johnblanker
Explorer
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2014
- Messages
- 96
Here is the question:
Is there another NAS OS out there that is a little more servernoob-friendly, can provide data-rot correction like freeNAS? I know FreeNAS is meant for enterprise systems, meant to be left running 24/7 and has great features like jails and other things. But is it overkill for my needs? Should I just forget about data-rot? Let me explain......
I hope speaking openly about other NAS software on this forum is ok. I have been reading a lot of posts, and asking questions about some hardware and data-rot and all that. I have given up trying to "find my own way" and am starting to rely on the recommendations that others have put in a lot of work writing. And I think that people here get upset when people want freeNAS to do things that it wasn't indented to do. Like that power consumption debate I just read. It made me think as to if FN is right for my needs and maybe I should look into it a little more before investing the time and money.
My current setup is pretty modest. I have 5 green hhds spanned into 1 drive using Windows disk manager. On this spanned drive are just BD ISOs that I feed my Dune smart player via Windows SMB shares. Windows 7 is my "server" OS. Maybe 5 nights a week I will turn it on to watch a movie and then it goes to sleep right after. I have the same array of disks setup in an esata enclosure (my backup) and I use "freefilesync" to sync these 2 arrays every week or so. I also have a third array off site that I sync every 6 months. The system works great and I love it. I would also love to put my personal data on freenas since I want to take advantage of the data-rot protection.
What brought me here was the desire for parity and data integrity. If my main array had a RAID5 setup that would offer me more (live) protection in the even of a failure, my whole array wouldn't die, and I wouldn't need to rebuild the whole array from the backup. And of course the data-rot protection.
Power consumption. I'm not a tree hugger. Maybe I am. I did the math and there is a power ($) savings for me between running the system 5-10 hours a week as opposed to 168 hours per week (24/7).
Knowledge required. I come from a Windows world and learning FreeNAS does not come easy for me. Especially when it comes to configuring user accounts. Wheel? What the hell is wheel? Reading that freenas boot log is like hieroglyphics. Some of that stuff made me laugh. Sanity checks? I know you cannot easily expand your storage pool by just adding a new disk too.
Alternatives. I have considered ditching Windows 7 (as a faux-server) and using WHS 2011 and just getting a highpoint raid controller to do RAID5. I just tried unRAID but could not get a share to hit 11mb/s on my dune. I tried OMV but found the support and documentation far from how good it is on here and unRAID's forum. I also thought about the Netgear readynas and drobo units since they claim to have data-rot protection. Or just going with a synology unit since they seem to be the talk of the town.
I trust the opinions of the member on here and value the conversation if you guys are into it. I like hearing about how you all got here. The "server" world is very interesting to me and would love to learn more about it. And if there is a need for a "Is FreeNAS right for me?" thread, maybe you can point them all here. Thanks for reading my novel.
Is there another NAS OS out there that is a little more servernoob-friendly, can provide data-rot correction like freeNAS? I know FreeNAS is meant for enterprise systems, meant to be left running 24/7 and has great features like jails and other things. But is it overkill for my needs? Should I just forget about data-rot? Let me explain......
I hope speaking openly about other NAS software on this forum is ok. I have been reading a lot of posts, and asking questions about some hardware and data-rot and all that. I have given up trying to "find my own way" and am starting to rely on the recommendations that others have put in a lot of work writing. And I think that people here get upset when people want freeNAS to do things that it wasn't indented to do. Like that power consumption debate I just read. It made me think as to if FN is right for my needs and maybe I should look into it a little more before investing the time and money.
My current setup is pretty modest. I have 5 green hhds spanned into 1 drive using Windows disk manager. On this spanned drive are just BD ISOs that I feed my Dune smart player via Windows SMB shares. Windows 7 is my "server" OS. Maybe 5 nights a week I will turn it on to watch a movie and then it goes to sleep right after. I have the same array of disks setup in an esata enclosure (my backup) and I use "freefilesync" to sync these 2 arrays every week or so. I also have a third array off site that I sync every 6 months. The system works great and I love it. I would also love to put my personal data on freenas since I want to take advantage of the data-rot protection.
What brought me here was the desire for parity and data integrity. If my main array had a RAID5 setup that would offer me more (live) protection in the even of a failure, my whole array wouldn't die, and I wouldn't need to rebuild the whole array from the backup. And of course the data-rot protection.
Power consumption. I'm not a tree hugger. Maybe I am. I did the math and there is a power ($) savings for me between running the system 5-10 hours a week as opposed to 168 hours per week (24/7).
Knowledge required. I come from a Windows world and learning FreeNAS does not come easy for me. Especially when it comes to configuring user accounts. Wheel? What the hell is wheel? Reading that freenas boot log is like hieroglyphics. Some of that stuff made me laugh. Sanity checks? I know you cannot easily expand your storage pool by just adding a new disk too.
Alternatives. I have considered ditching Windows 7 (as a faux-server) and using WHS 2011 and just getting a highpoint raid controller to do RAID5. I just tried unRAID but could not get a share to hit 11mb/s on my dune. I tried OMV but found the support and documentation far from how good it is on here and unRAID's forum. I also thought about the Netgear readynas and drobo units since they claim to have data-rot protection. Or just going with a synology unit since they seem to be the talk of the town.
I trust the opinions of the member on here and value the conversation if you guys are into it. I like hearing about how you all got here. The "server" world is very interesting to me and would love to learn more about it. And if there is a need for a "Is FreeNAS right for me?" thread, maybe you can point them all here. Thanks for reading my novel.