Maintenance noob question

[image132]

Hey

I've been using freenas 8.0.4 and I've got to say that I love it.

I just want to know though if there is any maintenance that I must do periodically on it? I have the manual printed but I find no mention of any kind of maintenance at all in book short of SMART tests. Is there no defraging that needs to be done etc?
It is being used just in a home capacity so it's not under major stress or anything.

Thanks in advanced.

Chris

 

[Stephens]

What you should do depends on the file system you're using. If you're using ZFS, you should do a scrub periodically. I know 8.2 schedules one every 35 days by default, but I don't remember what 8.0.4 does. You can do it manually in 8.0.4. Scrub reads everything in your pool to make sure the data matches the recorded CRC. If not, it will attempt to recover the data (resilver). Whether it'll be successful or not depends on your exact setup and situation.

 

[image132]

Thank you for the response. I will proceed to scrub my volumes.

Is it worth it upgrading to 8.2?

 

[Stephens]

I honestly can't answer that. I have one 6x2TB RAIDZ2 system running on 8.0.4 and one almost identical system (there's 1 WD Green 2TB EARS drive in there instead of all Samsung HD204UI's) running 8.2, but I haven't been running long enough to have any strong feedback. As you'd expect, 8.2 has more features (such as shell access from the GUI), but I haven't done an "upgrade" and I'm not sure I ever would. If I "upgrade" my 8.0.4-p2 to 8.2-p1 (or something else such as 8.3), it'll be by exporting my configuration, creating a completely new flash drive with 8.2 on it, booting it, then importing my configuration. For now, I'm running them side by side to get a feel. Who knows? By the time 8.3 comes out, I may be running a 3rd one with that (they stopped selling my beloved Asus E35M1-I motherboard, so I'm stuck trying to find a replacement).

 

[noee]

@Stephens:

Not trying to hijack, but I've been testing 8.3 for a few weeks now (on old h/w) as I put together my NAS Next hardware. I too was looking at the Asus E35M1-I, but I'm curious what other options you are evaluating? Fwiw, at least the testing I've done so far, 8.3 is really solid.

 

[Stephens]

Not trying to hijack, but I've been testing 8.3 for a few weeks now (on old h/w) as I put together my NAS Next hardware. I too was looking at the Asus E35M1-I, but I'm curious what other options you are evaluating?

See Here.

As for maintenance, it's not really maintenance, but I got some advice when I first started looking into setting up a NAS that I have to continue to pass along. Get a UPS. It'll help you avoid some nasties.