FreeNAS for storage and not streaming?

[JR1]

Hi,

I'm a semi-professional photographer and I've been looking for a more robust backup/storage solution for the 400GB of photos I've accumulated. I've spent the last few weeks reading up on various storage methods starting with systems like Drobo and Synology but ultimately ended up on the FreeNAS forums.

You guys have done a ton of work on the FreeNAS system and I've been trying to soak up as much info as possible. Needless to say it's been a little overwhelming but I'm slowly starting to understand the basics.

From all my reading it seems like people who are using FreeNAS are using it for a wide variety of hardcore applications I have no real need for (transcoding, concurrently streaming media, remote web access, etc.). I'm wondering if you would recommend FreeNAS to someone if all they're looking to use it for is redundant disk storage?

Currently I back up my photos to a pair of external hard drives individually (and manually) as well as burning backups to BluRay. It's time consuming and tedious but cheap and allows for easy porting of my data backups to an offsite location.

I'd like to have something similar to Apple's Time Machine where I have a device on my network with redundant storage that my files could be backed up to at set time intervals and continue using BluRays as an offsite backup to that. My fear though is that FreeNAS is a bit of overkill for this application. 8GB of ECC RAM, ECC mobo, 80Plus PSU, cooling, antivibration, etc. will run north of $1,000 and may not offer much more reliability (though much greater convenience) than what I am doing currently.

I guess I was just hoping to get some input from you all as to whether FreeNAS, with it's cost and learning curve, is best suited for my use case or if there is another solution I should be considering. The idea of an always on NAS sounds very appealing but also seems like it's not optimized as purely a backup solution. Am I crazy in thinking that?

Thanks,

JR

 

[L]

I actually found freenas for exactly the same reason a couple years ago. Although I have 10+ years experience of command line zfs I really liked the simple easy to use interface to create just a little mirrored time machine for my macs. I have 2 TB of usb drives hooked up to an old laptop(I have 4x500GB). It hasn't failed or had any problems since I created this video

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2pyYeANGKc


I got so hooked I now teach the classes for freenas. There is a free 1 hour class offered daily to get you the basics.

http://www.onlinemeetingnow.com/register/?id=iq3m1ajlzk

 

[anodos]

I guess I was just hoping to get some input from you all as to whether FreeNAS, with it's cost and learning curve, is best suited for my use case or if there is another solution I should be considering. The idea of an always on NAS sounds very appealing but also seems like it's not optimized as purely a backup solution. Am I crazy in thinking that?
Thanks,
JR

FreeNAS will work fine for backups and is more reliable than external hard drives. It is very configurable. I mostly use CIFS and SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) for file sharing. I haven't messed with using FreeNAS as a time machine target since the 8.x days. I found it to be buggy and annoying (my sparse files kept getting corrupted when I would do backups over wifi). If you set up a FreeNAS server you will still have to give some thought about how you will manage offsite backups.

 

[Whattteva]

FreeNAS is actually perfect for your use case and is designed more for your use case.
Browsing around the forums will make you realize that people that actually try to use it for the more "advanced" roles tend to run into a lot of problems.

 

[jgreco]

I haven't messed with using FreeNAS as a time machine target since the 8.x days. I found it to be buggy and annoying (my sparse files kept getting corrupted when I would do backups over wifi).

In all fairness, sparsebundles get hosed on Apple kit as well.

 

[solarisguy]

I hope you would be happy with FreeNAS for your storage needs, however FreeNAS does not replace backups. That would need to be a separate item (could be another FreeNAS though). Please take that into account when budgeting.

 

[jgreco]

FreeNAS is actually perfect for your use case and is designed more for your use case.
Browsing around the forums will make you realize that people that actually try to use it for the more "advanced" roles tend to run into a lot of problems.

Well, that's slightly off-kilter... the intended use of ZFS was for large scale file storage on massive UNIX systems. Most ZFS "problems" are the result of people not resourcing their NAS appropriately; their 2000-era Pentium 4 with a single HDD was blazing fast so why does FreeNAS require so much more? The problem is that the system was designed from the beginning towards massive servers and storage.

The people running into a lot of problems are invariably underresourced. You can get a NAS for far less by buying a small Linux based SoC NAS like a Lenovo StorCenter ($100 w/o disks) but it won't offer the same class of data protection and potential for expandability.

