Set if questions

[fmslick]

Hello all, I'm new here!

I have FreeNAS setup on a old gaming rig I will list the specs below but I am have a set of questions and issues with mostly in the FreeNAS OS >> setting/network

Specs of NAS

• ABIT AW8D
• 2GB RAM
• Intel Pentium D
• AMD Video card that is 512MB (Don't ask the name, I don't know lol ;) )
• 2x 2TB Drives WD-Green [SATA] (new)
• 2x 1TB Drives WD-Green [SATA] (like new!)
• 2x 250GB WD-I don't know [IDE] (They are old)
• 2x GBit Onboard nics
• 1x 100Mb Management nic
• 3GB USB [FreeNAS FreeNAS 9.2.0 x64] (OS loads from)
• ^NOTE: I know i need at less 4GB+ for x64bit lolz

Ok so now that is out of the way my questions are?

1. when i set one nic to static IP & I try to set the other one i get the error of "The network xxx.xxx.x.x/xx is already in use by another NIC." ... WTF? can only one nic be static or is there some work around for this?
2. When setting a nic to DHCP is this A: telling the nic to give out IP Address's as in this is a DHCP server -OR- B: It this letting this nic be dynamic?
3. How to set only one nic to be for Management only & let the others do all the work?
   (I try to set my 100MB nic as Management with "Static" then>> "Settings>>General>>WebGUI IPv4 Address" but when doing so it all data flow/traffic was going over my Management network & now the main netowork)

Notes:
When setting up my main 2 nics i want them to work side by side (I don't know what this is called)
not fail over but to pump out the data fast to my network do to this is a home network work but i have 5PC, 2 bare metal hypervisor with at less 4 - 5 server running on them and booting from the NAS (as in they live on the NAS) & to top this all off the NAS holds all my files as in movies music, .ISO, pic's & etc so if anyone and help me out ill kiss your feet (not really ) but yeah i have been googling days and for the life of me can not fix the right fix to this or maybe i just missed it or something lol


-Thanks via FMSLICK :)

 

[Yatti420]

Specs too slow / not advised.. http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-you-want-some-hardware-suggestions.12276/

 

[fmslick]

Specs too slow / not advised.. http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-you-want-some-hardware-suggestions.12276/

Yeah i seen that but it is all I have for now, I am working on making a better box but in tell I get that up and going ill just have to test / work with what I have.

Thanks Yatti40 however that post/topic don't help me any at this time lol :)

 

[Yatti420]

Well run UFS and dump the IDE drives is my suggestion.. Drop the video card unless necessary.. add more ram (even if it means taking it from other pcs).. You'll need wdidle3.exe all the green drives.. I chose to disable..

If you don't read and understand this there isn't much more anybody can (nor will) do for you.. It's your data / your risks...

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-you-want-some-hardware-suggestions.12276/

 

[fmslick]

yeah I know I need more RAM, like I said be for i am working on making a new box but this is what I have to test/work with at the time being and if it kills my data then ok I have backups of backups and my backups have backups lol "always have a plan ABCD". Anyhow I have the green drives do to low power and I want them to spin down when not being used & sorry to say this but if no one is willing to help me and you or "FreeNAS" is going to be picky about what hardware anyone is using with it then WTF/WHY? call it "FreeNAS" why not call it "PickyNAS" use the hardware we say to use....

(By all means I am not trying to be rude here but saying that is making me feel as if i should just go with some other OS that gives help to someone who is just testing/working with what they have for the time being, I mean should I just go back to running CentOS at less they are willing to help & like i said be for sorry if this comes of rude but it is like you "Yatti420" is just putting my post down when i am just asking how to fix/set my nic up the way I would like them to be)

-Thanks via FMSLICK

 

[jgreco]

I've rejected your request to delete this post; there is nothing unfair about the advice you've been given. Yatti420 was much gentler with you than some others might have been. One of the expectations for participating in the forum is that you actually read the materials that some of us have so carefully made available, including the various guides by cyberjock and others here, the most excellent doc website by Dru and others, etc. You failed to do that. FreeNAS does not work well when it is under-resourced and may in fact lose your pool. It is very different than some other platforms where the only risk to your data is that it works very slowly. People lose pools when they don't respect the requirements. We don't really want that, which is why we vocally let you know when your system isn't up to snuff.

