Advice on hardware for FreeNAS home server build.

ykhig

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Jul 6, 2014
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So i'm putting together a home server. I've already decided i am going to use FreeNAS.
It is mainly going to be used as a media server for all kinds of different media and some backups.
I will be accessing it on all kinds of different networks and devices so its needs to stream FullHD video and always work as fast as possible.
I already got a Case(Chieftec Bravo) and a Power-supply (620W), i'm planning on using ZFS so i know that i will need alot of RAM for that. also i will be expanding the server with more and more hard-drives over time.
So what i would like to know is would these items below for fill my needs, here is the list.


1 x Intel® Core™ i3-2120

1 x ASRock B75 Pro3, socket 1155 motherboard (because of the standard 8 SATA connections on the board so i wouldn't need to worry about another SATA/RAID card for a while )

1 x Crucial 16 GB DDR3-1600 dual-Kit, RAMmemory (2x 8gb)

5 x Western Digital Red, 2 TB Hard drives

FreeNAS itself will be running on a portable 8GB USB stick.


Well, here is where i want your advice, what do u think.. is this gonna be a successful build or do you have some better suggestions for me?
I would love to hear them and u would help me out alot :)

(ps sorry for the bad english)
 
Solution
I would highly suggest you not do that. It's purely for "cool factor" as flash memory off a stick isn't designed for what your wanting to do with it. Just run it off one of your HDD's and then partition the rest of the space out for something else.
It's always disappointing to see advice on this website that is just plain wrong. If you don't know anything about the question it's probably best not to answer.

What you suggest would dedicate the whole disk just to the 6GB-odd of the operating system, which is rather a waste of a good hard disk (unless you are using an 8GB one).

OP - your build sounds pretty good for a FreeNAS server. You might eventually want to use more RAM, but 16GB is generally regarded as the "sweet spot" for...
FreeNAS itself will be running on a portable 8GB USB stick.

I would highly suggest you not do that. It's purely for "cool factor" as flash memory off a stick isn't designed for what your wanting to do with it. Just run it off one of your HDD's and then partition the rest of the space out for something else.

Personally I would just install CENTOS and build the thing yourself, it will do all the same stuff as it's just FOSS like Samba and what not. That way you will also learn how the innards of Linux work and how to best optimize your own system, it'll be a good learning experience.
 


NO. Please It seems you have no idea what FreeNAS is at all. It is not Linux. It is not even a standard *nix install, FreeNAS is a embedded distro built on FreeBSD.

It is entirely designed to and is in fact is recommended to be installed to a flash drive!
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations#Compact_or_USB_Flash

Also centos does not even remotely fill the same niche as FreeNAS: A set and forget, easy configuration and remote web based management with ZFS support. All out of the box.
 
I would highly suggest you not do that. It's purely for "cool factor" as flash memory off a stick isn't designed for what your wanting to do with it. Just run it off one of your HDD's and then partition the rest of the space out for something else.
It's always disappointing to see advice on this website that is just plain wrong. If you don't know anything about the question it's probably best not to answer.

What you suggest would dedicate the whole disk just to the 6GB-odd of the operating system, which is rather a waste of a good hard disk (unless you are using an 8GB one).

OP - your build sounds pretty good for a FreeNAS server. You might eventually want to use more RAM, but 16GB is generally regarded as the "sweet spot" for a ZFS system.

Just one suggestion - you might like to consider NAS4Free rather than FreeNAS.

Edit: You might like to have a look at this article: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/the-ars-nas-distribution-shootout-freenas-vs-nas4free/
 
Solution
It's always disappointing to see advice on this website that is just plain wrong. If you don't know anything about the question it's probably best not to answer.

I know plenty, though I improperly referenced it as Linux when it's really FreeBSD. You can easily slice up the disk to get access to the additional space to use for your own purposes, this is what I did when I was experimenting with FreeNAS. Requires actual command line knowledge though which I assumed everyone on here would have.

