Thank you for all of your valuable inputs.
As i research more i become more at ease with the idea of moving to FreeNAS and ZFS.
I don't see a scenario where i would have a pool of only one drive. it will always be mirrored or for the very least another kind of RAID configuration that is redundant.
I am still unsure of how to access a ZFS drive in a case of a failure. Minimal downtime is important to me and like i said it is one of the perks with RAID 1 on NTFS, there's n0 downtime since the other drive can continue to work as normal and even if the machine failed, it can go straight into the main machine.
If i understand correctly (and it is very possible that i do not), i need a third system to put the ZFS drive on so i can access it from my main system in the case of a hardware failure that disables the original server? Given that i didn't export it from the array because of a sudden failure that is.
I can't plug the drive to my main system and access it through windows unless i setup VM and whatnot which i understand could prove to be problematic.
Am i getting this right?
Another thing i don't quite understand is whether using ECC memory on a NTFS RAID 1 system is helpful against bit rot and how?
I understand it points out a faulty DIMM module, but if there's a rot on one of the drives, does it help in any way?
Since there's no parity metadata to compare (unlike ZFS) i presume it doesn't help?
And lastly, I've been messing around with a build for the FreeNAS server and wanted to share it and ask for your opinion and suggestions. I'm thinking of going with this:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/eli_singer/saved/vtmnTW
here's a rundown here also:
Intel Xeon E3-1220 V5 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
Scythe Kotetsu 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Supermicro MBD-X11SSH-LN4F Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Kingston ValueRAM 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case
SeaSonic 520W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply
What say you?
Oh, and one more thing, given that i will use a 1GB Ethernet connection (until 10GB will become reasonably priced), is there any reason to go with the ZFS equivalent of RAID 10 or any other striped configuration (that has redundancy obviously)?
Wouldn't the network bottleneck the whole thing at 125MB/s?
Thank you all again!
Eli