Recommendations for 4-bay enclosure?

[generaltab]

Greetings, I'm looking for a 4-disk (excl. where the OS is installed) enclosure for the next NAS device I'm building. The last one I built for FreeNAS 7 didn't have open drive bays. Can anyone recommend a good case for FreeNAS 8 with open drive bays for hot-swap and whatever other features make good use of the software? Thanks.

 

[kashiwagi]

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/201...i-pc-q25b-black-mini-itx-tower-computer-case/ or
http://www.discountcomputerwarehous...dBK%2d120-120W-Mini%2dITX-Server-Chassis.html

Also, you might consider the HP N36L or N40L if you don't already have a motherboard etc.

 

[Daisuke]

Greetings, I'm looking for a 4-disk (excl. where the OS is installed) enclosure for the next NAS device I'm building. The last one I built for FreeNAS 7 didn't have open drive bays. Can anyone recommend a good case for FreeNAS 8 with open drive bays for hot-swap and whatever other features make good use of the software? Thanks.

Why do you want open drive bays? Did your disks failed every month? All open bays are stacked, making the heat to accumulate on top. Why not settle for a case with drives installed vertically that can still be removed in a snap? A vertical design not only will allow better ventilation but will make your case look smaller. This is how my setup looks (the disks are still swappable):

 

[generaltab]

Thanks, TECK. Do you have a parts list, including the case & motherboard?

 

[Daisuke]

There is a link I posted in previous post, or check my sig.

 

[sunflashx]

Greetings, I'm looking for a 4-disk (excl. where the OS is installed) enclosure for the next NAS device I'm building. The last one I built for FreeNAS 7 didn't have open drive bays. Can anyone recommend a good case for FreeNAS 8 with open drive bays for hot-swap and whatever other features make good use of the software? Thanks.

FreeNAS doesn't support hot swapping disks, so take that into consideration.

 

[kashiwagi]

FreeNAS doesn't support hot swapping disks, so take that into consideration.

I'm starting to wonder if FreeNAS maybe isn't for me. It has none of the actually important things I look for in a NAS:
1. Proper error notifications (disk 2 has gone offline, mayday!)
2. Doesn't support hot swapping
3. Cannot expand arrays (well, not FreeNAS's fault, but rather ZFS...so I won't be helped by moving to something else with ZFS).

Does anyone have any comparisons on let's say FreeNAS vs. stock FreeBSD vs. Solaris + nappit etc?

 

[sunflashx]

As of like 30 minutes ago I upgraded FreeNAS .7 "Legacy" to the latest test build based on FreeBSD 9. It supports hot swapping drives (not personally tested, but I have rebuilt a RAIDZ1 drive under FreeBSD 7 with a shutdown/restart). I also have it setup to email me the log files, which get sent without fail once an hour for the last year. I spot check them for issues every few days.

FreeNAS 8 won't run on my hardware for some reason, but I'm hoping it will come around. ZFS data scrub makes me feel happy inside every time it runs, so I haven't switched to something that expands more easily.

 

[Daisuke]

I'm starting to wonder if FreeNAS maybe isn't for me. It has none of the actually important things I look for in a NAS:
1. Proper error notifications (disk 2 has gone offline, mayday!)
2. Doesn't support hot swapping
3. Cannot expand arrays (well, not FreeNAS's fault, but rather ZFS...so I won't be helped by moving to something else with ZFS).

Does anyone have any comparisons on let's say FreeNAS vs. stock FreeBSD vs. Solaris + nappit etc?

1. You can set the S.M.A.R.T service to send an email in case a failure is detected.
2. Hot swapping is available in FreeBSD 9.0. In other words, it will make it into FreeNAS 8.3. Until then, use the documented procedure.
3) You don't understand the ZFS concept and in fact how RAID works in general, or else you would not mention that. You CAN expand arrays. Many people are looking at Drobo and other similar crappy products and expect to have a robust product like ZFS working that way. Ridiculous. And I say this respectfully, kashiwagi...

What is it to compare to FreeBSD? Is the same freaking software just a tad delayed. If you don't need a GUI and delays, run FreeBSD. I'm mostly a Linux console guy for the last 15 years and I still use FreeNAS.

 

[kashiwagi]

3) You don't understand the ZFS concept and in fact how RAID works in general, or else you would not mention that. You CAN expand arrays. Many people are looking at Drobo and other similar crappy products and expect to have a robust product like ZFS working that way. Ridiculous. And I say this respectfully, kashiwagi...

Respectfully? I think we might have different ideas of what respect means then. I understand perfectly well how both ZFS and general RAID works. Please explain to me how I expand from a 5 disk RAIDZ2 to a 6 disk RAIDZ2 (yes, I am being facetious). I chose ZFS knowing this limitation, and I am not really faulting FreeNAS for this (which I explicitly mentioned). I know I can replace smaller disks with larger disks and the volume will grow, and I also know that I can add new vdevs to the volume to grow the volume (which is useless in the use case I specified above).

Just because I would like to have the ability to grow my home NAS from 5 to 6 disks, I don't understand RAID or ZFS?

I specifically mentioned nappit, so instead of saying it "Is the same freaking software just a tad delayed. If you don't need a GUI and delays, run FreeBSD.", maybe you could let people who have valuable input post instead. I was hoping somebody had actually made a proper comparison (preferably tested both), and that they might have some insights into benefits and down sides of for example FreeNAS over nappit (since I can migrate my ZFS volume to freebsd or solaris with nappit).

 

[generaltab]

Thanks, kashiwagi. I'm looking at the N40L. In addition to SATA connectors, is there an IDE connector on the motherboard? I'd like to use a 2GB CF card with an IDE-to-CF adapter for the OS. Is 8GB RAM under FreeNAS 8 enough?

Also, has anyone found rack hardware that works well with Freenas 8? How about the ProLiant DL165 G7?

 

[Daisuke]

Please explain to me how I expand from a 5 disk RAIDZ2 to a 6 disk RAIDZ2 (yes, I am being facetious).

Well, for starters, I would not use RaidZ2 on 5 disks. Is common to start a RaidZ2 array at 6,10 disks etc. And honestly, I don't understand why you are looking into ZFS if you know that you cannot add additional disks once the array is built. There are plenty of other possibilities, if you don't like to have a proper array built from the start. While reading the documentation, I decided to use 6 x 2TB disks with ZFS RaidZ2 array because I wanted to set my box and forget it, that's the idea behind ZFS. In few years when technology advances, I will build another box with a larger array. Simple and logical.

 

[kashiwagi]

Thanks, kashiwagi. I'm looking at the N40L. In addition to SATA connectors, is there an IDE connector on the motherboard? I'd like to use a 2GB CF card with an IDE-to-CF adapter for the OS. Is 8GB RAM under FreeNAS 8 enough?

Also, has anyone found rack hardware that works well with Freenas 8? How about the ProLiant DL165 G7?

There is an onboard USB port where you can put a usb-memory. There is no IDE connector. As for memory, I am having no problems with 8GB RAM, but if you plan to use things like deduplication in the future, it might be on the low side depending on your volume size. You can start by just getting one 4GB stick in addition to the included 1GB, to get a total of 5GB, and see if that is enough for your particular needs. Then you can buy another 4GB stick when the need arises (and hopefully the prices have dropped a little bit?). Just make sure to get ECC memory. It would be a shame to go with ZFS, and then not get ECC when you have a motherboard that supports it.