Any major inherent issues with a FreeNAS-based set-up where it is NOT on 24/7?

[James(UK)]

Hi all,

Been looking at setting myself up with a home NAS box, and have looked at the cheap "off the shelf" options from Buffalo and the like, before stumbling across FreeNAS.

I've now managed to source a heap of free desktop kit, and managed to build myself a working FreeNAS box (basics of four 2TB consumer drives, 8GB non-ecc memory (I'm aware it's risky), running in RAIDZ) but something that concerns me is my actual intended usage of it;

I do not have a need nor want to have the FreeNAS box on 24/7, and so would be looking to power it down regularly. It's likely I'd be starting the system, doing a "quick" RSync to update it from a Windows 7 laptop, then powering it down.

My question is; are there any major inherent issues with NOT running a FreeNAS box 24/7?

I am working around the issue of things like system emails not getting to me as they are scheduled @ 03:00, but am concerned there may be many other "background" automated tasks that might get missed in the same way? I'd run S.M.A.R.T tests regularly via the shell, rather than schedule them, and ZFS Scrubs manually via the FreeNAS GUI.

The one thing that drew me to the off the shelf NAS solutions was the "power up and power down automatically" facility, where the box would start up when the laptop did, and close down when the laptop did in the same way.

I've spent quite some time researching this, but can't see anything clear around using FreeNAS like this in the documentation, nor despite many different forum searches.

My initial thoughts are that it's simply not designed nor written for limited use like this, and that I should simply pull the drives, and use them as single stand-alones; USB'd to the laptop, and making regular backups as needed... but I'd like to try and persevere with FreeNAS having set up a working system.

I already have a cloud backup service in place, along with on and off-site local stand-alone USB drive backups, and really was looking at FreeNAS as a way I could combine some drives into one larger pool, as another level of backup, rather than relying on it solely for backups / protection.

Thanks for any advice.

Regards

James(UK)

 

[Knowltey]

It seems to me that a NAS solution might not actually be what you're looking for.

If you're using it basically to just store backups of one, maybe even multiple computers a NAS probably is way overkill for what you need. For that an external hard drive would probably be more up your alley, If you're looking for the drive mirroring for redundancy functionality another good solution might be to get two externals and use a drive cloning software to duplicate the drives after you run the backup.

That said, if you do want the NAS to perform a power on with laptop that is possible using Wake-On-Lan, you'd just want to script the laptop to run a WOL command a few minutes before starting the backup. There are various good CLI utilites you can find out there to do that and then if using Windows just stick it in Task Scheduler. Shutdown I'm not too particularly sure of since I haven't experimented with that myself personally, but I'm 99% sure there would be a way to automate a shutdown command to your NAS, I'd bet through accessing the shell of the NAS remotely somehow with scripts or perhaps even setting up cronjobs in the NAS to run at a scheduled time that would be a safe distance after the time needed for the computers in question to perform their backups.

 

[cyberjock]

Knowltey's assessment is pretty much spot on in my opinion. FreeNAS is designed as an enterprise-class NAS software solution. It has some beefy hardware requirements by many people's standard, and the cost is generally only justified if you plan to build a large NAS as you should be using ECC RAM(which means server-grade components, which generally means not leftovers from around the house). You'll still be needing to do regular ZFS scrubs and whatnot, which isn't going to be easy to schedule if the machine isn't on 24x7.

You're basically trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. The recommendation to use an external drive or two is definitely a superior option in my opinion.

 

[Knowltey]

FreeNAS is designed as an enterprise-class NAS software solution. It has some beefy hardware requirements by many people's standard

Ah yes, was going to mention that too. To get the same transfer performance out of FreeNAS as you would for an external hard drive you'd be spending at LEAST two times the amount of money, and probably even more like 4 times than you would for an external hard drive. I mean if you want to do it sure (seems like you may have already built it judging by your post) but you'll be using a rocket launcher to kill the fly that got in your house.

 

[James(UK)]

Hi both,

First off, thanks for taking the time to post. It's much appreciated.

*Puts down rocket launcher...*

;-)


Yes, I'd agree... it would seem that although it would be great to have an all-singing, all-dancing FreeNAS-based box in the house, it's really not what I need here and you've pretty much confirmed what I really think I knew already.

It was an interesting experience to build a working NAS box and get decent, usable performance out of it via FreeNAS, but I'll most likely look to run the box now under Windows 7 or another USB bootable O/S and use the drives that way.