For situations where extreme performance is not critical, ZFS shines even on modest hardware.

 

[BigDave]

I've been looking for a more robust backup/storage solution for the 400GB of photos I've accumulated.

Your search is over, server quality hardware AND a reliable server grade operating system is what you need. This IS
what the ZFS file system and FreeNas is all about. Yes, you will make an investment of both time and money.
If you are serious about safeguarding your data, and you're comfortable with computers, I say go for it.

 

[AlainD]

Hi

Only 400GB to archive is not much. This will fit easily on single HDD's . I would suggest using multiple single HDD's and verify the files regular (every 6 month's) with hashdeep or imageverifier. First calculate the hashes when writing to disk and then verify those regular.
At least two copies local and two copies off-site.

But If setting up servers is a hobby of you, FreeNAS will give you hours off pleasure.

BTW. On windows I would look at ln (http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/ln/ln.html) to get a sort of time machine like function, if automated.

 

[Starpulkka]

Well if you got a camera hull what is over 1000$ then freenas is what you are looking for, IF not then freenas maby is not what you are lookin for.
Or ask yourself do you care for your DIGITALpictures, do you need them to be intact? If ansfer is yes then freenas is for you.

I have done backuping few medias starting from 1980 era commodore 64 c-casettes-> Amiga 500 DoubleDensity FloppyDisk (ah these where the times, when pc sucked, and still today kind of sucks) -> Pc FD-> Pc quantum bigfoot hdd-> Pc CD-R (took 1 hour to burn CD for first burners)-> Pc DVD-R Found that those burned will corrupt in 5 years, maby if i had used DVD+R it might have longer lifetime ->Pc linux server storage-> Pc harddrives as harddisk with docking stations multiple copy and checksums method. And i thought that dockin station is good enough for me, but i was wrong, it is not reliable i did lost 2 drives and 1 backup drive due to in**l drivers bug. ->Freenas with ZFS 6hdd raidz2 with 6 freenas mahines today, but i still do extra checksums for files as i have done from 80's.
I use nikon NEF raw files and windows 8 can read those files directly and it opens pictures over lan like a snap.

 

[JR1]

Thanks everyone,

There's a lot of great information here and I really appreciate all the feedback. The suggestion to generate hashes and verify against them for my photos is something I hadn't even thought of. I'll definitely be doing that!

Right now my photos are all stored on my editing workstation that has 2 1TB drives in a RAID1. I back up from there to two different external drives from different manufacturers. Then to BluRay for offsite backups.

I'm considering building a FreeNAS that would replace my external drives (and it's tedious workflow) and serve as my primary backup. I'd still use BluRay for offsite backups.

Since I can get a Lenovo or Netgear NAS enclosure and populate it with disks for far less than it would take to build a proper FreeNAS setup I'm trying to figure out if the added cost is worth it. I know that's a little like asking a sportscar enthusiast if the extra horsepower is worth it but when I saw all the different things people were using their FreeNAS for besides storage and backup I started to wonder if it wasn't a little bit of overkill for what I"m trying to accomplish.

Again, I really appreciate all the help.

 

[anodos]

Thanks everyone,
I know that's a little like asking a sportscar enthusiast if the extra horsepower is worth it but when I saw all the different things people were using their FreeNAS for besides storage and backup I started to wonder if it wasn't a little bit of overkill for what I"m trying to accomplish.

It's not really a question of 'horsepower'. Good quality hardware +FreeNAS is much more reliable than a cheap NAS enclosure, both in terms of maintaining data integrity and in terms of hardware not breaking. I use FreeNAS every day, but I hardly ever touch plugins or jails.

What you probably should do is clearly define what you need in terms of the following:
1) Storage capacity
2) Redundancy
3) Protocols for sharing data
4) Reliability

It is also a good idea to think of how much downtime will cost you, and what the effects of data corruption might be on your business. It will take time to purchase replacement parts and restore your data if your cheap NAS breaks. The cheap NAS device will be less reliable than a proper FreeNAS appliance, but it is very difficult to quantify how much less reliable it will be. That being said, I've seen proper server hardware go a decade of 24x7 use without failure. In my work environment downtime is expensive enough that the choice was pretty much a no-brainer, but that is not true for everyone.

