SO I have access to most Windows based software free and legal that you would install on a server based system. Looking to install a home based server with enough things to mess around with and work on my skills on different areas under Windows servers, and also act as a backup file system & NAS. May start running exchange on it for a central mail repository etc. However, I really like the advantages of ZFS with FreeBSD, especially their file system robustness, ability to use *nix based applications, etc. If it were a pure NAS I probably would just go FreeBSD - but I want some of both. There are not enough users to warrant a huge system for this (under 5) and we are on a gigabit ethernet system inhouse - minus one computer on 802.11n.
I was wondering if its possible/feasible/smart to maybe set up a virtualized system on a relatively low end system (about the speed of an old Intel Q6700 cpu based system) with Windows as one virtualized server and FreeBSD as the other - but put most of the storage under FreeBSD/ZFS. What I don't know is:
1) Which would be best to run on the bare metal to virtualize these e.g. WIndows 2008 R2 with their vritualization or FreeBSD w/ Xen (or something equiv).
2) Is there a semi-efficient way for the Windows based server to access the Free BSD/ZFS system transparently as mapped drives (not over the network) but using Samba or the like with an internal stacked based system (e.g. maybe looking like going over the net - but really not going over the net and accessing the disk at somewhat close to regular Windows disk access speeds).
3) Best option for a slight upgrade for a robust file system from basically mirroring files on multiple hard drives across machines and using USB backup devices, to backing up the different clients to the main system with a ZFS 3 disk system (e.g. RaidZ) or does that really buy me much rather than having to go with RaidZ3 or higher.
4) Even with ZFS and all its advantages Im leaning towards Windows 2008 R2 for the sheer amount of applications I have access to and run FreeBSD a Linux equiv. without ZFS - and I suspect Windows would do just fine with most things - but hard drives are about to break the 2TB limit - and thus will force without option paritioning of the newer drives (3TB due out this fall).
5) Optimal solution would include support for multiple older size drives in the environment integrated with the above stated goals but this is not a steadfast requirement.
HP
I was wondering if its possible/feasible/smart to maybe set up a virtualized system on a relatively low end system (about the speed of an old Intel Q6700 cpu based system) with Windows as one virtualized server and FreeBSD as the other - but put most of the storage under FreeBSD/ZFS. What I don't know is:
1) Which would be best to run on the bare metal to virtualize these e.g. WIndows 2008 R2 with their vritualization or FreeBSD w/ Xen (or something equiv).
2) Is there a semi-efficient way for the Windows based server to access the Free BSD/ZFS system transparently as mapped drives (not over the network) but using Samba or the like with an internal stacked based system (e.g. maybe looking like going over the net - but really not going over the net and accessing the disk at somewhat close to regular Windows disk access speeds).
3) Best option for a slight upgrade for a robust file system from basically mirroring files on multiple hard drives across machines and using USB backup devices, to backing up the different clients to the main system with a ZFS 3 disk system (e.g. RaidZ) or does that really buy me much rather than having to go with RaidZ3 or higher.
4) Even with ZFS and all its advantages Im leaning towards Windows 2008 R2 for the sheer amount of applications I have access to and run FreeBSD a Linux equiv. without ZFS - and I suspect Windows would do just fine with most things - but hard drives are about to break the 2TB limit - and thus will force without option paritioning of the newer drives (3TB due out this fall).
5) Optimal solution would include support for multiple older size drives in the environment integrated with the above stated goals but this is not a steadfast requirement.
HP
