Anyone used FreeNAS ? Could use some advice...

[LostAlone]

Hey guys,

I'm looking at using FreeNAS as the OS on a low-powered NAS-type pc, because running my 1000w gaming rig as the media server is frankly a dumb idea.

Anyway, one of the problems with FreeNAS is that what with it being community supported, its kinda of hard to get good answers, and to find out if FreeNAS is actually the right move for me. What I need to know is if FreeNAS will let you build RAID arrays disk at a time (ie shift the data off one of my current storage drives, reformat it to ZFS, then add it to the array, rinse repeat) or if I need to have a bunch of clean formatted drives to build an array. Also, any idea if it can do the drobo magic and raid different sized disks ?

Also, I'm looking for some kind of drive extender type functionality where all the attached storage shows as one folder, but thats not a deal breaker. Any idea if FreeNAS can do this ?

If FreeNAS isn't up to the job for me... can anyone suggest a distro that offers NAS type functionality, ideally with a web interface.

I know there's a LOT of questions here, but I'm going to be buying a lot of hardware in the near future to make the network work (Gb wired networking and wireless-n and whatnot) and if the bloody server doesn't do what I tell it to its all going to be for nothing!

Any advice you guys could give would be great appreciated!

 

[josh4trunks]

If you are using a RaidZ (the big plus of FreeNAS) you can't add drives to a pool. You make it at one time with your set amount of disks and thats it. You can increase the individual disk size (means buying all new disks) but you can never increase from say a 5 disk raidz to a 6 disk raidz.

I learned this a few weeks ago and it bummed me out cause that means I cant expand my array as I planned... In linux you can expand arrays but you also lose some of the great features of raidz (snapshots, no writehole). Also make sure to have a good amount of RAM for Raidz as the new freenas 8.0 lives in ram, and zfs throws alot of stuff into ram. This ended up forcing me to choose a different mobo for my NAS I'm building so I can get 8GB instead of 4GB. Anyway good luck.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LDEQHA/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Hey guys,

I'm looking at using FreeNAS as the OS on a low-powered NAS-type pc, because running my 1000w gaming rig as the media server is frankly a dumb idea.

Anyway, one of the problems with FreeNAS is that what with it being community supported, its kinda of hard to get good answers, and to find out if FreeNAS is actually the right move for me. What I need to know is if FreeNAS will let you build RAID arrays disk at a time (ie shift the data off one of my current storage drives, reformat it to ZFS, then add it to the array, rinse repeat) or if I need to have a bunch of clean formatted drives to build an array. Also, any idea if it can do the drobo magic and raid different sized disks ?

Also, I'm looking for some kind of drive extender type functionality where all the attached storage shows as one folder, but thats not a deal breaker. Any idea if FreeNAS can do this ?

If FreeNAS isn't up to the job for me... can anyone suggest a distro that offers NAS type functionality, ideally with a web interface.

I know there's a LOT of questions here, but I'm going to be buying a lot of hardware in the near future to make the network work (Gb wired networking and wireless-n and whatnot) and if the bloody server doesn't do what I tell it to its all going to be for nothing!

Any advice you guys could give would be great appreciated!