Thanks again for the advice.

Regards

James(UK)

 

[FreeNAS_DIY]

Hi all!

In a different thread I noticed a recommendation concerning running FreeNas 24/7. (http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/stop-resilvering.38105/)
As I don't want to hijack that thread I am posting now here. :)

The situation:
FreeNas serves as a long-time backup for very important, partly unrecoverable photos, documents, scanned certificates etc. To avoid dataloss by any means the NAS is configured as RaidZ2, 6x 3TB WD Red. Properly hardware is also used (Asus P9D-X Server grade board, 16gB ECC RAM), to prevent abuse after theft the dataset is encrypted.
I know that Raid is no backup, so on a regular basis the content of the NAS is backed up on an external HDD (encrypted).

The NAS is only running if I need to access some files. (Approx. 2-3 times a week.)

Disadvantages I read so far:
1.) Pool and drives should be monitored regularly. -> As I scheduled a task for the Smart tests and scrubbing, both do take place. If a scrub is started the NAS is not turned off until the scrub is finished (2-3 days). Before I start a backup to the external hdd a scrub is also started to ensure the integrity of the files. In my opinion there is no problem concerning this point and no danger to data integrity.

2.) Lower performance due to an empty arc. -> Safety is more important than speed so that argument should be negligible.

3.) NAS designed drives have a shorter lifespan if they are turned on and off often. -> A WD Red is specified for 600.000 Load/Unload-Cycles. Am I wrong if I assume that this should be high enough even if the NAS is switched on and off on a daily basis?

Why not 24/7?
In my opinion there are two main disadvantages:
1.) Ransomware/Virus: The risk of an infection or even deletion of data is very high. If it is running 24/7 a virus or ransomware could easily infect and/or delete files on the NAS as I may notice that infection only after hours or if it is already too late. Without a permanent connection to the network an infection is (nearly) impossible.

2.) Vulnerability to internet attacks: Although the NAS is behind a WLAN router I am afraid of flaws and possible leaks in the router (or my main pc -> trojans). Without a permanent connection to the network an exposition of data is impossible.

So I came to the conclusion that running it 24/7 is more dangerous concerning dataloss then to turn it on only if needed.
But I would like to know your opinions and thoughts about that. Especially if I now risk my data. :)

Thanks!

 

[joeschmuck]

3.) NAS designed drives have a shorter lifespan if they are turned on and off often. -> A WD Red is specified for 600.000 Load/Unload-Cycles. Am I wrong if I assume that this should be high enough even if the NAS is switched on and off on a daily basis?

Why not 24/7?
In my opinion there are two main disadvantages:
1.) Ransomware/Virus: The risk of an infection or even deletion of data is very high. If it is running 24/7 a virus or ransomware could easily infect and/or delete files on the NAS as I may notice that infection only after hours or if it is already too late. Without a permanent connection to the network an infection is (nearly) impossible.

2.) Vulnerability to internet attacks: Although the NAS is behind a WLAN router I am afraid of flaws and possible leaks in the router (or my main pc -> trojans). Without a permanent connection to the network an exposition of data is impossible.

So I came to the conclusion that running it 24/7 is more dangerous concerning dataloss then to turn it on only if needed.
But I would like to know your opinions and thoughts about that. Especially if I now risk my data. :)

Thanks!

First, this thread is 2 years old so not sure why you posted it here.

Your idea that the hard drives are failing early based on head load cycles is not the case, it the motor or motor drive circuits more specifically which fail prematurely which spin up the platters.

Ransomeware only infects specific files on your computer, it does not attack other files on your system or on shared media (been there and done that).
Viruses can spread but if you have it at one point on a computer on your network, even when you turn on your NAS it has a potential to spread. The soluition, get a very good AV software and what out what you are doing and links you click.
A router typically has a firewall which uses NAT (you should read up on that). As long as you watch out for viruses and those bad emails, you would be safe. If you are parranoid about it then you should invest in a real firewall and get something like Sophos or pFsense.

Powering a FreeNAS server on and remaining off for most of the time doesn't allow for FreeNAS to Scrub the data, a data recovery feature so you are shooting yourself in the foot by turning it off all the time.

Open a new thread to discuss this further but I think you need to re-evaluate how FreeNAS works before making those types of statements.

Closing this thread.