First FreeNAS Setup

[mskenderian]

Hello all,

Iam new to freenas, only learning about it after setting up my pfSense box. loving FreeBSD.... So last week. I set up an old comp as a my new file server. Its a P4, with 1GB of ram. it has two sata I ports and a 10/100 network card, a 160GB sata I hard drive, a SATA II controller, two 2TB WD RED HD, and a gigabit network card. I setup a UFS mirror on the two 2TB HD, and used rsync to move my files from my local comp to my volume on the two 2TB drives. used the 160GB HD for my plugins and somewhere for transmission to download to.

I have had no issues, except one time, FreeNAS showed only my 160GB, and couldnt find my 2x2TB WD RED mirrors. a simple restart fixed this issue. Altought the restart took forever it was being held up by something (where it point it and says what the disk frag is.) eventually it booted up.

Above is just so you know where iam coming from. i know reading other post, everyone asks for more information.

Summary of above.
P4 (not sure about cores, arch, or speed. i will get into that later.)
1 GB of ram. (Max 4 GB.)
Mobo with 2 sata I ports
PCI card with 2 sata II ports.
1 Sata I 160GB HD
2 Sata II 2TB WD Red HD
Intregrated 10/100 Network card
PCI 10/100/1000 Network card

Now for my issues........

My 160Gb is practically full. and my 2x2TB UFS Mirror is full (3MB free space). Backing up all my files to it. i didnt realize i have so many. mostly because of Media and some sql dumbs. Reading about ZFS and loving it. Specially the Snapshot features. Although i see a RAM issue. So i bought 4 GB of RAM (mobo Max.). 2 Gb already came in and i install it, i should be getting the other 2GB today. I also have a brand new 2TB WD Green that i havent used yet. so iam thinking of setting up a raidz1 with my 2x2TB Red and 1x2TB Green Drives once i get my RAM. This setup is for home use. i wont be using compression, encryption, or dedup. 1 or 2 users streaming content off of it.

1) The rule of thumb is recommended i have 1GB of RAM per 1TB of HD with a minimum of 8GB. Is that 1 GB of RAM per usable 1TB of HD or total? in another words. if i setup a raidz1 with 3x2TB of drives only 4TB is usable. do i need 4TB of RAM or do i need 6TB of RAM?

2) I thought my arch. is 64 Bit but iam not sure. i installed FreeNAS-8.3.1-RELEASE-p2-x64 (r12686+b770da6_dirty). In the GUI it shows i have Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz. but in shell. when i run " sysctl -a | egrep -i 'hw.machine|hw.model|hw.ncpu' " it shows:
hw.machine: i386
hw.model: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
hw.ncpu: 1
hw.machine_arch: i386

So one says 3.0Ghz the other 2.4GHz. also iam guessing its a 32 bit arch. Can someone help me identify the speed, arch, cores and Hyper-Threading. I also know i have Hyper-Threading. but now iam confused?
Can i run 64 bit arch on a 32 bit machine or 32 arch on a 64 bit machine?

3) When i had 1GB of RAM my free space always showed below 50MB. now that i have 2GB of Ram (and 2GB on its way), my free space is always below 100MB. What is going on? iam guessing it has to do with Inactive in the GUI -> Reporting tab. can someone explain this to me.

4) having two network cards, one 10/100 and 10/100/1000 iam only using the gigabit one. What can i do with the second network card?

5) Any other advice or considerations or reading i should do, before i build this out tonight?

Thank you for all your help in advance. and a special thank you to Cyberjock for making the PowerPoint with examples. that helped me a lot.

 

[jgreco]

1) The rule of thumb is recommended i have 1GB of RAM per 1TB of HD with a minimum of 8GB. Is that 1 GB of RAM per usable 1TB of HD or total? in another words. if i setup a raidz1 with 3x2TB of drives only 4TB is usable. do i need 4TB of RAM or do i need 6TB of RAM?

It's a rule of thumb, a guideline. Not a requirement. ZFS on FreeBSD has been known to work with less than a gig of RAM. However, FreeNAS was designed for larger amounts. As it says in the manual, it might not be entirely stable and/or it might require some tuning.

2) I thought my arch. is 64 Bit but iam not sure. i installed FreeNAS-8.3.1-RELEASE-p2-x64 (r12686+b770da6_dirty). In the GUI it shows i have Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz. but in shell. when i run " sysctl -a | egrep -i 'hw.machine|hw.model|hw.ncpu' " it shows:
hw.machine: i386
hw.model: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
hw.ncpu: 1
hw.machine_arch: i386

That's i386, not x64.

So one says 3.0Ghz the other 2.4GHz. also iam guessing its a 32 bit arch. Can someone help me identify the speed, arch, cores and Hyper-Threading. I also know i have Hyper-Threading. but now iam confused?
Can i run 64 bit arch on a 32 bit machine

No

or 32 arch on a 64 bit machine?

Yes

3) When i had 1GB of RAM my free space always showed below 50MB. now that i have 2GB of Ram (and 2GB on its way), my free space is always below 100MB. What is going on? iam guessing it has to do with Inactive in the GUI -> Reporting tab. can someone explain this to me.

It is just using the memory. What it's supposed to do. Cache, etc.

4) having two network cards, one 10/100 and 10/100/1000 iam only using the gigabit one. What can i do with the second network card?

Doorstop? Dedicated connection to an old laptop? Use imagination.

5) Any other advice or considerations or reading i should do, before i build this out tonight?

Thank you for all your help in advance. and a special thank you to Cyberjock for making the PowerPoint with examples. that helped me a lot.

Sorry for terse response. Time to go!