Question about ZFS based NAS

S

src386

I have a bunch of spare parts, I would like to make my own NAS based on FreeBSD+ZFS. I have some interrogations:
  1. I have a 4-cores AMD Phenom @ 2 GHz + 2 GB DDR2, is it enough for a 2 TB RAIDZ (3x 1 TB)? I think I can find 1 or 2 GB more if needed.
  2. What happen if the system is lost, can I plug my HDDs in another computer then rebuild the RAIDZ and recover all the data ?
  3. Why can't both FreeBSD and FreeNAS be easily installed on a ZFS mirror or RAIDZ? Is it useless? I don't see the point of using a RAIDZ or RAIDZ2 for the data with only one HDD for the operating system. I don't understand.
  4. I plan to use 2x 80 GB mirrored for FreeBSD, then 3x 1 TB RAIDZ for all data. Is that correct? Is there something better?

Thanks :)
 
1: If you intend to use this as a dedicated NAS based on ZFS, you should get at least 4 GB. 8-16 GB would be recommended. Get ECC memory if you can.
2: Only if the system is compatible with that version of ZFS.
3: You can! Well, depends what you mean by "easily". Take a look at [thread=31662]Howto: FreeBSD ZFS Madness[/thread]. You can also use the PC-BSD installer to install plain FreeBSD on a ZFS root pool.
4: SSD's for the "root" pool is a good idea. If this is going to be a dedicated NAS, root should be fine with 16 GB. Might want to go with 32 GB to have room to grow, for fanciness such as beadm. You can also use the SSDs as l2arc (cache) and log devices. Look at the zpool(8) man page for more info about these terms.
 
Thanks @Savagedlight. The most important was point 2. I've already found documentation for installing FreeBSD on ZFS root. Unfortunately, if I have to replace a HDD, I have to recreate slices and write the bootloader. Not very difficult though.
 
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