Good file server \ NAS options?

[gregom]

I don't have a lot of free time so i'm hoping some of you in the storage would can give me a few suggestions. Right now I have a custom built PC running a AMD Athlon X2 6000+ at 3 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and 4x WD 3 TB Red's on a Highpoint RocketRaid 2320 in one RAID-5 volume. I've been running Windows Server 2003 on it for probably about eight years now. I convert the array to a dynamic disk and then use GPT.

Anyway I'm starting to have issues with the OS since and before I spend the time and another license on a Windows OS, I figured why not just try a free solution out there.

All I need is to be able to browse the file shares on the LAN from Windows, Linux (Ubuntu), Roku 2 and a WD TV Play media device. Both the media devices use DNLA so i've been using Serviio for those needs. I only want one user account for me, and another general account for everyone else to view.

I've looked briefly at FreeNAS... but I see there are a few other options out there. What do you guys think is best for me? Keep in mind I don't have any money to upgrade my hardware at this time.

Thanks in advance!

 

[smitbret]

I don't have a lot of free time so i'm hoping some of you in the storage would can give me a few suggestions. Right now I have a custom built PC running a AMD Athlon X2 6000+ at 3 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and 4x WD 3 TB Red's on a Highpoint RocketRaid 2320 in one RAID-5 volume. I've been running Windows Server 2003 on it for probably about eight years now. I convert the array to a dynamic disk and then use GPT.

Anyway I'm starting to have issues with the OS since and before I spend the time and another license on a Windows OS, I figured why not just try a free solution out there.

All I need is to be able to browse the file shares on the LAN from Windows, Linux (Ubuntu), Roku 2 and a WD TV Play media device. Both the media devices use DNLA so i've been using Serviio for those needs. I only want one user account for me, and another general account for everyone else to view.

I've looked briefly at FreeNAS... but I see there are a few other options out there. What do you guys think is best for me? Keep in mind I don't have any money to upgrade my hardware at this time.

Thanks in advance!

Hmmmm, looks fine for FreeNAS.... if you can up the RAM a little bit. 1GB is coming in a little low for FreeNAS. Otherwise, you look fine for a RAIDz1 setup. Just use the RocketRAID as an SATA card and don't worry about its RAID features. The x2 will be fine. Is there a Serviio plugin for FreeNAS. If not, you may need to look into Plex.

 

[mfenn]

FreeNAS is probably the most popular/best supported platform out there.

However, you should realize that you're very likely NOT going to be able to read your dynamic disk volumes outside of a Windows environment. That means sticking with Windows or copying your data off the NAS, installing a *nix-based solution, and then copying your data back.

 

[FrankSchwab]

Well, remarkably, I just tore down a FreeNAS server at work which has served us faithfully for a couple of years in a mostly Windows shop. Worked great as an unsupported data dump area (the "official" servers were always out of disk space, so we provisioned this one out of petty cash).

And, I have the same problem at home as the OP. I've got an old box running XP as a file server at home that has become unreliable. I have a 4-disk NAS case left over from a while ago, and was thinking of some cheap disks and a low-power board to replace the home server. Anyone have any experience using something really low-tech like a Raspberry Pi as a Samba server? Any suggestions for a better low-power Mobo like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813132100 with, say 4 GB of RAM and running FreeNas or Linux?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

A Pi will work, but saying it's "CPU limited" is putting it mildly.

I'd also want 4GB of RAM at minimum for FreeNAS. Just saying.

 

[smitbret]

A Pi will work, but saying it's "CPU limited" is putting it mildly.

I'd also want 4GB of RAM at minimum for FreeNAS. Just saying.

Yep, I wouldn't run FreeNAS on a RaspPi. The 512MB of memory will be a huge limiting factor. You might be able to put together a Linux server but I don't think I would count on the Pi to take care of RAID distribution and calculation. Not to mention that your data transfers on the network would be very limited due to the Tbase100 ethernet on the Pi.

 

[thetuna]

I haven't actually used FreeNAS yet (parts on the way!), but I have been reading up on it a bit.

From the hardware recommendations page: If you don't have at least 8GB of RAM with ZFS or 2GB of RAM with UFS, you should consider getting more powerful hardware before using FreeNAS® to store your data. Otherwise, data loss may result. Plenty of users expect FreeNAS to function with less than these requirements, just at reduced performance. The bottom line is that these minimums are the minimums based on many users' feedback in the forums for FreeNAS® to work, regardless of performance. Do not ask for help on systems that do not meet these requirements in the forums or IRC. They will likely be ignored because of the abundance of information that FreeNAS may not behave properly with <8GB of RAM.

