I've decided to fully commit to a backup solution for myself and spouse. What I'd like to do is have a file/backup server for the house to store images of our desktop and laptops as well as hold our media/movie collection. Below is the hardware for what I am thinking but would like to ask some questions of those who have done it before. 1. I plan on running FreeNAS. Is this feasible for someone with some server knowledge (WinServ03) but very little *nix background? 2. Would a dedicated SAS/RAID card be beneficial here? If so, does anyone have a suggestion for one? 3. Would it benefit to have the OS installed on a separate, smaller drive? Small HDD or SSD? 4. Are the dual gig-e ports able to be trunked? Do they also need to be trunked at the switch? Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H Dual Gig-E, onboard video for setup Processor: Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge 2.6GHz 65W Low TDW Memory: Crucial 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Case: NORCO RPC-3116 3U Rackmount Server Case Good size for future upgrades PSU: Seasonic SS-460FL Active PFC F3, 460W Fanless ATX12V Fanless 80Plus Gold Certified, Modular Power Supply 460W should be enough for 8+ drives, right? Drives: 5x Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s A good start for storage and backups. Any suggestions/comments are appreciated.
grab a hp microserver, drop 4 xTB drives in it, move the 250 to the top as a boot drive and your done, unless you need more space then that
1. I plan on running FreeNAS. Is this feasible for someone with some server knowledge (WinServ03) but very little *nix background? - Yes, very simple 2. Would a dedicated SAS/RAID card be beneficial here? If so, does anyone have a suggestion for one? - If you have the cash for a decent one and are insistent on using RAID 3. Would it benefit to have the OS installed on a separate, smaller drive? Small HDD or SSD? Yes, but SSD a waste of cash unless you have one free already 4. Are the dual gig-e ports able to be trunked? Do they also need to be trunked at the switch? - I believe so, but have little experience with this Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H Dual Gig-E, onboard video for setup Processor: Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge 2.6GHz 65W Low TDW - Get the normal one, not the low power one as this will draw as little power and can be underclocked lower if needed, good chip though for this Memory: Crucial 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Case: NORCO RPC-3116 3U Rackmount Server Case Good size for future upgrades PSU: Seasonic SS-460FL Active PFC F3, 460W Fanless ATX12V Fanless 80Plus Gold Certified, Modular Power Supply 460W should be enough for 8+ drives, right? - Yes Drives: 5x Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s A good start for storage and backups. - Good to get rid of your bank balance /jealous Have a look around about what people say about RAID in these parts, and consider how you will back this up too.
I'm currently looking into doing a similar thing, albeit with smaller storage, atleast to begin with, been looking at a Microserver, seen people fit 19tb worth of drives in there, that not enough for you? When it comes to FreeNAS, I ran it for a while, and it's pretty easy to use, ended up getting rid of it since I wanted to be able to do more things with my pc than just use it as a file server, but it worked nicely when I had it, and the web interface is fairly well laid out and explained. Although I do remember having some issues getting some shares to work, can't remember why though :/ If you're set on RAID then a dedicated card is the way to go yes. If you are going to use FreeNAS, then you can just put it on a usb pendrive, cheaper than buying another drive or whatever
That sounds really nice, but if you ask me go for G840. The price difference is very small + you have more than enough power with this 460W PSU. Do you have rack at your home ? If not I can suggest you buying Fractal Design Arc Midi. You can install easy up to 10 hard drives that will be cooled great. Those 2-3U rack cases use fans that are extremely loud. About the raid you can try buying( I say try, because I don't know your budget) LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i and 2 x SAS-4SATA cables, but this raid controller is expensive and you will have raid options for 8 drives. Best Regards
I'm on the fence for the hardware RAID with this system. Was reading the documentation at freenas.org and ZFS doesn't like hardware RAID controllers. It states to put the RAID controller into JBOD and let ZFS handle the data integrity and pool management. Also, if hardware RAID is used, it is highly suggested to implement the more expensive, server "TLER/CCTL/ERC-enabled disks to prevent drive dropouts". I had originally looked at using the LSI MegaRAID 9240 but it isn't technically supported by freenas. However the 9260 is. The GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H supports 9 HDDs (5 @ 6Gb/s and 4 @ 3Gb/s). Does it really matter that the speeds will be mixed if all of the drives are going to be mechanical drives? What options are there to expand past this 9 HDD limit with a ZFS pool already created? (Thinking about future proofing this build.)
Mixing the ports won't matter, mech disks won't saturate SATA3 so it isn't an issue. You could just use a cheap RAID card or SATA expansion card to add more drives. For instance: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CC-000-LL&groupid=701&catid=49&subcat=424
Take a look at OpenMediaVault as an alternative to FreeNAS. It was coded by the original FreeNAS coder who left FreeNAS due to the commercialisation (amongst others things) of the product. I moved from FreeNAS to OpenMediaVault recently and find that it is much better, the hardware support alone is fantastic (due to being based upon Debian). I run my OpenMediaVault installation from a CF card attached to an IDE port, freeing up all the SATA ports for HD's. It can also run from USB drive etc just like other distributions. www.openmediavault.org
Cheers Richard, it really is worth looking at, I am very pleased with the choice to switch over to it. I use it to backup my Synology DS211j via rsync at the moment and there is a lot of functionality that I haven't even tried yet.
+1 for openmediavault Freenas was great as long as you wont to use version 7. Version 8 is still half done and don't think there are any working plugins atm that will make it do anything else than a file server
That is the beauty of OpenMediaVault. Plugins are easy to source as it is Debian based and they don't require massive work. One of the other reasons that votdev left the FreeNAS project is because he was sick and tired of having to code FreeNAS to improve hardware support - Debian is plug & play to a large extent and hardware support increases all the time. FreeBSD tends to be very tardy with hardware support improvements.
Another recommendation for Openmediavault. Its a great server, media server, print server, torrent server/client and more besides. You'll not go wrong.
Any one use open media vault on a HP micro server? mine came with a freenas USB and it just wouldn't boot so now I run win7 on it.
Yep, been running this for several months, OMV installed on a USB drive seated in the N40L, only a couple of discs installed just now due to their cost. Fantastic hardware and software.
Cheers all. Thanks for the input. I'll definitely be taking a look at OpenMediaVault. Build start time will probably be in July so hopefully HDDs will come down a $10-er or so. I'll keep this thread updated as I move along.
