FreeNAS build

[vomov]

I'm thinking of moving to a different setup at home, and am wondering if I'm on the right track with the new setup.

Currently, everything is done by a Intel DN2800MT, through XBMC and an assortment of software. It makes the backups, keeps my series up-to-date, and functions as a 'barely enough' mediaserver. The OS, however, is Windows, with all limitations, irritations, and crashes that come with ...

My idea is to make this into a FreeNAS box, and use a Raspberry PI as the media centre (XBMC).

The problem is the way I've stored everything over the years: I have scavenged most hard disks from old PC's, and since they're used to store movies and series, data redundancy is not really an issue (oddly, over the past eight years, I've never had a hard disk fail). As a result, I've got a stack of hard disks, lying in the cupboard, labeled 'Series1', 'Series2', etc (same for movies), and I've got a hard disk dock connected to XBMC. Whenever I want to watch something, XBMC simply says 'please connect disk Movies4', and it works.

In the new situation, I would require quite a bit of storage, and the DN2800MT only allows for two SATA-connections (the mini-PCI-thingy is used by a 32GB SSD, on which the OS runs). My question is therefore: can I use the dock with FreeNAS, in a similar way as I've been using it until now? I do want to include a new 4TB hard drive in the build, as well as an old 1TB drive, but this would be nowhere near enough...

 

[Ericloewe]

I'm thinking of moving to a different setup at home, and am wondering if I'm on the right track with the new setup.

Currently, everything is done by a Intel DN2800MT, through XBMC and an assortment of software. It makes the backups, keeps my series up-to-date, and functions as a 'barely enough' mediaserver. The OS, however, is Windows, with all limitations, irritations, and crashes that come with ...

My idea is to make this into a FreeNAS box, and use a Raspberry PI as the media centre (XBMC).

The problem is the way I've stored everything over the years: I have scavenged most hard disks from old PC's, and since they're used to store movies and series, data redundancy is not really an issue (oddly, over the past eight years, I've never had a hard disk fail). As a result, I've got a stack of hard disks, lying in the cupboard, labeled 'Series1', 'Series2', etc (same for movies), and I've got a hard disk dock connected to XBMC. Whenever I want to watch something, XBMC simply says 'please connect disk Movies4', and it works.

In the new situation, I would require quite a bit of storage, and the DN2800MT only allows for two SATA-connections (the mini-PCI-thingy is used by a 32GB SSD, on which the OS runs). My question is therefore: can I use the dock with FreeNAS, in a similar way as I've been using it until now? I do want to include a new 4TB hard drive in the build, as well as an old 1TB drive, but this would be nowhere near enough...

Your use case is absolutely horrible for FreeNAS. You could use FreeNAS, but using loose old HDDs is asking for trouble. Hell, if you're going to keep using the loose drives, why are you even looking at an NAS solution?

If you want to use FreeNAS, do it right or else there's no point in doing it.


http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/so-you-want-some-hardware-suggestions.12276/

 

[cyberjock]

What "he" said. Your use case isn't appropriate for FreeNAS. Unless you plan to make a big pool of permanent storage (aka a NAS) you are looking at the wrong OS to use.

 

[vomov]

I've been doing it like this for a long time, and am quite comfortable with potential data loss on the loose HDD's. The new situation should be capable of doing several things:

• backup-server, where the two hard drives offer redundancy. This is max around 10GB. If there is space on the internal SSD, I'd like to include a backup there also.

• simple file server, for work (for temporary storage of non-critical data, around 50GB, max)

• media server, for currently watching series etc. Redundancy here is not really needed.