For your 12TB pool, it recommends 13GB ram.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, that's mostly BS, unless you're using deduplication.

There's also nothing wrong with using UFS.

If you don't want to deal with FreeNAS forum drama, just install Ubuntu Server on a thumb drive and set it up as a file server. *shrug*

 

[gregom]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I have offsite backups of all my data so that isn't an issue. I decided to download it and install it just to see how it looks. After it installed it took a long time to boot up, lots of activity on the 16GB USB flash drive I used. After about 15 minutes it was ready and I logged into the UI. Set a few minor things and when I clicked on the email settings tab it hung again with disk activity. Took a few minutes then started responding again. I don't know how heavy this OS is but that seems a bit crazy, considering how Linux is always touted as being far more efficient than Windows. Anyway, opinion aside, it certainly seems like I may need a lot more memory.

So why would I want the OS to handle RAID as opposed to the hardware controller? Granted the HPT RR 2320 is not a full on RAID controller with lots of processing power and memory, but I believe the parity is calculated by the controller. I could be wrong...

I looked for drivers on the HPT website and of course there are none for "FreeNAS", just various Linux distributions. I don't think I need them though because FreeNAS sees my 9 TB volume as a single disk on da1. The only issue now is how to I manage the volume? I would probably have to attempt to install the HPT web GUI or even build it from source. Either that or reboot and manage it from the controllers BIOS, but it is very limited.

I don't know maybe dave_the_nerd has a point, just setup a Ubuntu server and make it a file server. Would that be a more efficient option for my hardware limitations? I know I can get the HPT web GUI to run in Ubuntu and I know there are drivers for it. I would think that "FreeNAS", having the "NAS" part in it would mean it is far more efficient than just setting up some various linux distro and making it a file server. Right?

Thoughts?

 

[mfenn]

Well, first things first, FreeNAS isn't Linux, it's based on FreeBSD so you'll want to look for FreeBSD drivers. But really in FreeBSD (and *nix in general), you simply don't use manufacturer-provided drivers like you do in Windows. The drivers for all hardware are built into the operating system and tested together.

Generally speaking, *nix OS's prefer to do software RAID rather than hardware RAID because it is easier to manage from the OS without proprietary tools and they can use a unified code platform for RAID, no matter what the underlying controller is. Thus the code can be tested thoroughly without having to re-implement everything in each driver. Whenever a new feature or bugfix is created for the RAID implementation, it is available for all controllers. This is again the polar opposite of Windows, where native RAID capabilities are assumed to be built into the controller hardware or managed via some mix of hardware and per-driver software (your HighPoint card falls into the latter category).

Furthermore, software RAID is just that, software. If your RAID card dies or you want to change it, you aren't stuck. You can just move the drives over and you can re-assemble the RAID set. You could even move them all into USB enclosures and re-assemble there if you needed to.

So for any *nix distro (FreeNAS, Linux, whatever), I'd recommend setting your controller to have each drive be presented individually and then using software RAID.

As for FreeNAS performance, I have always found it to be very lightweight, so I'm not sure what you were running into. I've run it in 512MB VMs before with no issues. Maybe your thumbdrive was really slow? Were you looking at the console while it was booting? Did it get stuck at any part of the process?

You can certainly use Ubuntu Server if you want, there's nothing wrong with that. You'll have to do more manual setup, and you won't have the web UI from FreeNAS, but it'll work just fine as a Samba server.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

wot 'e sed. ^^

 

[Ayah]

Yep, I wouldn't run FreeNAS on a RaspPi. The 512MB of memory will be a huge limiting factor. You might be able to put together a Linux server but I don't think I would count on the Pi to take care of RAID distribution and calculation. Not to mention that your data transfers on the network would be very limited due to the Tbase100 ethernet on the Pi.

you can't run freenas on non-x86 hardware..

since you didn't specify if cost was a factor... if it was me and I had to fit in the itx formfactor, I'd go with the cheapest i3 and a B85 board.

else, probably celeron 1037U hardware.

 

[smitbret]

you can't run freenas on non-x86 hardware..

Cool, I hadn't even considered that. Just from a specs POV, I was like "No Way"

 

[gregom]

Thanks for the education guys... I think i'm going to just install Windows Server for the time being. Maybe later when I can afford some more RAM i'll try it again.