FreeNAS or some other form of Linux/Unix?

[melloa]

I only have 8 SATA ports on that mobo ...

And when is time for more (I have 10 4TB), search the forum for IBM M1015 controller.

 

[Wallybanger]

And when is time for more (I have 10 4TB), search the forum for IBM M1015 controller.

That's what I was thinking. At upgrade time, as opposed to going with 8 8tb drives, I would probably be better off to go with 8 more 4tb drives and set up 2 striped RAIDZ2 arrays. Would mean I would probably need to upgrade to a server chassis and get a second PS but it may be worth it for the speed gains of a second vdev.

 

[melloa]

That's what I was thinking. At upgrade time, as opposed to going with 8 8tb drives, I would probably be better off to go with 8 more 4tb drives and set up 2 striped RAIDZ2 arrays. Would mean I would probably need to upgrade to a server chassis and get a second PS but it may be worth it for the speed gains of a second vdev.

It may not be what people here wold recommend here as it is not hot swap, but for my home use I bought two: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091IZ1ZG/?tag=ozlp-20. They do have a 12 bays hot swap, but I wanted room for expansion and didn't mind power down the server for HD swap and or addition.

With https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00COIZTZM/?tag=ozlp-20

I've used an ASRock Extreme 6 with 10 SATA ports, so didn't need the M1015, but did it anyways for the sake of learning.

 

[jgreco]

If you don't have hot swap bays, then best to carefully yank the data cable on a single drive to simulate a disk suddenly dying. The system should recognize the problem. Then start the replacement process outlined in the manual. Unplug the power from the HDD after powering down the system just to be safe.

 

[jgreco]

It may not be what people here wold recommend here as it is not hot swap, but for my home use I bought two: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091IZ1ZG/?tag=ozlp-20. They do have a 12 bays hot swap, but I wanted room for expansion and didn't mind power down the server for HD swap and or addition.

Hot swap is merely nice to have. At a certain point it goes from "merely nice" to "why would anyone get a server without this" but that's not really mandatory at home user/hobbyist level.

 

[danb35]

that's not really mandatory at home user/hobbyist level.

...unless the home user/hobbyist is crazy enough to want 20+ drive bays in a single chassis...

 

[CraigD]

It is disappointing that the top review on this version of the FreeNAS mini basically says: "hardware good, software bad, forums hurt my feelings" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EQJ6HQC/?tag=ozlp-20

MODs delete if it upsets iXSystems to much

I like this review:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcMtKJ7OmCM

 

[Robert Smith]

About hot swap... Stay away from cases with cheap backplanes of unknown rating.

I was chasing down “CAM status: Uncorrectable parity/CRC error” issues, swapping drives and cables around until I narrowed it down (with Ericloewe's help) to crappy backplanes in E-ITX CFI A7879 Mini-ITX enclosure.

 

[melloa]

...unless the home user/hobbyist is crazy enough to want 20+ drive bays in a single chassis...

I only have 15 :)

 

[jgreco]

...unless the home user/hobbyist is crazy enough to want 20+ drive bays in a single chassis...

Still potentially manageable without hot swap. Of course, at that point, the "easy" factor has changed to favoring a chassis designed for 20 drives, which is usually hot swap capable. You really have to work hard to find a chassis with 20 HDD bays that isn't hot swappable (like the Lian Li PC-D8000). The advantage to that is that, unlike the typical rack mount chassis, the 8000 appears to be designed with some space in between the drives, which means that you'd probably be able to get substantially better cooling with low airflow, which means you could make a very quiet NAS out of one if you put some work into it.

 

[jgreco]

About hot swap... Stay away from cases with cheap backplanes of unknown rating.

I was chasing down “CAM status: Uncorrectable parity/CRC error” issues, swapping drives and cables around until I narrowed it down (with Ericloewe's help) to crappy backplanes in E-ITX CFI A7879 Mini-ITX enclosure.

It's really a damn shame when such a relatively simple thing can't be made with reasonable quality characteristics.

 

[melloa]

The advantage to that is that, unlike the typical rack mount chassis, the 8000 appears to be designed with some space in between the drives,

Yeap that's a nice one. In my case I needed one for the rack.

 

[Wallybanger]

Tracking down an 8-10 drive case with hot swap was turning into a serious pain in the ass. I found a Lian Li case with 8 3.5" drive bays but it was ridiculously expensive and only came with 2 back planes I would have had to buy 6 more backplanes to cover the rest of the case and it would have added another $100 to the price of the case. I gave up and figured that, for the size of my NAS, I'd be fine with the Fractal Designs case. I can just pull the other side of the case off to disconnect the cables. NBD.