Anyhow the point I made was that consumer USB thumb drives tend to have poor quality flash chips which are known to frequently go bad, they are almost always made as cheaply as possible. The real answer is to use CF media in a SATA adapter though that might not be within OP's plan. I also suggested doing all this in an open Linux environment (or FreeBSD) just for the learning experience of working with zpools, zfs datasets and the various sharing protocols (CIFS/NFS/ect..).
 
I know plenty, though I improperly referenced it as Linux when it's really FreeBSD.
And yet you suggest something that the FreeNAS developers specifically say you shouldn't do. I'm guessing that they know what they are talking about. Several web references contradict your assertion; for example: http://samkear.com/freenas/creating-bootable-usb-drive-installing-freenas

I like to run FreeNAS directly from USB because it saves me from wasting a hard drive bay just for the operating system. FreeNAS must have it’s own dedicated drive, it cannot reside on drives that will be part of a storage volume in the NAS.
Of course you can install FreeBSD on the same disk as data partitions, but that's another matter.

Anyhow the point I made was that consumer USB thumb drives tend to have poor quality flash chips which are known to frequently go bad, they are almost always made as cheaply as possible.

As you correctly say, flash drives are really cheap. So if one goes bad (my NAS4Free boot key is still working fine after several years of use) you pay a couple of dollars and replace it. Simples. Heck, you could probably afford to keep a few spare ones ready prepared with the money you save by not using a hard disk just for this.

The oversight, that FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD rather than Linux (as Centos is) is not a mere detail. It means that by using Centos the OP would miss out on two huge advantages of FreeBSD - ZFS and Jails. For a NAS device the use of ZFS is a no-brainer. I'm sorry, your advice was incorrect in the first instance, and less than helpful. I would suggest that the OP stick to the recommendations of those who produce and maintain FreeNAS.
 
As you correctly say, flash drives are really cheap. So if one goes bad (my NAS4Free boot key is still working fine after several years of use) you pay a couple of dollars and replace it. Simples.

You realize that my entire criticism wasn't about FreeNAS/NAS4Free but about the quality of USB media. Running a storage system on cheap low quality USB media is dicey at best.

The oversight, that FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD rather than Linux (as Centos is) is not a mere detail. It means that by using Centos the OP would miss out on two huge advantages of FreeBSD - ZFS and Jails. For a NAS device the use of ZFS is a no-brainer. I'm sorry, your advice was incorrect in the first instance, and less than helpful. I would suggest that the OP stick to the recommendations of those who produce and maintain FreeNAS.

....


Where the heck have you been? ZFS is available on any Linux distro. ZFS is NOT native to BSD, there is no magic in BSD that precludes the same code from being ported over (which it has been) to other Operating Systems.

http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html
http://blog.pluralsight.com/zfs-it%E2%80%99s-that-simple

Now before you get any further spun up, realize that I was creating zpools and streaming snapshots to serial files before ZFS was even available on BSD. It's nothing new and definitely not exclusive to something like FreeNAS.
 
You realize that my entire criticism wasn't about FreeNAS/NAS4Free but about the quality of USB media. Running a storage system on cheap low quality USB media is dicey at best.
It's probably best to answer the OP's question rather than going off on a tangent. Again, I refer you to the advice of FreeNAS developers. They do know what they are talking about. If you don't wish to criticize FreeNAS then it's probably better not to say don't use it use Centos instead. That doesn't come across as an uncritical opinion.

ZFS is available on any Linux distro.

ZFS is certainly available on Linux, even if the purests frown upon it. But it's hardly a turnkey installation; it's not automatically built in to Centos.

Now, I'm happy that the OP has been given good advice. I'll leave him/her to decide for themselves whether to do what the FreeNAS developers recommend or whether to follow your advice. No point in continuing this tangential discussion.
 

ykhig

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Jul 6, 2014
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Thank you for your answer;)
about the RAM i understand it is like 1GB ram for every 1TB of data.. so thats why i chose 2x 8gbRAM so that later on i can just ad 2 more 8GBRAM sticks and get to the motherboard limit of 32GB. I will take a good look at the differences between NAS4Free and FreeNAS and will sort out what will work best for me!