Volume/dataset recommendations

[Eric Batte]

Hi,
New user here. I've built my NAS and installed freenas and have been testing for a week. I'd like to know how more experienced users might recommend I layout volumes and datasets for the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: freenas as backup storage device
I run several other servers (file sharing, email, accounting software, web server). In this scenario my freenas server would function as a backup destination for these servers. File sharing and email run on mac servers and freenas would be a time machine destination. The others run in virtual machines which currently run in parallels desktop and can also be backed up with time machine and or other methods. I might also use freenas as a destination for daily disk clones of the physical servers.

Scenario 2: same as scenario 1 + file sharing for mac
In addition to everything described above, I could also opt to move file sharing to the freenas server

I currently have 6 x 4tb drives and the ability to add 3 x 2tb drives to freenas.

There may be some advantage to setting up the volumes and datasets in a certain way so I'd appreciate any advice.

Thanks

 

[dlavigne]

Which solution did you end up using?

 

[Eric Batte]

Well, I didn't get any input here, so I setup a single volume. Currently I have a dataset for time machine backups with a 6TB quota, another dataset for "archive" and a few other datasets just for testing purposes.

I've installed the crashplan plugin but haven't gotten around to fully configuring it. Eventually, it will have some storage allocated to it. I'm using freenas almost solely as a backup device at this time (scenario #1 above). So far I have time machine backing up to it from 2 other servers and I'm slowly getting it setup as a destination for other servers.