Getting started on FreeNAS

[Alf928]

Hi all,

I've been meaning to get a NAS going for a while now and one of my colleagues has finally managed to convince me to go with FreeNAS rather than get an off-the-shelf unit from Synology or QNAP.

In terms of FreeNAS experience, this would be my first time. I've worked on Solaris, CentOS and Fedora systems though so I'm ok working with *nix systems on the command line. I've read cyberjock's hardware guide and other great info on this board and am putting together the parts list for my NAS system. Looking forward to getting this show on the road.

Cheers,
Alf

 

[depasseg]

Welcome and good luck! Post your proposed specs or check out some of the other build threads for ideas.

 

[Alf928]

Thanks depasseg.

Use case for this NAS:
1) Media storage
2) Media storage for security cams (via FTP drop)
3) Run jails for plugins such as Plex

Specs I have so far are as follows:
Intel Xeon E3-1231V3
Supermicro X10SL7-F
Samsung M393B1G70QH0-YK0 8GB (1x8GB) 1600MHz ECC Unbuffered DDR3L (M391B1G73QH0-YK0) x 2 == 16GB
Silverstone Strider Gold ST55F-G 550W
Silverstone TJ08-E
Corsair Flash Voyager Mini 16GB == OS drive

One item I can't make up my mind on is the most important part and that's the storage. I need a minimum of 9TB.

I was considering:
WD Red 4TB x4

With RAIDZ, that would have given me 12TB. However I should really be running RAIDZ2 as per all the warnings so that would have given me only 8TB, which is not enough.

For reference, the current HDD prices in AU are as follows:
WD Red 3TB: $159
WD Red 4TB: $242 (was $235 yesterday :( )
WD Green 3TB: $133
WD Green 4TB: $189
WD Green 5TB: $249

Therefore I am considering the following options:
WD Red 4TB x4 w/ RAIDZ == 12TB
WD Red 3TB x6 w/ RAIDZ2 == 12TB
WD Red 3TB x6 w/ RAIDZ over 2 VDEVs == 12TB

Unfortunately I can't stretch the budget more than 4 x 4TB Red or 6 x 3TB Red. Thoughts on which one would be the best out of the above, or other options to consider?

Thank you.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Thoughts on which one would be the best out of the above, or other options to consider?

This one, no hesitation:

WD Red 3TB x6 w/ RAIDZ2 == 12TB

Please note you'll get 10.9 TiB, minus the ZFS overhead and the 80 % rule you can use 8.6 TiB.

 

[Alf928]

Thanks Bidule0hm. Another question if you wouldn't mind.

Considering the price difference of $26 between the 3TB Red and Green, I don't mind going with the Red. However with 4TB, the difference is $53 between Red and Green. My colleague runs WD Green and has had no issues. However are the Greens worth the hassle for a beginner as I believe you have to WDIDLE and WDTLER them?

 

[Bidule0hm]

With the 3 TB drives I'd go with the Reds without hesitation but with the 4 TB ones I don't know, the difference is twice as much. I guess only you can chose between the two because it's your server, not ours :)

WDIDLE3 is the most important here and it's only a 5 min thing. I don't know if Greens are ok with changing the TLER but you can always try I guess.

 

[Alf928]

Thanks Bidule0hm. I might just make it simple on this build and stick with the 3TB WD Reds.

I got confused reading all the posts to-ing and fro-ing on the WDIDLE3. Do I also need to WDIDLE3 the Reds?

Thanks.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Do I also need to WDIDLE3 the Reds?

In theory, no. But in the past there was a config mistake from WD and some Reds had the same problem than the Greens. So it's a good idea to look at the LCC value after a few weeks of usage to see if it's ok or if you need to use WDIDLE3 ;)

 

[Alf928]

Hi all,

Happy to report that my FreeNAS system is up and running! :)

Many thanks Bidule0hm for your assistance, much appreciated!

So far I have done:

1. Completed the initial setup wizard which created the pool (RAIDZ2), set the admin email and created a CIFS share
2. Set SCRUB and SMART schedules according to cyberjock's post (https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/scrub-and-smart-testing-schedules.20108/

One of the things I wanted to do was to obtain the results of the SCRUB and SMART tests via email. The only way is via scripts, as I saw someone posting one which uses sendmail, etc?

And the other is regarding the monitoring of the LCC value on my WD reds. I believe the only way to manually get SMART data is through the FreeNAS console? The issue I have is that when I run smartctl -a <disk>, the IPMI window isn't large enough to display all of the details that appear. The length I resolved by piping the output through less but the width makes the output wrap so it's not that easy to view. Is there a way around that, such as getting smartctl to email you the results?

Thank you.

