Setting Up a Home Server

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DoctorKraz

Hello to all!

I have been a Linux user for several years, but never set up a true home server. Basically, my computer has been both my computer and the media server - but no true file server. I finally got an older computer to run as a file server. It's a Dell Inspiron 530 w/ with an AMD Athlon64 x2 Processor (2.4 GHz) w/ with 8 GB of RAM. Through different online sales and such, I've gotten my hands on four 3 TB drives (2 WD and 2 Seagate, I think). I also have a few 32 GB microSD cards. I was thinking about plugging a couple of those in for the main OS drives, and then use the four hard drives for pure storage.

I was thinking of mirroring them so that I had 6 TB of active storage. That would make sense as I also have two 3 TB External Drives for backups. And then I'm thinking of using some other cloud service for an offsite backup.

But I've been hearing more and more about ZFS, and I did want to get my hands wet with FreeBSD. So I was thinking of using FreeBSD to do this with, especially now that Plex has a FreeNAS/FreeBSD release for its Plex Media server.

So my questions are, if you had this set up:
  • What would you do (the same or different)
  • Any good tutorials on setting something like this up

Thanks in advance for any comments/help!

[edited 8MB to 8GB of RAM]
 
8G of RAM and four 3T drives will be fine for a NAS. If you want a web interface for control, FreeNAS might suit you. I find the command line quicker and easier, and use a plain FreeBSD 10-STABLE system to do that. The interface is not as pretty, but it's easier to upgrade.

There are ZFS tutorials around. For this, you need to use gnop(8) to force the block size to 4K, and I'd use the whole drives without partitioning to avoid fighting with alignment. FreeNAS should do all that for you, it's a few commands in FreeBSD.

Mirrored SD cards will work for the operating system, but might be very slow. I use a couple of 2.5-inch notebook drives in a mirror.
 
I would go with ZFS RAIDZ2 for the storage with boot on the SD card and system on the ZFS with boot environments. Also running OS from memory may be interesting, see NanoBSD.

All above assume that you want also learn something about underlying technology. If you want just install a storage box and forget about its internals, check FreeNAS or ZFSguru.
 
I'm not sure if you're familiar with using shell/terminal but if you are, FreeBSD will feel right home. but if you're the type of linux user who often use GUI tools then it might be best to stick to the "distros" mentioned above.

I know freenas has it's own forums so it'll be best to ask questions there if you go that route.

good luck! :)
 
@wblock@:
Mirrored SD cards will work for the operating system, but might be very slow. I use a couple of 2.5-inch notebook drives in a mirror.
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I'm only suggesting the MicroSD cards as the computer only has 4 SATA ports, so I wouldn't be able to throw any more drives in - unless they are usb. And I figure at least this way, they aren't using any of the 6TB storage. Plus, if I use 2 and mirror those, that should help some of the read speed.

I'm definitely looking at FreeBSD vs FreeNAS - only because FreeBSD will have everything available to it that FreeNAS does, but the reverse won't be true.

@mrjayviper:
I'm not sure if you're familiar with using shell/terminal but if you are, FreeBSD will feel right home.
Click to expand...
I am fairly familiar with command line/shell with linux, and want to learn FreeBSD.

On a different note, I've had others suggest to go using RAID-Z to get 9G of usable space. I was thinking of the mirroring 6GB for read performance ( one of the main purposes of the server will be as a Plex Media Server - so I would have upwards of 4 TVs / Computers pulling from this ), but I could have misunderstood what mirroring affects will produce in that manner.

Any advice on that?
 
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With most RAID, I/O speed is far faster than the network. That will be the case here also. A three-drive RAID-Z gets something like 240M per second. Gigabit networks can't transfer that fast. And it would provide 9T of space.

If you have to use USB, it can be done. Or another SATA controller could be added, if there is an empty slot. I think FreeNAS can boot from CD, running from RAM and using configuration data stored on a USB stick. So there are options.
 
So I was reading up - and the one concern I have with setting up a 3 drive raidz is that the configuration would give me 9TB of storage, while I would only have 8GB of memory - and everything I read on that says that I should have 1GB of memory + 1GB for every TB of storage...

Am I still good on going with 8GB with a 9TB raidZ???
 
Like most recommendations, it's not a hard rule. Since you already have everything, why not try it?
 
DoctorKraz said:
Am I still good on going with 8GB with a 9TB raidZ???
Click to expand...
My 12 TB RAID-Z home server works just fine with only 8 GB. As @wblock@ said, it's more a rule of thumb, not a set requirement.
 
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