NAS & DAS in ONE

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Robert76

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Hi,

I'm building FreeNAS that should play the following roles:
a) Media server with Plex
b) NAS for iMac and MAcBook Prod TimeMachine backups
c) storage for movies for PLex
d) storage for private movies from camera, photos
e) host for dockers containers (php-fpm, mariadb, nginx, php-my-admin etc...)
f) host for versioning systems, probably git (maybe also on docker container)
g) maybe virtual machine with Windows 10

My main computer is iMac and FreeNAS will be placed not more than 2m from iMac.

I know iMac can communicate with NAS over LAN but the speed will be too limited on gigabit LAN (125MBps),

my iMac is 2013 late 21" with 2 thunderbolt 1.0 ports (1 already used for 2nd screen) and access LAN over Wifi (quite fast connection with TXRate 867 Mbps),

What I'm planning is to connect iMac Ethernet port and Display port with adapter to Ethernet to 2 Ethernet ports on FreeNAS.
That should theoretically double the speed limit to 250MBps.

As I plan to have 5 WD RED 4TB disks in FreeNAS in ZSF1 (+ additional backup for most critical data via rsync to other disk) the FreeNAS should be capable to work almost twice quicker for read and write.

So my questions is what other options I have to have quicker direct connection to FreeNAS?

My motherboard have also thunderbolt link but from what I read
a) FreeNAS and FreeBSD is not supporting this
b) It is not good idea to write or read to FreeNAS directly over USB or Thunderbolt (even if it would be supported) and the flow should go via LAN shares..... so network....

Is this mean that FreeNAS by design is only NAS and trying to use it as DAS as well is problematic?
 
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Chris Moore

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NAS only. You can use a 10 GB network interface but there's no way to use it as directly attached storage.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
 

Robert76

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NAS only. You can use a 10 GB network interface but there's no way to use it as directly attached storage.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
Is OMV better in this?

Btw how to make 10gb on my iMac?

Wysłane z mojego EVA-L09 przy użyciu Tapatalka
 

garm

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You would have to get a thunderbolt adapter with 10gbe (if such a thing exists that is compatible)
 

Chris Moore

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What I'm planning is to connect iMac Ethernet port and Display port with adapter to Ethernet to 2 Ethernet ports on FreeNAS.
That should theoretically double the speed limit to 250MBps.
No, it doesn't work like that.
What you can do is get a device like this: http://www.sonnettech.com/Product/echoexpressse3.html
That will allow you to put a regular 10GB Ethernet network interface in it and connect that to your Mac.
You can use a direct connection cable to connect the 10GB card in the NAS to the 10GB card for the Mac.
I don't know that much about Mac and what hardware is compatible with the Mac OS, but this is the type 10GB network card you would want to use for FreeNAS: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chelsio-10-Gigabit-Ethernet-OEM-Network-Card-P-N-110-1107-30/263053126124
This should be the cable to go with it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-SFP-H10GB-CU5M-37-0962-03-5M-SFP-Cable/401411686946
If the Mac can use the same network card, just get two of them.
 

Chris Moore

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Is OMV better in this?
Until recently, I didn't know anything about Open Media Vault (OMV), not even enough to recognize OMV as having a meaning. I just went to look at their site and I would say that it is very much a work in progress and not in a state that I would want to use.

It is generally not the way of things for a device to directly connect to a computer AND connect to the network.
In the above situation, there would need to be static IP addresses assigned to the 10GB network cards and some networking configuration done to make the Mac access the NAS through the 10GB network link while still accessing the rest of the network through the normal 1GB network link.
This is not the same as a 'direct connection' but it will give you faster access to the drives.
 
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Robert76

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Thanks for your answer,

The cheapest Thunderbolt to 10gb adapter I was able to find is https://www.sonnettech.com/product/twin10g.html but it cost a lot of $

I'm wonder if there is cheaper adapter on the market....

It is not possible to connect to iMac any extension card by design so such and adapter seems to be the only choice, but too much expensive....
 

Chris Moore

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Thanks for your answer,

The cheapest Thunderbolt to 10gb adapter I was able to find is https://www.sonnettech.com/product/twin10g.html but it cost a lot of $

I'm wonder if there is cheaper adapter on the market....

It is not possible to connect to iMac any extension card by design so such and adapter seems to be the only choice, but too much expensive....
You could use direct attached storage but those are still expensive and then the only system that could access it would be the Mac and to share it would be using your computer resources. Mac doesn't make things inexpensive.
 

Robert76

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yes :smile: but this adapter is not made by apple so could be cheaper...., strange that only one company make it and sell it...., at least I could not find similar product....
 
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