 

[Bidule0hm]

One of the things I wanted to do was to obtain the results of the SCRUB and SMART tests via email. The only way is via scripts, as I saw someone posting one which uses sendmail, etc?

Yes, look at the link "Useful Scripts" in my signature ;)

I believe the only way to manually get SMART data is through the FreeNAS console?

Yes, more or less. You need access to a shell. It can be the console (what you see when you plug a screen and keyboard to the server), the shell in the web GUI or a SSH session.

the IPMI window isn't large enough to display all of the details that appear.

That's because the console is low res (as the crappy terminal in the web GUI), I recommend to setup the SSH service and to use a SSH client ;)

 

[Alf928]

Thanks Bidule0hm. Seeing as you're located in France, I hope this finds you and your family safe and well after today's events.

I've now enabled SSH. So good to be back on PuTTy! :)

I had a hiccup today with FreeNAS. After I switched off the server overnight (hadn't completely finished tidying up the cabling), I started it today and let it go through its default boot sequence. Strangely FreeNAS booted back to the initial wizard rather than what I'd been working on last night. I then rebooted and selected one of the other boot environments. Although I got my datasets and shares back, most of the other work was lost. I'm now a bit concerned.

I've taken a backup of the config by going to System -> General -> Save Config. I've also now set the boot environment I'm working on as the reboot one by "activating" it. Did I miss a step initially or did something go wrong during shutdown? Now a bit concerned with shutting the system down...

Thanks.

 

[BigDave]

@Alf928 Welcome to the forum :)

I had a hiccup today with FreeNAS. After I switched off the server overnight (hadn't completely finished tidying up the cabling), I started it today and let it go through its default boot sequence. Strangely FreeNAS booted back to the initial wizard rather than what I'd been working on last night. I then rebooted and selected one of the other boot environments. Although I got my datasets and shares back, most of the other work was lost. I'm now a bit concerned.

I've taken a backup of the config by going to System -> General -> Save Config. I've also now set the boot environment I'm working on as the reboot one by "activating" it. Did I miss a step initially or did something go wrong during shutdown? Now a bit concerned with shutting the system down...

I'm not 100% sure, but I think possibly you just failed to save your choices after using the wizard.

The 9.3.1 manual states:
Note:

You can exit the wizard at any time by clicking the “Exit” button. However, exiting the wizard will not save any selections. You can always restart the wizard again by clicking the “Wizard” icon. Alternately, you can use the FreeNAS® GUI to configure the system, as described in the rest of this Guide.

If the settings (basic wizard stuff) are not completed, the next time you boot up, it prompts you to complete them,
as these settings are the basic ones required to "quickly configure FreeNAS® to start serving data over a network."

Hope this helps ;)

 

[Bidule0hm]

Seeing as you're located in France, I hope this finds you and your family safe and well after today's events.

Thanks, everything is ok, I'm near Paris but not in it.

I'm impressed that the news spread this far.

 

[Fuganater]

You didn't mention it but did you do the Burn in testing for your RAM, CPU and HDDs? If not, I would do this before throwing data at the server.

 

[Alf928]

@Alf928
I'm not 100% sure, but I think possibly you just failed to save your choices after using the wizard.

Thanks BigDave but I don't think that's it. The reason is because 1) I clearly remember completing the wizard and FreeNAS messages appearing regarding configuration and 2) the zpool that I created during the wizard exists.

Booted again today and all appears well now. The only thing I did different for the shut down process was I didn't do it from the WebUI, which I did on the first day (without logging out first). I wonder if that caused some config settings to not be saved.

 

[Alf928]

You didn't mention it but did you do the Burn in testing for your RAM, CPU and HDDs? If not, I would do this before throwing data at the server.

Thanks Fuganater. Haven't transferred data yet and haven't done burn-in yet either.

So I just read qwertymodo's guide on HDD burn-in here. As I've already created a zpool, does running badblocks mean that I'll be blowing away it and whatever datasets, etc I've set up?

Thanks.

 

[Fuganater]

Thanks Fuganater. Haven't transferred data yet and haven't done burn-in yet either.

So I just read qwertymodo's guide on HDD burn-in here. As I've already created a zpool, does running badblocks mean that I'll be blowing away it and whatever datasets, etc I've set up?

Thanks.

It will keep the datasets but data will get blown away. There are different ways to run it which are covered in the giude.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

It will keep the datasets but data will get blown away.

This is incorrect. Since the datasets are part of the pool, they would be destroyed by a badblocks run as well. You can run badblocks with the -n flag instead of -w, which is supposed to put it in a non-destructive read-write mode (and, if it works as designed, would not result in any data loss at all), but I don't know how much I'd trust that.

 

[Fuganater]

Ah. I got "volume" and "dataset" mixxed up. My bad.