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Important Announcement for the TrueNAS Community.
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Hi!
- Thread starter Cocksy
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Welcome to the forums. Before making the leap I would recommend that you read a few things... The Resources section for the Recommended Hardware Guide, the FreeNAS User Manual, and the Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC and other newbie mistakes!
I also highly recommend that you run a VM of FreeNAS in VMWare Workstation or similar and play with the software, make sure this is the change you desire. If you are aware of how FreeNAS works and it's pros and cons then you will enjoy FreeNAS. If you don't understand the current limitation of a zpool then you are likely to have periods of time where you hate what you did.
When you have a question, I would suggest you doa Google search for something like "freenas add single hard drive to pool" or something similar which fits your criteria. I can put your mind at peace when I say that odds are if you have a question, it'a already been asked and answered. If you have an error then use "freenas" plus part of your error message, example "freenas error trap 12" or "freenas inadyn network error".
I hope you enjoy our forum and FreeNAS if you use it.
I also highly recommend that you run a VM of FreeNAS in VMWare Workstation or similar and play with the software, make sure this is the change you desire. If you are aware of how FreeNAS works and it's pros and cons then you will enjoy FreeNAS. If you don't understand the current limitation of a zpool then you are likely to have periods of time where you hate what you did.
When you have a question, I would suggest you doa Google search for something like "freenas add single hard drive to pool" or something similar which fits your criteria. I can put your mind at peace when I say that odds are if you have a question, it'a already been asked and answered. If you have an error then use "freenas" plus part of your error message, example "freenas error trap 12" or "freenas inadyn network error".
I hope you enjoy our forum and FreeNAS if you use it.
I like the sound of that!
Thanks - I was reading the pdf slideshow the other night and it did concern me a bit, I have to admit! I'll work up some questions and google / post somewhere more appropriate! Cheers.
Chris Moore
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What kind of concerns?
Well, I'm totally new to FreeBSD / *nix, so was hoping that it would be mega simple and easy to set up from within the GUI, and wouldn't have to get into the command line too much - I'm happy doing that in windows, but not sure I'm ready to learn / trust my data in it straight off the bat!
The more I read about the Vdevs and zpools, the more I'm concerned that it might not give me the flexibility I'm after, in terms of moving hard disks around, changing things, etc.
I'm trying to work out how to compose a "catch all" question thread, but might end up having to split it up into a couple of questions to make it easier to digest!
The more I read about the Vdevs and zpools, the more I'm concerned that it might not give me the flexibility I'm after, in terms of moving hard disks around, changing things, etc.
I'm trying to work out how to compose a "catch all" question thread, but might end up having to split it up into a couple of questions to make it easier to digest!
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Well, it is but maintaining the system properly means you need to know more about FreeNAS. FreeNAS was not designed for someone to just install and forget, however it has come a very long way since version 8.0.
FreeNAS is I think the most bang for the buck, meaning you get a full features NAS for only the price of the hardware. WHS costs money I thought. But the trade off is you need to learn about it. There are other differences between FreeNAS and WHS but for someone who just wants general NAS use, it' not worth discussing all of it.
If FreeNAS looks too complicated for you then I would recommend you stick with what works for you. I'm being serious. It sucks to feel like you are on the edge of data loss and you don't trust the new software so why put yourself through it.
You shouldn't which is why you should have a backup of your data. You will see that statement all over this forum, backup your data. While FreeNAS is a robust system, hardware can fail terribly and all your data could be gone. This is no different than any other computer system, it's not FreeNAS specific. I'm not saying to build two NAS units but at least you should have your important data backed up somewhere else. I put my data on DVD and I also do have a second FreeNAS but the capacity is low so I only put important data on it.
So for now just stick with WHS, BUT I think you deserve to try out FreeNAS on a VM and play with it. This is one of the best and safest ways to test out the software. After a few months I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted to ditch WHS and only use FreeNAS. But seriously, run it in a VM or on a seperate computer to testing. In a VM you only need 4GB RAM for minor typical testing, 8GB is of course better as you can dthen run up a VM within FreeNAS if you desire to dabble in some more advanced features.
One of the more difficult issues with FreeNAS are folder/file permission and Active Directory use, another reason to test drive it first.
If you think you want to use FreeNAS then you should start a new thread under "Will It FreeNAS" and describe what you want FreeNAS to do and your storage capacity desired. We wikll offer some advice. However before posting I would ask that you read a few pages of the "Will It FreeNAS" topics, odds are you will find someone with similar needs and you can take advantage of thier build and ask them how it went and if they found any problems. Use what is already posted, lots of knowledge here.
Good Luck.
Thank you! What you've outlined there is exactly my plan: I'm currently setting it up in a VM to play with it for a few months while all my data is still in WHS (with redundancy and backups!). Once I get to a better level of understanding / confidence with FreeNAS I'll migrate my data across... hopefully it won't be too long!
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Take your time, I would never recommend running into FreeNAS without test driving it. If you use this as a simple NAS then it's a basic setup. If you want to do more complicated stuff then you need to learn more. Maintenance is the one thing everyone should learn, the automated emails and SMART tests, basic things that unfortunately many people don't set up becasue they are just too excited to get it to run and then forget about it. "Hey, it's storing my data so all should be good now!" Not the case in reality. It's not a cell phone or a TV.
So take your time evaluating it and provided you have the proper hardware to run FreeNAS, I think you will like it. But if WHS is already bought and paid for, and you are happy with it, why would you change? I've never used it but I can't imagine it being total garbage.
Good advice that I definitely interested to follow!
The main reason for moving on from WHS 2011 is the 2TB limit... I've managed to kind of work around it, but it's far from ideal. So, everything I'm going to be playing with in FreeNAS is a going to be compared to how it is in WHS - even though that's not necessarily a good a way to evaluate something!
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For backups you mean? Wow, I'd forgotten about that one. What a pain in the ass that was...
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I didn't know that. That must suck in the year 2018.
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It's because the Volume Shadow Copy server only supported up to 2TB per volume, for stupid reasons.
Since Windows Home Server 2011 relied on VSS to provide a snapshot of the filesystem... Well, not pleasant.
Meanwhile, in ZFS land, snapsots are trivial, scalable, and easy to replicate. Guess they should've tried to port ZFS back then instead of wasting time with their dead-end solution.
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I have to admit I've never had a problem with the WHS backup (other than the 2TB limit).... But I've never had to do a full recovery (just odd files), so I might have a rose tinted view!
I'm looking forward to seeing how zfs snapshots work as a backup solution - it almost sound too good to be true!
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Chris Moore
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On nice thing about the snapshots is that you can mount a snapshot (read only) to another mount-point and be able to access the old version and the current version at the same time.
I setup a schedule for my snapshots where it takes a snapshot every 15 minutes and keeps 4; then takes a snapshot every hour and keeps 24; then takes a snapshot every day and keeps 30; then takes a snapshot every month and keeps 12. This allows the system to automatically dispose of the snapshots that have 'timed out' and it gives me the ability to go back up to a year to recover something that I changed or deleted that I decided I should not have done. The snapshots also don't take up much space because it is really only keeping the difference between current and when the snapshot was taken.
I have actually used it a couple times when I made a mistake and either deleted something or changed it in a way that was not intended.
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