Advice on an offsite-backup for FreeNAS

[vibratingKWAX]

Hello FreeNAS-Community!

I've been playing around with Linux distributions and small just-for-fun servers out of old hardware for some time now. About 3 years ago I've got myself a 4-bay Synology NAS to get a bit more serious about storage and to consolidate all my data on one device. It's an DS413j with 3x2TB +1TB in SHR1. I chose Synology because of SHR (Software-RAID over different size HDDs) and the simplicity of using it.
But now it's time to up the game and I'm really stoked on FreeNAS and ZFS!

I read most of the doc of FreeNAS, read best-practise-guides, tried the current version of FreeNAS as well as the Beta of FreeNAS 10 in a Virtual Machine and watched a lot of youtube stuff for the last 2 months now. I want to do it right!
I plan on buying the following Hardware:
-> Intel Pentium G4400 (easily upgradeble if neccesary later)
-> Supermicro X11SAE-M
-> 1x 16GB Kingston ValueRAM DDR4-2133 ECC
-> Fractal Design Define R4
-> 4x HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB in RaidZ1
-> 400W-BeQuiet PowerSupply lying around (just 1 year old)
-> Any quality 32GB-USB Stick for boot
-> Cost will be around 1.000 EUR

The workload will be just 2-3 users with smb-shares, long-time-storage of music, pics, video collection etc. The most resource-hungry application will be the PLEX-plugin, maybe a light minecraft server. I will wait for the 10 version because of the in my view very promising docker integration of FreeNAS. Also I might play with iSCSI for my Steam library an see how it goes... maybe not. I got enough old HDDs to put in my main PC for Steam and other easy replacable stuff.
I feel like having enough basic knowledge now to do that kind of configuration. I am also quite confident about my hardware config.
Feel free to give feedback on my hardware-choices if you find a huge oversight on my side.

Now...

I dont own and do not plan on owning a UPS in the near future, nor do I want to run RaidZ2 because of the cost. I know many people would suggest that sort of thing for additional safety. (Don't be a statistic! ;-))
I would rather like to "recycle" my current Synology DS413j or just a old PC with OpenMediaVault as a Linux-based offsite storage at my inlaws as a full backup solution for everything worth backing up. Both our internet connections do about 50Mbit down, 10Mbit up.

How would I do that best? What protokoll do you suggest for file transfer? Could I store Snapshots there? I am quite familiar with the Synolgy system. But wich build-in capabilities does FreeNAS have that are useful for that?
I am looking for some kind of best-practice-examples for that usecase or just some stuff to think about and consider beforehand!

Links and references to other places with useful information are also appreciated!

Many thanks!

KWAX

 

[anodos]

Since you're talking about offsite backup to a server that doesn't have zfs, you'll want to use rsync. RAIDZ1 isn't a great choice, but as long as you understand the risks and keep good backups I don't see anything terribly wrong with the choice. I personally like 6-disk raidz2.... but if you're planning to do iscsi and host VMs you'll want to do striped mirrors.

SMB shares? Great! You have plenty of hardware. Plex and thinking about doing multiple VMs? An i3 might be a better idea.

 

[Stux]

-> Supermicro X11SAE-M

Any particular reason you're considering a workstation board without IPMI?

It is a little anaemic with the PCIe slots, and has a probably redundant PCI 32bit slot too.

And the audio circuitry is irrelevant to freenas

 

[vibratingKWAX]

Thanks for your replies!

@anodos
I will definitely look into rsync. It seems like a great solution.
Thanks for your considerations regardig the storage. I will think about that. I am not entirely set on the RAIDZ1 yet but it seems like a good place to start coming from a basic Synology system and with a full backup off site.
What about this though: Instead of 4x4TB HGST drives in RAIDZ1, I could do 6x3TB WD Blue drives in RAIDZ2. (Maybe with a stripe of older HDDs for the VMs on the side for extra speed, backed up to the main pool)
I would be getting the same amount of usable storage at approximately the same price. Do you think the additional parity would be worth the lower performance and supposedly lower quality of the WD Blue drives?

Seems like another 50€ for the i3 would not be that much for the extra overall bang, considering the total price of the system... also I just saw that a 100€ UPS would do just fine for that system. So maybe a change there might be in order as well.

@Stux
I copy/pasted the wrong mainboard from a list I put together. It's the Supermicro X11SSH I plan on getting... with IPMI, plenty of PCIe and without all the desktop stuff. Any thougts on the linux based offsite backup?

 

[Stux]

X11SSH-F is a much more appropriate board :)

I prefer 6 way Z2 to 4 way Z1 :)

But I also prefer NAS drives to blue drives.

Rsync will be fine for offsite backup. Unless you have bazillions of itty bitty files.

 

[anodos]

Thanks for your replies!

@anodosWhat about this though: Instead of 4x4TB HGST drives in RAIDZ1, I could do 6x3TB WD Blue drives in RAIDZ2. (Maybe with a stripe of older HDDs for the VMs on the side for extra speed, backed up to the main pool)
I would be getting the same amount of usable storage at approximately the same price. Do you think the additional parity would be worth the lower performance and supposedly lower quality of the WD Blue drives?

If possible, I think 6x 3TB WD Red drives would be better.

The thing you have to remember is that the number of disks in a vdev is set in stone once you create it. You can replace 6x3TB drives with 6x6TB drives in the future and your zpool will automatically increase in size once you replace the sixth drive. You cannot change a 4x4TB RAIDZ1 vdev into a 6X4TB RAIDZ1 vdev. So in a way, 6x3TB is more future-proof.

As far as VM zpool goes, I'd probably look at using a pair of mirrored SSDs to start with and expand as needed. This simultaneous provides a large amount of IOPS and largely mitigates the deleterious effects of filling up a zpool and fragmentation of free space.