Note that if you don't want to go through the process of building your own FreeNAS box (selecting parts, doing burn-in, etc), you can always get a FreeNAS mini.

 

[jgreco]

Since I can get a Lenovo or Netgear NAS enclosure and populate it with disks for far less than it would take to build a proper FreeNAS setup I'm trying to figure out if the added cost is worth it. I know that's a little like asking a sportscar enthusiast if the extra horsepower is worth it but when I saw all the different things people were using their FreeNAS for besides storage and backup I started to wonder if it wasn't a little bit of overkill for what I"m trying to accomplish.

You know how you get your first car, with the manual transmission, rolldown windows, and a whole buncha odd little quirks and gotchas. It works but sooner or later you come to understand that a car is a convenience and a car that is inconvenient is a poor convenience.

The Lenovo or Netgear NAS are a great first car ... but sooner or later you will come to hate the extra effort, at least if your goal is just to store files and not have to worry about what happens when your product is EOL and the product has changed hands several times (iomega StorCenter became EMC became Lenovo...)

 

[gpsguy]

If budget is a concern, you might want to consider one of the HP Microservers. Often, one sees the N54L with rebate / cashback offers in the US and UK. You'd still need to add at least 8Gb of ECC RAM to it. Or, look at the Gen 8 versions that offer a fast processor. The N54L won't run any speed tests and is limited to a maximum of 16Gb of RAM.

If you outgrow it, you could build a new server, move the "old drives" to a new FreeNAS server and use the N54L for backup.

 

[AlainD]

Thanks everyone,

There's a lot of great information here and I really appreciate all the feedback. The suggestion to generate hashes and verify against them for my photos is something I hadn't even thought of. I'll definitely be doing that!

Right now my photos are all stored on my editing workstation that has 2 1TB drives in a RAID1. I back up from there to two different external drives from different manufacturers. Then to BluRay for offsite backups.

I'm considering building a FreeNAS that would replace my external drives (and it's tedious workflow) and serve as my primary backup. I'd still use BluRay for offsite backups.

Since I can get a Lenovo or Netgear NAS enclosure and populate it with disks for far less than it would take to build a proper FreeNAS setup I'm trying to figure out if the added cost is worth it. I know that's a little like asking a sportscar enthusiast if the extra horsepower is worth it but when I saw all the different things people were using their FreeNAS for besides storage and backup I started to wonder if it wasn't a little bit of overkill for what I"m trying to accomplish.

Again, I really appreciate all the help.

Hi would not leave the disk option for off-site backup. You need multiple off- site backups with a verify option (hashes) more than a NAS solution. I use a "Sharkoon SATA QuickPort" with esata (now also available with usb 3.0) and an internal 5.25" enclosure for a 3.5" sata disk, both allow at least easy cold swap. For the disks I have some rubber sleeve to protect them when moving them.

Backups with either robocopy (or for ln.exe) are fast and rather painless.

 

[areis]

I use FreeNAS for this exact purpose. I have a dataset that serves as a time machine for all the Apple computers on the network and it works perfect. I also have a dataset (Users) that has sub datasets, with the appropriate permissions, for each user to use as a home folder. These are both shared via AFP.

I use Aperture and my typical workflow involves importing photos into a managed Aperture library on my iMac (which is backed up via time machine as stated above), but I also save a backup copy (you can do this in the import settings in Aperture) to my home folder in the users dataset (Users/username/Pictures/Year/Month/Day) on my FreeNAS server.

When I use Aperture on my MacBook Pro I use a referenced library that connects to the users dataset (Users/username/Pictures/Year/Month/Day) on the FreeNAS server via VPN while I am on the road. This way I have access to the backup Master images that I have imported on my iMac as stated above.

I run Plex in a jail and use the same dataset (Users/username/Pictures/Year/Month/Day) to serve up my photos via Plex Media Server if I want to.

Lastly, I create an Aperture Vault of my managed Aperture library (iMac) to a USB disk enclosure to be stored off site. I update this weekly.

It works flawlessly for me.

I'm sure you could do the same with Lightroom, but I am not familiar with that application.

Good luck.