Where to begin?

[Remnant]

I understand some basics of NAS, like what it stands for and some of their uses. but I want to learn more and work towards building my own. Where should I begin learning. Does anyone have a list of "must read" , guide, tutorial, etc links that would save me some time searching the forum?

 

[Fraoch]

Sure, take a look at https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

 

[DrKK]

Also, this series by the developers just came out today:

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/20...design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html

 

[Remnant]

these look great thanks! If there are more suggestions out there I'm still listening :)

 

[Fraoch]

Also, this series by the developers just came out today:

http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/20...design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html

Wow that's a great article!

 

[Fraoch]

these look great thanks! If there are more suggestions out there I'm still listening :)

There's also this handy guide for testing and burning in drives:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-hard-drive-burn-in-testing.21451/

That's pretty important. You don't want to start loading up drives with irreplaceable data (confident that ECC RAM will protect the data), only to find out that 2 of your 6 drives are reporting errors. Ease into it and do a lot of testing. Kick it around a little bit (figuratively). Find the weak components first while they're still in warranty and while they won't eat any data you can't replace.

 

[Remnant]

There's also this handy guide for testing and burning in drives:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-hard-drive-burn-in-testing.21451/

That's pretty important. You don't want to start loading up drives with irreplaceable data (confident that ECC RAM will protect the data), only to find out that 2 of your 6 drives are reporting errors. Ease into it and do a lot of testing. Kick it around a little bit (figuratively). Find the weak components first while they're still in warranty and while they won't eat any data you can't replace.

Ya for starters we'll keep multiple instenses of the pictures via flash drives and my gaming desktop. But since we acquire our movies and music legally we should be able to maintain a hard copy of those medias

 

[DataKeeper]

While reading the above extremely good links, take a short break, grab a drink/snack, download VirtualBox and install it. Then download the latest FreeNAS 9.3 iso image and using VirtualBox install the FreeNAS system as a VM. Then continue reading and playing! I've always been more comfortable hands on myself. YouTube has a couple great walk-throughs of the main install if you haven't done it yet. Its easy once you've done it once. ;) This will allow you to play around getting used to the interface and learning how to administer the system. Then, once you decide on and purchase the hardware you'll be that much ahead and ready for it.