Greetings New user switching from Windows Home Server 2011

[Bowie350z]

Hello everyone,

I am looking forward to moving to FreeNas . I just plan to use it for storage of DVD’s (currently 520) and old jazz music, and to backup one external hard drive. I know that sounds pretty simple but that all I am looking to do. I would like to be able to access the DVD’s and music by Kodi I just need something simple. I have taken the time to read FreeNas 9.3 documentation. I can say it covers more than what I needed to do a want. I just need some clarification on a few items. First one is the storage the OS system on a flash drive is this the best way compared to a hard drive. The second item is how to setup the hard drives, for what I need to do, the more I read the more confused I get.

I know this isn’t windows but all I want the server to do store new DVD’s and music over any hard drive it wants to. And do a weekly backup of what’s on the server and external hard drive connected to a windows 10 machine. I hope what I am looking for isn’t too simple for the OS. I am noting asking for step by step on how to setup the hard drives , I just want to make sure that I start off with the best solutions. Let me thank everyone up front for any comments or input.

 

[Spearfoot]

Welcome to the forums!

I don't know anything about Kodi... Quite a few FreeNAS users use Plex as a media player. Whatever media player you choose, FreeNAS can indeed provide reliable, redundant data storage.

Do you have a good estimate of the size of the data set you intend to store? That will help people make better recommendations.

You can certainly boot FreeNAS from a USB flash drive. Many users prefer using a small SSD, as these are more reliable, but this requires an SATA port and these are often in short supply on smaller systems.

A good pool setup for home users is RAIDZ2, which uses 2 disks for parity. For example, if you use 6 x 4TB hard disks in a RAIDZ2 array, you'll get the capacity of 4 disks; roughly 16TB of available space. What you lose in capacity to the 2 parity disks, you gain in redundancy, as you can lose up to 2 hard drives without losing your data.

There is a wealth of information here on the forum, dig around and you'll probably find answers to most of your questions.

Good luck!

 

[danb35]

I have taken the time to read FreeNas 9.3 documentation.

Although the basics won't change much, be aware that FreeNAS 9.3 is now a couple of years old. The current release, as of a day or two ago, is FreeNAS 11; before that it was 9.10.

 

[Bowie350z]

Welcome to the forums!

I don't know anything about Kodi... Quite a few FreeNAS users use Plex as a media player. Whatever media player you choose, FreeNAS can indeed provide reliable, redundant data storage.

Do you have a good estimate of the size of the data set you intend to store? That will help people make better recommendations.

You can certainly boot FreeNAS from a USB flash drive. Many users prefer using a small SSD, as these are more reliable, but this requires an SATA port and these are often in short supply on smaller systems.

A good pool setup for home users is RAIDZ2, which uses 2 disks for parity. For example, if you use 6 x 4TB hard disks in a RAIDZ2 array, you'll get the capacity of 4 disks; roughly 16TB of available space. What you lose in capacity to the 2 parity disks, you gain in redundancy, as you can lose up to 2 hard drives without losing your data.

There is a wealth of information here on the forum, dig around and you'll probably find answers to most of your questions.

Good luck!

Thanks for the fast response you have given a clear reason for using the flash drive. I took a look at estimate of the data that i want to save. DVD's and Music currently 700gb external hard drive 300 gb don' t think the dvd's will grow any larger the 1.5 TB 2 at the most . Also correction on version that I wanted to use 9.10.2
Thank you.