Newbie Wants to Validate Setup

[buleby]

Hello,

I am FreeNAS/ZFS newbie and I am trying to setup a server to backup my home computers.

My needs are relatively light:

• Backup 4 computers including 1 mac, 2 windows and 1 linux machine
• Backup assorted pictures and videos
• Total backup size would be around 4 TB

I have 5 drives that I am planning to have in one pool in a RAIDZ2 configuration as redundancy is more important than performance or raw space.

My questions are:

• I would like to use TimeMachine over the network is this reliable?
• How should one create datasets? Should I create one dataset per computer? Or have one dataset with multiple folders (one per computer)?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Kris Moore]

Setup sounds fine as far as the pool goes. TimeMachine over the network will be fine as well.

Personally I'd make one dataset per backed up computer, that way I can snap / restore them independent from the others.

Also - Welcome to the community!

 

[buleby]

Thanks Kris, will go with the dataset per computer setup.