FreeNAS running home media share?

[Letthiswork1]

Hi Guys,

I just purchased a HP g1610t 4bay NAS and a 6TB WD Red HDD.

I am planning to use this NAS as an external storage device for my PC running my home media (Plex).

Is there much benefit to running FreeNAS with ZFS if it its just for movies etc?

Idealy i want it to start as a 3TB shared folder and increase the space and create other shares if needed. Can i add another HDD in later to expand further?

My main goal is to be able to add more storage down the track and extend the share file if possible.

Thanks!

 

[Mirfster]

Is there much benefit to running FreeNAS with ZFS if it its just for movies etc?

I would not see much benefit if you are just running a single hard drive. IMHO, FreeNas is first and foremost about data redundancy/integrity. All the other bonuses are "extras" and should not really constitute a viable reason for FreeNas. Of course, this is just my opinion.

As far as the hardware, not sure how about it totally.

• While it supports ECC RAM, it does max out at 16 GB; so that does not leave any real room for growth. YMMV.
• "Storage Controller" is questionable as to if it even can do IT/JBOD mode or be Cross-Flashed, so I am not sure. You may have to get a real HBA or compatible card that has been crossflahed to IT mode.

Storage controller
HP Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller for RAID 0/1/10
Optional HP Smart Array P222 Controller with FBWC for RAID 5

• "Network Controller" is listed as "HP Ethernet 1Gb 2-port 332i Adapter", not sure if FreeNas has drivers for this
• Of the 4 listed supported CPUs, the "i3-3240" does not support ECC RAM, so if you got that CPU, then ECC will not be supported

Can i add another HDD in later to expand further?

Technically, you could. But this would be HIGHLY inadvisable and chances of getting assistance if/when you lose your data would be slim to none.

The geek in me wonders if FreeNas would run on the system without issue, but it would be purely from an evaluation perspective. If you really wanted to see and are concerned about keeping your data safe, I would at least recommend starting out with more than one drive. Worst case, you can install FreeNas on a USB and see if it detects your hardware correctly.

 

[Letthiswork1]

I would not see much benefit if you are just running a single hard drive. IMHO, FreeNas is first and foremost about data redundancy/integrity. All the other bonuses are "extras" and should not really constitute a viable reason for FreeNas. Of course, this is just my opinion.

As far as the hardware, not sure how about it totally.

• While it supports ECC RAM, it does max out at 16 GB; so that does not leave any real room for growth. YMMV.
• "Storage Controller" is questionable as to if it even can do IT/JBOD mode or be Cross-Flashed, so I am not sure. You may have to get a real HBA or compatible card that has been crossflahed to IT mode.

​

• "Network Controller" is listed as "HP Ethernet 1Gb 2-port 332i Adapter", not sure if FreeNas has drivers for this
• Of the 4 listed supported CPUs, the "i3-3240" does not support ECC RAM, so if you got that CPU, then ECC will not be supported

Technically, you could. But this would be HIGHLY inadvisable and chances of getting assistance if/when you lose your data would be slim to none.

The geek in me wonders if FreeNas would run on the system without issue, but it would be purely from an evaluation perspective. If you really wanted to see and are concerned about keeping your data safe, I would at least recommend starting out with more than one drive. Worst case, you can install FreeNas on a USB and see if it detects your hardware correctly.

Thanks for your lengthy reply. i have read up on the NAS and its fairly common to run freenas.

What i am more curious about it the expandability. Is there no way without a third party raid controller to expand storage in a pool in freenas?

Thanks!

 

[Mirfster]

What i am more curious about it the expandability. Is there no way without a third party raid controller to expand storage in a pool in freenas?

FreeNas/ZFS is Software Raid and does not play well with Hardware Raid Controllers; unless they have been crossflashed to IT/JBOD Mode.
So unless you use a just the Motherboard SATA connections (in Non-Raid Mode) or a HBA or a Card that has been Crossflashed to IT Mode; you are already "in trouble"...

Yes, FreeNas can easily handle expansion; but I think that you may be misunderstanding the usage. In your scenario, the is no accounting for parity (just using one hard drive); there is nothing (FreeNas or otherwise) I can think of that would protect your data in the event where the single drive (which contains all the data) fails (good spot to recommend keeping backups elsewhere..)

At the very least you would need two drives (in mirror) to have some sort of redundancy. From there, yes it is easy and possible to expand later on; either by replacing the drives with larger ones (one at a time) and resilvering or adding another vdev.

Do yourself a favor and take some time to read "Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC for noobs!" which is linked in my sig. It will help to shed some light and answer your questions..