 

[Knowltey]

yeah I know I need more RAM, like I said be for i am working on making a new box but this is what I have to test/work with at the time being and if it kills my data then ok I have backups of backups and my backups have backups lol "always have a plan ABCD". Anyhow I have the green drives do to low power and I want them to spin down when not being used & sorry to say this but if no one is willing to help me and you or "FreeNAS" is going to be picky about what hardware anyone is using with it then WTF/WHY? call it "FreeNAS" why not call it "PickyNAS" use the hardware we say to use....

(By all means I am not trying to be rude here but saying that is making me feel as if i should just go with some other OS that gives help to someone who is just testing/working with what they have for the time being, I mean should I just go back to running CentOS at less they are willing to help & like i said be for sorry if this comes of rude but it is like you "Yatti420" is just putting my post down when i am just asking how to fix/set my nic up the way I would like them to be)

-Thanks via FMSLICK

As long as you are only using aforementioned underspec hardware for testing purposes to get familiar with the operating system in question before making a purchasing decision on spec level hardware then by all means feel free to use it. I'm still running on what would be considered sub-spec software, but I'm doing long term testing to get really familiar before making a long term hardware deicision myself.

That said, to answer your question, FreeNAS is called FreeNAS because the operating system is Free and you aren't being charged to use it. But free software doesn't mean it's free of the limitations of system requirements. In this case it's using the next-gen Zettabyte Filesystem that is extremely good at preserving data as long as you give it what it needs in order to perform that function. It is a filesystem built with enterprise users in mind and FreeNAS is making it available to you as a non-enterprise user, but make no mistake that it is still an enterprise filesystem at it's heart and you still must treat it as such even if you are not an enterprise user. ZFS is specifically designed to use all available RAM in your system, and it is also RAM heavy and does require a bare minimum of at least 4GB for a modicum of stability and 8GB if you really want to take advantage of most of the feature and not have it run like a three legged dog.

You can also go download a free-to-play video game, let's say Star Wars: The Old Republic as an example. Sure it's free software, but you still need to have the hardware capable of running it to do anything worthwhile with it. Just that in this case instead of downloading a tool for entertainment you are downloading a tool for file storage and serving.

 

[Yatti420]

I'm going to be more blunt.. FreeNAS is picky.. Any length of reading on this forum will teach you this :) The greens need to be run through wdidle3.exe before you use them.. You're going to realize when the performance is so poor (except in windows) that this is a requirement basically for any kind of NAS/linux etc use.. Even desktop use really.. I'm not telling you this - for you to ignore it and re-post in a week asking why performance is so poor with the greens..

I'm not sure why you want 2 NICs setup this way.. This isn't going to increase or stabilize performance.. When I get told something I don't understand I break out about 20 tabs to figure it out.. It's important!.. I've lost data before and it's not fun.. You will kill those greens without wdidle running media etc off of them.. Please note: As I said before don't run ZFS with such low ram..

Here are some notes in the documentation .. Please read the whole guide - it's an unwritten forum rule :)
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Link_Aggregations

There is so little margin of error with FreeNAS.. This isn't windowze.. I don't mean to be rude or put your post down.. It's just when nobody reads the docs (or searches the forums) it kind of defeats the purpose of having them..

http://doc.freenas.org/index.php

yeah I know I need more RAM, like I said be for i am working on making a new box but this is what I have to test/work with at the time being and if it kills my data then ok I have backups of backups and my backups have backups lol "always have a plan ABCD". Anyhow I have the green drives do to low power and I want them to spin down when not being used & sorry to say this but if no one is willing to help me and you or "FreeNAS" is going to be picky about what hardware anyone is using with it then WTF/WHY? call it "FreeNAS" why not call it "PickyNAS" use the hardware we say to use....

(By all means I am not trying to be rude here but saying that is making me feel as if i should just go with some other OS that gives help to someone who is just testing/working with what they have for the time being, I mean should I just go back to running CentOS at less they are willing to help & like i said be for sorry if this comes of rude but it is like you "Yatti420" is just putting my post down when i am just asking how to fix/set my nic up the way I would like them to be)

-Thanks via FMSLICK

 

[SweetAndLow]

if you are just testing why don't you just boot up a VM. That way you can give it enough ram to actually run correctly. You can add and remove multiple NIC's, HDD and processors all you want to test different config options. This will atleast give you a stable platform to test with. You're still not going to have reliable data protection but you will have a stable platform for the OS.

 

[fmslick]

Thanks for all the input!

-Thanks via FMSLICK :)