• media server, for watched movies and some series. That is where the stack of old HDD's come in. Data on these is easily replacable, so if one of those fails, it's not a big problem. These HDD's essentially replace my old DVD collection, of which roughly a quarter has been damaged beyond repair due to a cheap DVD player (scratches etc.). I've kept an index of which movie or serie is on which disk. For example: if I would like to watch movie X, I would try to play in XBMC, which would ask for disk Y (which can sit in the cupboard for months without being used). If disk Y would be dead, I should look at the index, and re-download the movies affected, and put them on a new disk (minus the movies I don't want or need). I should note here, that in the long term, I would move to interactive TV, making this 'loose' setup obsolete. However, since downloading isn't illegal in my country (yet), and interactive TV is quite crap, with a very limited assortment of movies and a huge amount of annoying ads, I'd like to keep using this setup for a bit longer. My main concern is if it can work, since I would prefer not to sacrifice my collection again, and can implement this whole thing with existing materials, i.e.: I don't have to buy a new mainboard if this works. I like the DN2800MT, since it uses a tiny amount of power: the full system, including one SSD and one HDD in stand-by, uses around 14W while playing 1080p video.

EDIT: formatting

 

[Whattteva]

Honestly, the way you described your scenario, you're probably better off just using Linux or even vanilla FreeBSD. FreeNAS is just not what you're looking for with the "hacked-up odd mismatched disks put together" type of setup. The fact that you're not even looking for any sort of redundancy proves the point even more that you're looking at the wrong OS.

 

[vomov]

Hold up; I am looking for redundancy, as shown in the first point, which concerns critical data. THAT is its most important function.
The thing is that I'm also looking for a storage solution for non-critical data, which comes in the two forms; internal and stored externally. I'm simply using the extra HDD's as removable drives (hot-swappable and whatnot), and I'm asking if this is possible/feasible using FreeNAS.

The setup would mostly run without even touching the extra hard disks, which are only used 'once in a while', and would simply do its job using the three internal HDD's, where redundancy IS a factor.

 

[Whattteva]

My mistake... I only paid most attention to your OP, which certainly didn't have that detail. However, you still never really mentioned the detail on how the hard drives are (sizes, are they even the same make and models, etc.). My advice is to AT LEAST make those identical to each other if you put any value to your data. RAID in general (not just RAIDZ) are always better implemented with hard drives that are all identical. This eliminates a lot of uncertainty and guess work in a system where redundancy is required.

I guess you could somehow make it work with two pools (one for your valuable data, one for the ones you don't care), but don't quote me on this cause I don't want to be held liable for anything that goes wrong. I'd probably make sure you have plenty of RAM also... read the stickies.

 

[vomov]

Thanks for your reply, I should then change a few details:
If I buy two 4TB HDD's (Western Digital Green), and use those two as permanent members, and I move most series over to there (while keeping the series I just want to keep due to nostalgia on an external HDD), it would free up one 2TB HDD, which would be enough for most movies. So, I would have three external drives, which are rarely used, and function as removable drives. If FreeNAS has no problem with removable drives like that, it all should work fine.

A possible problem might be memory: the DN2800MT is officially limited to 4GB. Apparently, there are ways to force it to use 8GB, but I'll never be able to put 16GB in it... The forums seem to indicate that it should be fine as long as I don't use zfs, but I'm not sure. I'll go over to the stickies, then.

 

[david kennedy]

Thanks for your reply, I should then change a few details:
If I buy two 4TB HDD's (Western Digital Green), and use those two as permanent members, and I move most series over to there (while keeping the series I just want to keep due to nostalgia on an external HDD), it would free up one 2TB HDD, which would be enough for most movies. So, I would have three external drives, which are rarely used, and function as removable drives. If FreeNAS has no problem with removable drives like that, it all should work fine.

A possible problem might be memory: the DN2800MT is officially limited to 4GB. Apparently, there are ways to force it to use 8GB, but I'll never be able to put 16GB in it... The forums seem to indicate that it should be fine as long as I don't use zfs, but I'm not sure. I'll go over to the stickies, then.

I spent a bunch of time looking at freenas to do something similar (I currently use Solaris).

Let me start by restating what others have already said.
ZFS does not like 'mishmash' drives. There are others like flexraid or unraid which do support this configuration but not zfs.

Next, what you intend to do is have two 4 TB's mirrored and online with the others are removable?

You will find Freenas is less then idea for this as well. Unlike Solaris which stores the exports in the file system freenas (and linux) store this as a separate configuration file. If you import/export the "spare" drives you will have to reconfigure the shares as well.

