Hi FreeNAS Forum

[Steve Murray]

I'm a 47 yo ex network engineer in the UK trying to get back into the industry
I used to be a windows user with everything heaped onto 1 pc until a short job a while ago opened my eyes to the world of open source
So I have embarked on an upgrade mission.
First off was replacing my BT HH5 with a Draytek vigor 130 DSL bridge and PFSense on some old hardware I had, it now does DHCP to 5 different VLANs Radius for Wifi and I'm trying to get PFblockerNG to work without killing SKY whatsapp and online banking.
Next is FreeNas where I plan to have Asterisk, Plex, Zoneminder and a torrent client in separate jails on separate VLANS and eventually an FTP and syslog server as well
A quick rundown on hardware I'm at or below min spec but this is proof of concept for me if I can make it work then I will but the necessary parts

ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 motherboard
AMD FX 6350 Six-Core Processor
8GB ram
1 120GB SSD
2x SANDisk 32Gb USB drives
stock passive cooled video card

If all eventually goes well I plan to upgrade
32Gb ECC ram
twin 64 GB DOMs
Dual port IBM NIC for LAGG
not sure how many drives yet but enough for raidz3 array

I'm new to the world of forums and asking people for help but hopefully I will be able to answer as well as ask as I tinker upgrade and come up with even more ideas

Thanks for reading :)

 

[Jailer]

Welcome to the forum. Check out the resources section at the top of the page for some good reading and research.

 

[Steve Murray]

Thanks
Have started having a look round and there's quite a lot to explore this should certainly help and keep me quiet

 

[joeschmuck]

Welcome to the Forums. It sounds like you have a nice background in computers and networking so FreeNAS should be something easy to grasp and manage. Some of the advice I give is the following for new to FreeNAS people:

1) Test FreeNAS out on a VM if you don't have the hardware.
2) Figure out what you plan to use FreeNAS for and think about the future.
3) How much storage will you need for the first 3 to 5 years, then if you are a typical person, double it if you can afford it.
4) How important is your data? Do you need lots of data protection or minimal. You stated RAIDZ3, is that what you need? Keep in mind that a single FreeNAS system is not a backup if all your files are stored only here.
5) If you are going to use iSCSI on FreeNAS then remember that iSCSI storage should be 50% of the drive capacity.
6) Do not add hardware such as a L2ARC/SLOG to your system just because you "think" it will make things work better. Instead do your research and ask before investing that money.

And the most important one...
7) Play with your system, create and destroy datasets, test the crap out of it and have fun with it for a few weeks or longer before committing data to it. This is important because one you commit data to it, most people won't want to pretend they have a drive failure and replace a drive for the experience of it.

And read the forum rules again before posting a question for help. There is some specific data we require in order to provide you good quick help vice having to tell you to go read the forum rules again. And when you post asking for help, for me it help to not assume anything. do not assume the posting will be read by someone who knows exactly what you did. If you treat the posting like an idiot will be reading it then you are pretty safe to have transferred some good data to the forum. Yea, don't just say "I need help, the screen doesn't work, the hard drive failed.

Sorry for getting wordy in this posting, I do hope that you find our forum helpful and friendly.

 

[Steve Murray]

Thanks
Wordy is good like you said the more info I can give the better the response
As I said in my intro my first thought was the same as most other people use it to store media but then when i read about the requirements and realised that a x6 core processor is way over kill i thought why not run a few vms on there, then read about jails etc etc
Since it's primary function is as a media server I don't plan on adding slog or l2arc why complicate things if not needed although I'd like at least raidz2 for the same reason as I want lagg/lacp
If it does go wrong it will still work for long enough for me to change drives or cables
One everything is on I'll probably use the spare drives as long term archive stores to be used in case of emergency restore
I hadn't thought about trying out in vm but that is a damn good idea will have to see about creating a virtual one for my multiple jail/ multiple vlan issues it'd also be good for sorting pfblockerng without taking the rest of the network

Again many thanks

Steve