FreeNAS right for me?

[Pop]

I run a videography business from my home and currently have a 4 disc, 12 TB, RAID5 array as a working and temporary backup. I need another option as the array is almost full, two of the drives are shown as impending failure (SMART), and if what I'm reading about RAID5 is correct, I should never have used it in the first place.

I have an used Lian Li case and extra RAM and thought I would build a NAS. From what I've read, FreeNAS should do the trick, but wanted to get opinions before heading in that direction.

Before considering using FreeNAS I thought a 5 or 6 disc RAID10 array would be the way to go. How would the two compare (my Linux skills are nil)? I will be using 4TB WD enterprise drives this time around and had thought to start with 4 drives. How difficult would it be to increase the size of the array in the future (ie, adding another drive or two)?

Thanks

 

[cyberjock]

Before you ask more questions give my noobie guide a read. I think you'll find most of your questions are already answered there.

 

[jgreco]

And as for drive reliability, you might discover that the reliability factor on those enterprise drives isn't that much different than on the NAS drives, so for me the issue has always been one of balancing cheap vs useful features, where reliability isn't really a feature of either drive. If a desktop drive costs $150, a NAS drive costs $200, and an "enterprise" drive costs $400, I'd prefer two of the NAS drives to one of the enterprise drives...

 

[Pop]

Thanks to you both for the information. After reading the guide I have decided to go with a dedicated RAID enclosure as I don't have a lot of time to learn BSD, etc and didn't realize I needed a server MOBO and ECC RAM.

Thanks again!