Recommendations on my setup...

[joeg77]

I'm doing my first build tonight and don't know if I should do a ZFS or UFS. I have a dual core 64bit processor, 4gb ram and 2x4tb red wd hard drives. I am ordering another stick of ram next week. Also, another question, if I buy another two drives and want to add them later, will that affect any data on the first two drives? Can I add them later with no problems?

Thanks.

ps
Clueless on which raid to use, I would assume that I would set up a RAID 1, for mirroring.

 

[willnx]

Please review http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Main_Page
Lots of time and effort has been put into this doc, and it'll answer all your questions. FreeNAS isn't like setting up a Blu-ray player, you really should read the included user manual. :P

In short to your question
A) use UFS
B) if you have two drives, set up a mirror - this way you can have a drive fail and not lose all your data
C) you could add a vdev to a zpool (aka volume ) later on, but if you can't add to a vdev

Cyberjock put together a great doc explaining some of the FreeNAS jargon like vdev and SLOG. I would strongly recommend that you check it out - http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

 

[cyberjock]

UFS is on the way out. Unless you plan to stick with 9.2.1.3(and 9.2.1.4 when its released) forever you'll need to switch to ZFS. This also means you'll need to up your RAM to meet the minimum requirements.

UFS also won't let you add more disks later. What you build is all that you get. Period. If you plan to add more disks later you want ZFS.

Do read the manual and read my noobie guide. It'll save you hours of headaches later.