"Forcing" the system to use more ram then is supported doesn't sound like a stable solution, and 4GB is way too small for ZFS.

You can continue to use the "piecemeal" approach (if that works for you) or decide what you want to do and go with that.

 

[vomov]

I think I'm going to try if the mishmash-approach using the DN2800MT works 'good enough', although I'll reduce the amount of drives significantly. I'll try to use NTFS first, since the added benefits of ZFS don't really matter in my case, and I don't have the RAM to play with. Additionally, I'll always be able to break the setup apart, and re-insert the HDD's into my PC.

So, my setup will be something like this:
A DN2800MT-based NAS, with a 32GB PCIe Mini SSD (which seems to work slightly faster than my OCZ Agility 2, suprisingly) where the OS, temporary folders, and important data (administrative files, etc.). I'll keep the RAM at 4GB for now, to see how that works. If it doesn't work properly, I'll see how it holds up using 8GB (if I can get that to work safely). Else, I'll have to go to a different setup.
Internally, I'll put two non-mirrored 4TB WD Green drives, which contain about 8TB of series. Since the stuff on these is not essential (or has multiple backups), mirroring is not neccecary.
Externally, I've got a dock, and three HDD's (which should be a significant reduction from the current 11), which contain stuff I don't need on a daily (or montly, in most cases) basis. I'll see if this works properly, if not, then I'll move that part of my setup back to my 'normal' PC.

Concerning backups; right now I'm making automatic backups on the media centre, on a removable drive, and on two drives of my PC.
The new situation will be simple: one backup per non-removable drive. So in total: three backups on the NAS (one of which only contains the really essential data due to the small size of the SSD), two backups on my pc. Additionally, I've modified the scripts on my PC so that the backups there aren't replaced, but the last three versions are stored as well. Also, all those important folders are in my Dropbox, as of this morning. (I once lost a very important set of files, and have been 'slightly' neurotic ever since, hence the potential overkill)

I should start building this over the next few weeks, and I'll report on my mix of success and failure.

 

[cyberjock]

You do know that NTFS is only meant to be used to move data to the server, not for actual use, right? You do this don't be surprised if your NTFS partition ends up blank suddenly and expectedly.

Like I said, you really aren't a good use case for FreeNAS....

 

[vomov]

So, when using ntfs as read-only in FreeNAS, it might suddenly decide my data needs to disappear? Seriously? How does this 'added bonus' make FreeNAS good?

No matter, I've switched the setup around, and am now using the raspberry pi as the nas. It runs on 2.6W in idle, has two hdd 's. It required a bit of soldering and creative thinking, but it works. Performance is well beyond what I expected, and more than sufficient for my purposes. As an added bonus: my backup scripts run directly on the raspberry pi, and are compatible with removable drives.

So, while FreeNAS requires a gazillion in ram, needs everything to be in zfs or it will destroy your data, and has a community that screams "no you can't" in half the posts instead of offering solutions, the pi, with its tiny ram, does fine in a mishmash setup using ntfs and custom backups.

So, you're right: this is not a good use case for FreeNAS, but that is more due to the limitations of FreeNAS itself. FreeNAS is not for home use, and the community is not constructive.

 

[cyberjock]

Sorry, we aren't here to validate bad ideas. We're here to tell you what your best options are. Yes, we'd love to see everyone on FreeNAS but as you said it's not for everyone. The community (as well as myself) evaluated your use-case and gave you the constructive answer... FreeNAS really isn't appropriate for you. If you consider that non-constructive because its not what you wanted to hear, sorry. Ericloewe gave you some links so you could read and see for yourself what to expect from a server and what kind of hardware you need. We're not going to feed you. We expect you to feed yourself to a point. If you want answers feel free to email one of the people around here and pay them to give you your answers.

Free support is just that. Free. Take it or leave it. Nobody here is paid for support at all.

Glad your pi works for you and glad you are happy with it.

 

[Zizi]

Raspberry pi is NOT a good choice for a nas.
The people here are right in saying that freenas with zfs or ntfs is not a good choice, but freenas with ufs might just work. for you openmediavault or openfiler might be a better choice.