Windows Raid 6 or FreeNAS?

[bigo93]

I currently have 3 PCs all with media on them, as well as one Netgear ReadyNAS Duo.

Now I just want to create a media serer instead. I dont want it to be active 24/7, but sleep after a given period and wake up on lan if any PC tried to connect to it.

Dont have enough for a full mirroring, so was thinking installing windows on a small drive then setting up a Raid 6 with 4 hdds, so if hdds fail I can swap then out and rebuild the data.
But I've read some people recommend FreeNAS

Not used raids, apart from raid 0, so not sure which option I want/need.


Now when I bought the readynas, I did not know that it formatted the hdds with its own format, so I cannot take the drive out and put them in a PC if I wanted to, the PC wont read them and will want to format them.
Another thing I did not know was that if the readynas unit fails, I cannot buy another readynas and put in the hdds and still have my drives working with all data still on them, the new readynas will want to format as well!

So not sure where to start really.

Do I go with windows and set up a raid there? But then do I need a dedicated raid controller card; or if my motherboard can do it, just buy some pci sata cards to add more drives?
But then if the motherboard dies, do I lose all my data, or can I install the raid drives on another pc? Or is this only possible with a raid card? Or is it not possible either way?

Or go with FreeNAS? But this seems to use some other raid system, from a quick read it seems it does the same thing, I can set up something similar to a raid 6 system, but the benefit that the OS can run from a usb stick.
But then again, if the motherboard dies, can I simply switch to another PC, plug in the drives and usb stick, and we're off and running; or not?

Oh? I cant expand FreeNAS once it's set up???

 

[cyberjock]

I won't discuss hardware RAID as each RAID controller has a feature set that makes answering your questions not a straight "yes" or "no". Those questions are best left to your own Googling and/or reading the manufacturers manuals and documentation.

Or go with FreeNAS? But this seems to use some other raid system, from a quick read it seems it does the same thing, I can set up something similar to a raid 6 system, but the benefit that the OS can run from a usb stick.
But then again, if the motherboard dies, can I simply switch to another PC, plug in the drives and usb stick, and we're off and running; or not?

Oh? I cant expand FreeNAS once it's set up???

ZFS offers RAIDZ2 which provides redundancy from 2 disks in a vdev. The OS does run from a USB stick (ideally) and if your motherboard dies you just take the USB stick and hard drives and put them in a new computer. Assuming all of the hardware is compatible with FreeNAS it'll "just work". In fact, I did this last night for an "upgrade".. total downtime minus the actual moving of hardware.. about 5 minutes.

ZFS has limitations on how you do expansion. Please read the FreeNAS manual, my noobie guide (link in my signature), forum stickies, and some good ol' fashioned Googling to find your answers. It is very expandable, but is different from hardware RAID.

 

[danb35]

With FreeNAS, you'd set up a server to store your data and have it accessible on the network. Your data would be stored on hard drives connected to that server, and set up in whatever configuration you like--the most similar arrangement to a RAID 6 would be a RAIDZ2, which would give you two disks' worth of redundancy--that is, two disks could fail without your losing any data. If you set up the system as recommended, you won't use any sort of hardware RAID controller. Thus, if your motherboard dies, you can simply move to a new motherboard, attach your drives and USB stick, and drive on.

Please note that FreeNAS has significant hardware requirements, most notably that it needs a minimum of 8 GB of RAM, and ECC RAM is strongly recommended. That means you'll be needing to use a server-grade motherboard, rather than just reusing whatever old hardware you have laying around.

 

[bigo93]

Thanks for the quick replies.

Hmm all my ram is non-ECC, was hoping to use old parts cost I'm on a tight budget which pretty much covers a set of new hdds only really.

So windows raid6 it is then I guess.
Anyone got a link to how to set up raid 6 with a separate hdd for the os? :)

 

[cyberjock]

Nope. This forum abhors hardware RAID because it's basically the anti-thesis of ZFS. Might try asking somewhere like Tom's Hardware forum or something like that.

 

[Ericloewe]

I'd like to add that the cost of a controller capable of doing RAID 6 is non-negligible and the money would probably be better spent on hardware for FreeNAS.

 

[bigo93]

Well it is my first time looking this up.

i think my motherboard supports raid 5, but i cant find any raid 6 controller cards either, but from the raid 5 ones they'd be way out of my budget unless i skip on one hdd.
But not sure if my mb will be hardware or software raid, think its the intel rapid storage feature that does it.

 

[Ericloewe]

Well it is my first time looking this up.

i think my motherboard supports raid 5, but i cant find any raid 6 controller cards either, but from the raid 5 ones they'd be way out of my budget unless i skip on one hdd.
But not sure if my mb will be hardware or software raid, think its the intel rapid storage feature that does it.

That thing has a number of names that include fakeRAID, pseudo-RAID, chipset RAID... Overall it's a nasty solution. I say this from experience.

 

[AleQQ]

I'd add that if you do hardware raid (or software raid through Windows) and your computer crashes, you are in the same boat. Unless you can recover the data using very expensive software, most motherboard "RAID" cards will require a wipe of the drives. If you are planning on spending any money, I would save up a bit and go a ZFS route. There's a learning curve and monetary/time cost, but (take it from me) it's worth it.

Edit: your ReadyNAS is pretty much the exact example I described. Most low-end RAID solutions require a complete wipe of the associated drives when set up (even if re-set up).

 

[bigo93]

Thanks for the info.

IF I do decide to save up and get server grade components and freenas; will the server have to be an always-on server? Or can I have it set to goto sleep after say 30 mins of no activity and wake up on lan??