RAM, CPU, disks, volumes, etc. With that information the folks here might even come up with a better solution than the one you are seeking confirmation.

 

[Ericloewe]

It works, for some values of "works", but USB mass storage devices tend to be very crappy.

Why not have the Time Machine stuff on the main pool? (You can't use UFS with FreeNAS, anyway)

I also have a 'scratch' area on my FreeNAS, so I'd consider another 8TB for that, and reserve the RAID-Z2 resiliance for data which I really care about. Documents, photos, etc.

You could do that, I guess. Just keep in mind that USB hard drives are not known for being very reliable.

 

[b0redom]

The TimeMachine stuff is on the main pool currently. I'm just running out of space, and replacing all the drives is cost prohibitive.

Server is a LeNovo TS-140
CPU is a E3-1225 v3 @ 3.20GHz
16GB RAM

5x4TB HDDs in RAID-Z2.

How 'not very reliable' is 'not very reliable' ? I was talking about using this for scratch data. I'd probably be happy with, say.... 99% uptime.

 

[Ericloewe]

How 'not very reliable' is 'not very reliable' ? I was talking about using this for scratch data. I'd probably be happy with, say.... 99% uptime.

It really depends on the specific device. Some are better than others, but it's a crapshoot trying to figure out which ones are better.

 

[Stux]

The TimeMachine stuff is on the main pool currently. I'm just running out of space, and replacing all the drives is cost prohibitive.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-machines-with-osx-server-style-quotas.47173/

 

[b0redom]

I appreciate I could setup quotas, I'm just looking for maximum functionality. If I can attach a disk to free as a ghetto wireless time machine that would probably be great.

 

[nojohnny101]

The concept of time machine is not to keep "snapshots" forever. The fact that your time machine backup image is already 3.5TBs suggests to me you need to set quotes. The general rule of thumb for time machine backups was to buy a drive that was twice the size of the internal drive in the mac that you were backing up. What size hard drive are you backing up?

Quotas are absolutely the right call in this circumstance. Unless you have a specific reason to keep time machine snapshots years back, then set the quota and time machine will take care of pruning old ones.

 

[b0redom]

The iMac's internal disk is 3TB.

 

[nojohnny101]

The iMac's internal disk is 3TB.

And so how far back does your time machine go? I assume that 3TB internal drive in your mac is not full correct?

Regardless, you have two options as people have already alluded to in this thread:
1) destroy your pool and rebuild with a larger number of drives
2) replace drives in your existing pool with higher capacity ones
3) use the USB external drive attached to FreeNAS (least desirable, most risky)

Weigh how much time machine snapshots your really want to keep, your budget, your aversion to risk, and your ability to destroy/rebuild your pool. Then take your pick. Finally, proceed.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

If your goal is to use the external drive for Time Machine, you might be better off attaching it directly to the Mac.