Multiple NICs, How to route traffic?

[eliteassassin]

So first let me start off by saying that I am new to FreeNAS and I am currently in what I would call a information gathering\testing stage.

I am looking to create a NAS to expand my current home storage needs and will need it to fulfill all of the following...

1. Provide a location to store my local backups for my computers, using Crashplan.
2. Provide additional MISC storage and archiving needs.
3. Provide storage for my HTPCs.
4. Setup iSCSI with the hope of installing and booting an OS off it.

Item number 4 is what has me concerned... My plan was to install 2 NICs in the host machine one NIC would be directly connected to the NAS (NIC to NIC connection) and the other would be connected to my local home network. The idea being that I would configure the NAS to send all of the iSCSI traffic through the direct NIC to NIC connection thus giving the OS a dedicated gigabit connection. While the other NIC in the host machine would be used for all other traffic. Is this something that is possible? If so how would I go about configuring something like this?

Also if you have any experience running an OS off of an iSCSI drive I would love to here your thoughts on it.

Thank you in advanced.

 

[Ericloewe]

You'll need to throw a lot of hardware at iSCSI.

That said, if you want a direct connection, it should be easy. Give them compatible IPs on a different subnet from the rest of the network and that should be it.

 

[eliteassassin]

So that is what I was thinking, but it just seemed so...simple... lol

Since you bring it up about the hardware... Will I need a lot of hardware due to the iSCSI protocol in general? Or due to the fact that I would like to run an OS from it? My goal was to reduce the cost of placing HTPCs on each TV in the house by not installing hard drives in them so if a lot of hardware is needed this savings will be lost and there would no longer be a point to doing it.

 

[Ericloewe]

So that is what I was thinking, but it just seemed so...simple... lol

Since you bring it up about the hardware... Will I need a lot of hardware due to the iSCSI protocol in general? Or due to the fact that I would like to run an OS from it? My goal was to reduce the cost of placing HTPCs on each TV in the house by not installing hard drives in them so if a lot of hardware is needed this savings will be lost and there would no longer be a point to doing it.

For decent performance, it'd be cheaper to add small hard drives to those boxes. It would also still be faster and more reliable.

iSCSI in general tends to be slower, so running an OS is not as interesting as it might sound.

 

[c32767a]

So first let me start off by saying that I am new to FreeNAS and I am currently in what I would call a information gathering\testing stage.

I am looking to create a NAS to expand my current home storage needs and will need it to fulfill all of the following...

1. Provide a location to store my local backups for my computers, using Crashplan.

Thank you in advanced.

I don't know a ton about Crashplan, but the last time I used it, it was a Java app and was fairly invasive as far as installing.
I'm not sure how you intend to use it with FreeNAS, but don't assume you can just install it on the FreeNAS box to act as a local backup target.

 

[eliteassassin]

Interesting... From what I had been reading is that you can install CrashPlan onto FreeNAS however there did appear to be some limitations of what the application could do and it also appeared to be an involved install process. This was another reason for wanting to setup iSCSI as I would be able to do backups from another computer (my windows 2008 server) using Crashplan. Really at the end of the day if I can do off site backups with CrashPlan then this will make FreeNAS completely useless...this is why I am testing everything before jumping at building a system.

All that being said my understanding from CrashPlan is that they do not support backing up network shares on Windows, but they do support it on Linux and OSX, so clearly this would be something else to test out as well.

 

[c32767a]

Interesting... From what I had been reading is that you can install CrashPlan onto FreeNAS however there did appear to be some limitations of what the application could do and it also appeared to be an involved install process. This was another reason for wanting to setup iSCSI as I would be able to do backups from another computer (my windows 2008 server) using Crashplan. Really at the end of the day if I can do off site backups with CrashPlan then this will make FreeNAS completely useless...this is why I am testing everything before jumping at building a system.

All that being said my understanding from CrashPlan is that they do not support backing up network shares on Windows, but they do support it on Linux and OSX, so clearly this would be something else to test out as well.

Yep.. I'd test everything before spending any money.. Even if it's all in VMs just to test functionality.

 

[eliteassassin]

Yep.. I'd test everything before spending any money.. Even if it's all in VMs just to test functionality.

That is the plan I have a Windows Server here that I can run VM's on and do all of my testing, like I said right now I am in a testing\information gathering phase.

Thank you for the information though!!!