Basic file sharing purpose of Freenas and Hands-on purpose

[antz]

Hi,

Im new to freenas and I have been reading this forum for around 3 days and so far I saw a lot of post discouraging using an Old PC and run FreeNas on it. I admit, I'm guilty of that because that is one of the main purpose I have been reading the forum. I almost turn my back away from freenas but today I found this post.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ative-for-those-seeking-virtualization.26095/

"post is aimed at people wanting to use FreeNAS to provide a little basic file sharing..."

what I have in mind however is not to virtualize but to use an old PC with this configuration
- 4GB RAM
- 2.x Ghz Intel Pentium 4 Processor
- 1 x 500GB seagate 7200 rpm
- 1 x 2TB seagate 7200 rpm
- no monitor. I use teamviewer to control it if i need to
- Currently, it runs windows 7

Main purpose of the PC is for sharing files. not heavily important ones. Think of it like a place to send files to others but no intention to make that as a master copy.

Secondary purpose is media server. It currently runs Serviio and being access by 2 network attached 40" Samsung LED TV. Most of the media files are 480p and some 720p. So far the playback for these sizes are OK. I tried to play 1080p once and the playback is not smooth.

Now, why am I looking at Freenas is I am hoping that it may make my current PC performs better because my assumption is that Windows UI takes too much of the PC resources despite of it not having its own monitor.

Questions
Will I get better performance when I replace my windows OS and use freenas instead?

For the twist.
My stay in this forum is making me think to try the "real use" of freenas. I am seeing some information that I think freenas is worth trying. That makes me more eager to try it on my small purpose old PC and get hands on experience before investing to it.

My Experience level.
I am very much comfortable in windows and browser based interface but SSH makes me uncomfortable. No Idea what RAIDZ are except that it is for redundancy and fail-safe. My only experience in NAS is I have been using Seagate 2Bay NAS via web interface for 2 years now in the office that is currently 70% full. That is also one factor why I want to learn freenas. If I can learn freenas before my disk becomes critical, I might use freenas than buy vendor recommended ASUSTOR ans SYNOLOGY

Thanks for the time.

 

[Mirfster]

what I have in mind however is not to virtualize but to use an old PC with this configuration
- 4GB RAM

Wrong... 8 GB is the MINIMUM REQUIREMENT.. If you did not get that let me re-phrase it.... 8 GB IS THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENT

As for the rest; read the ALL the info that is in my signature under "Recommended Reading". If you "disagree" or don't want to comply with anything that is in the articles... Please move on and find something else. Sorry for the abrupt response, just getting tired of dealing with people that don't/will not adhere to simple constraints and expect the world to bow to their situation.

Sorry for being harsh, just being pretty out-right a bit this morning...

 

[Rand]

I'd also recommend to look at other potential tools like Nas4Free, OpenMediaVault or XPenology for your purpose; those are happier with low spec hardware and will serve your goal quite good

 

[antz]

Wrong... 8 GB is the MINIMUM REQUIREMENT.. If you did not get that let me re-phrase it.... 8 GB IS THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENT

As for the rest; read the ALL the info that is in my signature under "Recommended Reading". If you "disagree" or don't want to comply with anything that is in the articles... Please move on and find something else. Sorry for the abrupt response, just getting tired of dealing with people that don't/will not adhere to simple constraints and expect the world to bow to their situation.

Sorry for being harsh, just being pretty out-right a bit this morning...

No need to apologize to me. I like factual answers. I do not want sugar coated answer that most of the time give false hope.

@Rand, thanks for the recommendations. Will have a look at those before going back to Freenas.

 

[pirateghost]

A. Team viewer doesn't mean anything. Freenas doesn't support team viewer because there is no local GUI.

B. Being headless doesn't inherently disable any video requirements on your Windows box. Just because you don't have a monitor plugged in doesn't mean it will shut down all video functions.

C. Do not attempt to make a stable filer from 4gb RAM on freenas.

D. Your disk layout doesn't make any sense. Where is the redundancy? If you don't care about redundancy, then why on earth would you pick FreeNAS?

E. You won't magically get better performance over what you have now with your Windows machine. Your network still transfers data the same.

F. Any data on your current disks will be formatted for use in freenas if you go that route. Make sure you have backups.

Based on this list I have compiled, freenas isn't a good choice for you. Just stick with Windows. Freenas offers you no benefits at this time if you aren't willing to do it properly or have redundancy.

 

[antz]

Thanks. Points taken