Right Configuration And Risks To Install FeeNAS On Acer Easystore H342

[coolex]

Hello,

I am planning to install FreeNAS on my Acer Easystore H342 with 4 GB of RAM and 2x2TB HDD. The NAS is planned only for private usage with 2 users. I've already seen several tutorials and howtos on the internet about it. But I am still a little bit confused about the right configuration and risks.

1. Configuration: FreeNAS recommends 8GB RAM if using ZFS. Other communities say 4GB is enough for ZFS. But it should be also possible to use ZFS with less memory (in my case 4GB). To be honest I don't know what should I better use in my case. ZFS or UFS. I tend to use UFS but looking at the advantages of ZFS I wopuld like to use it but I am afraid having not enough memory (4GB) and to face new problems (tuning necessary). Do you have already any experiences (or advices) in such cases?

2. Risks: How about the data that is already on the NAS? I hope no HD formatting is required if deciding to use UFS or ZFS?

Thanks.

 

[Hazgui]

If you go for ZFS option you should use ECC Ram if you will use non-ECC Ram you will risk your data.

 

[Tomas Liumparas]

2. Risks: How about the data that is already on the NAS? I hope no HD formatting is required if deciding to use UFS or ZFS?

UFS - Unified FILE SYSTEM, ZFS - Zeta FILES SYSTEM. The keyword here is File system. How you are going to cahnge file system, without formatting?
Whatever you will decide to use, you absolutely must backup your data first.

 

[jgreco]

Regardless of what "other communities say" about the amount of RAM needed to use ZFS, the fact is that when you are talking about FreeNAS, what they say is unimportant.

See, there's more to a NAS than just ZFS. There's also a UNIX kernel, and the design of the system, and other factors. The FreeNAS kernel is tuned to happily support larger memory configurations, so that someone putting FreeNAS on a 64GB or 256GB filer might well not need to make any changes at all. This comes at the expense of smaller memory configurations, where some of the kernel resources end up eating more than necessary. The FreeNAS middleware also expects several GB available (though in theory can be swapped), and the base system relies on memory based filesystems which eat further RAM. In addition to what's actually required for ZFS.

So please do not shop around for opinions elsewhere that you can do what we're telling you that you should not do; it may "run" but we have seen lots of people with less than 8GB wind up with dead pools. We don't really know why. It's just an observation. 8GB+ is stable. We won't stop you from trying, and we won't guarantee that you won't join the dead pool society. But we tell everyone this because we assume that your goal is to protect your data, and we think it sucks to lose a pool.

I know that's not the answer you wanted. Sorry.

 

[jgreco]

UFS - Unified FILE SYSTEM

Picking nits:

That's actually "UNIX File System". Which also grates on me because what FreeBSD actually uses is the modernized descendant of McKusick's Fast File System ("ffs"), which also repurposes the term "ufs" to refer to itself and therefore causes some confusion about what's actually meant, because there are lots of systems that implement other "ufs" variants, most of which have diverged widely over time, and often bear no resemblance to modern ffs. Sigh.

 

[Tomas Liumparas]

Oh, my bad. Thanks for clarification jgreco. :)

 

[coolex]

I know that's not the answer you wanted. Sorry.

That's actually exactly the answers I wanted :). Thanks.

All your answers confirm my decision about using UFS in my case. I think it's more secure. I don't want lose my data.

 

[cyberjock]

And I can nit pick too... ZFS does NOT stand for anything at all. It was going to stand for zettabyte file system, but the original acronym makers have admitted that the acronym ultimately meant nothing because the file system isn't limited to a zettabyte. There's a blog talking about it somewhere. ZFS means exactly that.. ZFS.