BUILD Switching from Synology to FreeNAS

[Wirenfeldt Jr]

I posted this on the FreeNAS Subreddit but i figured that i would post it here too.

I am currently quite happy with my 4 drive Synology DS414 NAS. The soon-to-be a problem is that i am currently sitting at 75% used storage with 4x 4TB drives in a RAID 10 setup so i figured i would start looking into a FreeNAS setup capable of handling 8 drives and simultaneous transcoding to 2 or 3 machines.. And preferably also a decent RAID setup, because losing data terrifies me. Can someone with actual know-how point me in the right direction? (And hopefully tell me if i can get it without having to sell a kidney)

Thank you very much for your help.

Wirenfeldt

 

[danb35]

Start by looking at the Hardware recommendations thread. That would be the one that is a sticky in this very forum and is marked with "read this first".

 

[zambanini]

read the manual, the pinned posts, learn about the hw and about zfs. it has its advantages and things you need to know.

use the forum search, there is much valued information here.

 

[joeschmuck]

It may not cost you a kidney but maybe an arm or leg ;). Seriously, if you had to replace your Synology with a newer unit, or just add a duplicate unit lets say, the cost of a FreeNAS build (minus the hard drive costs) is actually cheaper when comparing features and throughput speed. You just need to see what you want for the future as there are a lot of things you can do with a FreeNAS system.

If you are a Synology fan then have you looked at the DS415play? I just don't know how many video streams it can provide at the same time, also it only comes with 1GB RAM but you can upgrade it to 24GB if needed. You would have to do some research on it.

 

[marbus90]

The best way is to go with 6 drives maximum, since that's the max SATA port count on many affordable systems. You could add in a IBM M1015 controller, but I doubt that 8x4TB vs. 6x6TB is worth the hassle. To migrate your data to a FreeNAS you need the existing data anyway and copy it via LAN. Also a 6disk z2 is closer to the recommended disk count per vdev than a 8drive z2.

Also keep in mind that you can only get a bigger pool trough replacing all disks with bigger ones, you can't just add more HDDs. Only striped mirrors would allow for that and that isn't the best choice if you need much storage.

For 3 streams the Avoton C2750 seems a good choice together with 16, better 32GB RAM. If you want to, you could be a pioneer and test the Seagate Archive v2 8TB HDDs ;) they're the same price as the 6TB Reds.

 

[danb35]

Also keep in mind that you can only get a bigger pool trough replacing all disks with bigger ones, you can't just add more HDDs. Only striped mirrors would allow for that and that isn't the best choice if you need much storage.

I know you know better, but for the OP's sake I'll point out that this isn't correct at all. First, yes, you can add single disks to your pool to increase its capacity. It's dangerous, and you shouldn't do it if you care about your data, but you certainly can. Second, you can expand your pool and retain redundancy by adding any sort of redundant vdev to it. It doesn't even have to be the same kind of redundancy that's in there already, but that's a better scenario. Two scenarios I've personally used are two, three-disk RAIDZ1 vdevs in a single pool, and two, six-disk RAIDZ2 vdevs in a single pool. In both cases, as in any case where multiple vdevs are present in a pool, data is striped across all vdevs (which is why you shouldn't add single disks to your pool to increase its capacity, and why the Volume Manager won't let you unless you switch to manual mode). You could just as well combine a two-disk mirror and a four-disk RAIDZ1 in the same pool, though RAIDZ1 is disfavored. Or a three-disk RAIDZ1 with a 12-disk RAIDZ3. Or pretty much any other combination you can dream up.

@Wirenfeldt Jr, to understand what you can and can't do with ZFS, check out @cyberjock's powerpoint at https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/