Am I right in thinking FreeNAS will meet my needs?

[Akira181]

Currently I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 in RAID5. The OS is a lot more than I require for my needs and I recently learned a RAID5 setup with 6x 1TB disks will have a high chance of failure in a rebuild due to bit rot and URE. So I've spent the last few days reading and I think FreeNAS will meet my needs but there's a lot of information jumbled in my head so I thought I'd post and ask.

Basically I have an old home computer that I modified to be my NAS. I use it to consolidate all my files from multiple devices into one place (pictures, documents, work files, music, movies) and sometimes use it to stream movies to my TV.

I'm looking for a NAS OS that will have some redundancy (doesn't need to be bulletproof as I backup important stuff to an external HDD) and can double as a HTPC. I see FreeNAS has Plex for streaming and ZFS for redundancy, so it looks like it might be able to do all I need.

My hardware is as follows:

Mobo: ASRock K10N78D
CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 5600 (2.8 GHz)
RAM: 4GB DDR2
HDD: 6x 1TB SATA2 + 180GB IDE boot disk

I know AMD is not recommended for FreeNAS and I'm a bit on the low side for RAM. Also, it's probably worth noting that I know my RAM is non-ECC but I'm on a budget and I like to believe that the chances of corruption would be low (until the RAM kicks it), especially since I would not be writing large amounts to the NAS very frequently after initial setup.

Plus, my important documents would be backed up to an external HDD fairly frequently so losing the NAS data would just be a major inconvenience but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I'd just wipe it and start afresh.

Apart from these flaws, is FreeNAS best for me or is there another OS I should consider?

 

[cyberjock]

You don't meet the minim requirements (8GB of RAM). So no, your hardware isn't appropriate for FreeNAS. Meet the minim requirements, *then* and only then would I even consider that hardware for FreeNAS.

I'd strongly urge ECC RAM and non-AMD hardware, but those aren't truely "minimum requirements" and just recommended.

 

[anodos]

Apart from these flaws, is FreeNAS best for me or is there another OS I should consider?

If you want to stick with that hardware go with another OS. A Linux distro should be fine as long as you don't use zfs. I prefer centos 6 because it's stable, but there are nas specific distros.

 

[Akira181]

thanks for the replies, been a busy few days and not had a chance to read these until now.

I think reusing my existing hardware until it dies is a must for me right now, more than bulletproof redundancy since I have all important files on this NAS and an external HDD. Once this hardware dies or becomes unusable, I'll most likely make the jump to Intel and ECC memory.

While I've seen examples of FreeNAS working fine with 4GB RAM and Non-ECC memory for apparently years, I think it's just going to cause problems at some stage on the line. While not a disaster, I don't want the headache of spending time fixing everything again.

I just read up on snapRAID. I think that might be an interesting option for me. Allows me to get rid of Windows Server 2008 (I'll probably go for a stripped down version of windows 7), has basic redundancy, and most importantly, I can reuse my existing hardware.

Need to do some more reading on it before I make the jump. Thanks again and maybe in 5 years, I'll have some ZFS approved hardware :)

 

[solarisguy]

Whatever your OS, you could use the following arrangement:

• for the data you care, use a three-way mirrors,
• for the data you can recreate, a two-way mirror,
• and for the useful, but disposable stuff use the remaining single disk.