Migrating from one FreeNAS system to another

[The Rook]

I'm planning to turn my old Media PC into a FreeNAS and get another device to playback my media that I will store on the FreeNAS system.

My concern is, the system I'm going to convert to a FreeNAS is about 6 years old. If I setup the FreeNAS system and something goes wrong with the motherboard or other hardware, how easy will it be to take my existing hard drives and migrate them to a newer FreeNAS system that may need built?

 

[danb35]

Very easy. Plug the drives into the new system, plug the boot device (USB stick, SATA DOM, or small SSD) into the new system, and boot. You may need to reconfigure your network if the new motherboard uses a different network driver, but that would be it.

 

[The Rook]

Sounds almost too easy...

 

[The Rook]

Very easy. Plug the drives into the new system, plug the boot device (USB stick, SATA DOM, or small SSD) into the new system, and boot. You may need to reconfigure your network if the new motherboard uses a different network driver, but that would be it.

So my plan is to run FreeNAS off of a 16GB thumb drive. Start off with 4 x 4 TB drives with this motherboard. Then eventually add another set of 4 x 4 TB drives. That would then max out the onboard SATA ports for that motherboard. And then, if the motherboard either died or I decided to replace it, I only need to connect the new drives to the new board and plugin the 16GB thumb drive and FreeNAS will detect the drives and the previous configuration? No need to wipe drives and set things up again?

 

[danb35]

You got it.

 

[The Rook]

Alright, thanks!!!

 

[The Rook]

Would you recommend ZFS or NTFS for a setup primarily used to store and play back media?

 

[danb35]

On FreeNAS, there's no decision--ZFS is all that's supported. ZFS is, by any measure, a superior filesystem, as long as you provide it with adequate resources and manage it properly. The real question goes to the underlying operating system. If you're a wizard on Windows Server and don't have any interest or intention to learn anything about Unix, you might be better off running Windows Server. If you're already a Unix guru, running some kind of Unix server is a no-brainer.

 

[rogerh]

If you tell us the details of your old media PC (MB, processor, memory, max memory, suitability for ECC, SAS/SATA chips, NIC etc) someone could comment on how suitable it is for FreeNAS.

 

[The Rook]

Sure, below are the components that make up my current media PC which I'd like to convert to use FreeNAS:

• GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W BX80570E8400 Processor
  
• SAPPHIRE 100258-1GHDMI Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-Bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
  
• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK

I built this machine 6 years ago this fall. I replaced the power supply last year or the year before. It currently has 7 SATA drives attached for media and 1 IDE drive used for the OS. The case is basically maxed out with the 8 drives.

Would I be able to add more drives if I purchased a larger case and something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815287006

 

[JDCynical]

Your hardware falls somewhat short in what is recommended for FreeNAS.

The motherboard, while having a decent amount of SATA ports for drives, doesn't support ECC and uses the old front side bus architecture and DDR2.

• While ECC isn't exactly a must have, it's very strongly recommended.
• The FSB stuff, it's just a lot slower than what can be picked up currently.
• The DDR2 part plays into cost. FreeNAS requires a minimum of 8 gigs of RAM. While the board you list can support it, DDR2 isn't exactly the cheapest any longer due to it's age (roughly double the cost of the DDR3 equivalent)

If you increased the RAM on the board, you could run it, but it's not going to be amazing in regards to speed along with an increased risk of data corruption without the ECC memory.

 

[The Rook]

That's disappointing. I'm sure 8GB of RAM would be okay to start off with, but I intend on adding more groups of 4TB drives in the future.

I guess I should start looking for a new motherboard.

 

[JDCynical]

That's disappointing. I'm sure 8GB of RAM would be okay to start off with, but I intend on adding more groups of 4TB drives in the future.

I guess I should start looking for a new motherboard.

Check the hardware sticky for known good boards and host bus adapters (HBA's) that can be flashed for maximum compatibility. Yes, it will cost a bit more up front, but in the long run, you won't be throwing good money after bad. Trust me on this one, I've been down this exact path and almost lost several TB of data from my pool due to trying to use less than optimal hardware. :)

 

[The Rook]

Would I need similar hardware requirements if I switched to building a RAID with Windows or Linux instead of FreeNAS?

 

[rogerh]

Would I need similar hardware requirements if I switched to building a RAID with Windows or Linux instead of FreeNAS?

You would have a wider choice of suitable hardware, and you might not need quite so much RAM, but I think you need similar quality hardware if you are going to get a reliable and safe server. And you wouldn't have the built-in detection of bit-rot and bigger data errors that ZFS has.

 

[The Rook]

I'm starting to wonder if FreeNAS is really what I need. Ideally I'd like a situation where I have a bunch of media available to be played back from other devices over my network (media player using Kodi) and have a backup. If the current system would die or I decide to get a newer system the drives should be able to easily migrate to the new system and if a drive would fail, it needs to be easily replaced by the backup or a new drive in it's place and the data moved over from the backup.

Talking with a friend from work he said I might be able to get away with using a dynamic disk in Windows and then just creating another dynamic disk for a backup. Am I just over thinking things here?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I'm starting to wonder if FreeNAS is really what I need.

Perhaps not, only you can decide that by enumerating and prioritizing your requirements. Forum members can help you to determine which requirements FreeNAS can fulfill. Either way, you won't get sign-off on inadequate hardware unless it's just for experimentation.

the drives should be able to easily migrate to the new system

ZFS is ideal for this.

a dynamic disk in Windows

If you're thinking of combining multiple drives into one block of storage, it would be more fragile than almost any type of RAID.

 

[DifferentStrokes]

This is exactly what I use FreeNAS for and it works great. I backup the computers in the house to the server. I also backup an off site office to the machine. At the same time it is providing shares to 3 Kodi boxes for people to watch TV, as we no have cable.

So, FreeNAS will do what you need, but it may be more than you need.

 

[diedrichg]

As for the client end, you can run as low as a Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC and the Emby for Raspberry Pi add-on and then just run Emby on FreeNAS. I'd go with the newer Pi 2, model B. All-in you are looking at about $120USD for the Pi and parts.

 

[danb35]

I'd say your estimate on the cost of the Pi is high by a factor of two--this starter kit, for example, would appear to include everything you need (and a few things you don't) for under $70, and there are others for less yet. Plex on the server and RasPlex on the Pi would be another option (and it's what I use).