Will this work for a FreeNAS box

[jthorpe]

I have a Fractal Design Node 804 with a Silver Stone 500 W 80 Gold power supply. The case I got used and it came with a ASROCK QC5000-ITX motherboard and a Startech.com PEXSAT34RH RAID card. Will these work for a FreeNAS (or an URAID) setup?

If this doesn't work, I'm looking at a ECS Elitegroup A55F-M4 motherboard (https://www.amazon.com/ECS-Elitegro...5+micro+atx+amd+ddr3+1800+motherboard+a55f-m4) - (this only has 4 on board SATA connectors) paired with up to a A8-3870 APU chipset (https://www.amazon.com/AMD-A8-3870K-Graphics-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B006J420UE).

I'm looking to set up a FreeNAS (or UNRAID) NAS box where I can use anywhere between 8 & 10 drives. I'd like to start with 3 WD 6TB Red drives and be able to add an additional drive like every 1 to 3 months until I reach the total of 8 (or 10) total drives in a RAID 5 min (where I can lose up to 1 drive and be able to rebuild). I'd like to be able to add a drive (or two) at a time without having to move the data off of the NAS to install a new drive and then move it back onto the NAS.

Will any of these set ups work? How would I set it up to use a total of 8 (or 10) drives, where I can retrieve data off the drives in case of a hardware failure (i.e.: motherboard failure)? If not, what would you use that similiarly priced (i.e.: have a decent mobo, etc. and have more to spend on drives)? And is it possible to start with 3 drives and expand it without having to move data off and back on? I'm also looking for a set up that I can access from outside of my home network (like the WD My Cloud does by going to: http://mycloud.com)

Thanks from a newbie.

 

[danb35]

In general, AMD stuff isn't very well supported by FreeBSD, and is rarely server grade. Will the hardware you suggest work? Probably. Will it be a good idea? No.

And no, you can't build a three-disk RAIDZ1 pool and then add a fourth disk to make it a four-disk RAIDZ1 pool.

 

[pschatz100]

FreeNAS and Unraid are significantly different - in functionality, hardware requirement, and how well they protect your data. Do some research online. Also, be careful to consider only recent information. There are lots of old posts that discuss and compare the systems - but old information will not be relevant to the current versions of either system.

 

[Evertb1]

The list with hardware requirements for FreeNAS is not hard to find on this forum. And you better believe it are requirements and not just "nice to have" things. Or be prepared for disappointment. Not so long ago I had the impression that you could use any old rig to run FreeNAS. That was a bit optimistic, But there are enough Youtube movies where FreeNAS is presented just that way. And if I recall correctly that was even promoted a bit on the FreeNAS.org site. If you love your data don't believe that. If I may give you some advice: forget about hardware for this moment, I think you are not there yet. First you should find out for your self what you want to achieve for now and the coming time (years) and how to get there. Will your needs be met with FreeNAS or or Unraid? Who knows. But try to be informed before you start buying stuff and building things. Nothing beats a good plan (besides the first contact with the enemy :) ).