I'm just beginning to look into some alternative solutions to buying more expensive dedicated NAS hardware like the Drobo 5N, to go along with 3, 4TB Seagate 5900 rpm sata III drives which in a traditional raid 5 or beyondraid config give me around 8TB of usable space for Windows mappings..
So I ran across info suggesting FreeNas as one option, or perhaps Linux based options.. i'm primarily a windows person, so this area is very foreign to me, though I've heard good things about FreeNas and ZFS file systems.
I came to realize though, that with ZFS there is no expansion option for adding another drive and increasing the size, like with Drobo or other solutions (are there any in linux in general)?
So hardware wise for this, this is what i've come up with so far.. i'm assuming a dual core 1.6 is better than 1.0 in most cases, in raid 6 especially..
8 ports on motherboard FM2 AMD A85X Hudson D4
With
AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4ghz socket FM2
For combined around $140
Now ram.. 8GB of Gskill for $52
Originally I considered a 1.0ghz or 1.6ghz combo board from newegg.. but i'd have to add a sata card to one of them eventually, bringing the cost closer to the above.
(amd e-350 1.6ghz)
I'll probably put all this in the rack size case i have handy, a supermicro sc825tq-560lp, which granted is only sata II, but shouldnt matter for gigabit ethernet and using sata III drives.
So all that said..
With freenas, no way to expand the array? What would the ZFS single parity equivalent to raid 5 be here? Does the freenas have a gui for managing remotely and sending alerts on failures?
If growth is desired, should I consider any random flavor of linux with the multi-disk manager Mdadm and mdadm gui instead? Or some other option? (FlexRaid?)
I'm concerned on making sure I make the easiest choice here for dealing with failures and long term expansion to grow beyond 8TB (if the linux/freenas options even equate out to nearly 8TB on 3, 4TB drives combined with single parity minimal)?
So quick summary is this:
1. I'd like to have 1 or 2 drive failure ability (raid 5 or 6 later on)
2. Be able to grow the array later on
3. Be able to stream at least 2 blurays at once (though really this is only ever going to be 1 at a time for now I think) to my Home Theater PC over gigabit
4. Have a web gui for managing and have alerts on failure
*it may also be nice to host gui apps for HTPC needs as well, ones supported in linux, but not a requirement, hence FreeNAS becomes one option since i may or may not need this, i think.
Thus far it would seem linux options of standard linux ubuntu? with mdadm and the gui or maybe flexraid or unraid would work, I believe flexraid supports expansion?
Thanks for any tips here
So I ran across info suggesting FreeNas as one option, or perhaps Linux based options.. i'm primarily a windows person, so this area is very foreign to me, though I've heard good things about FreeNas and ZFS file systems.
I came to realize though, that with ZFS there is no expansion option for adding another drive and increasing the size, like with Drobo or other solutions (are there any in linux in general)?
So hardware wise for this, this is what i've come up with so far.. i'm assuming a dual core 1.6 is better than 1.0 in most cases, in raid 6 especially..
8 ports on motherboard FM2 AMD A85X Hudson D4
With
AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4ghz socket FM2
For combined around $140
Now ram.. 8GB of Gskill for $52
Originally I considered a 1.0ghz or 1.6ghz combo board from newegg.. but i'd have to add a sata card to one of them eventually, bringing the cost closer to the above.
(amd e-350 1.6ghz)
I'll probably put all this in the rack size case i have handy, a supermicro sc825tq-560lp, which granted is only sata II, but shouldnt matter for gigabit ethernet and using sata III drives.
So all that said..
With freenas, no way to expand the array? What would the ZFS single parity equivalent to raid 5 be here? Does the freenas have a gui for managing remotely and sending alerts on failures?
If growth is desired, should I consider any random flavor of linux with the multi-disk manager Mdadm and mdadm gui instead? Or some other option? (FlexRaid?)
I'm concerned on making sure I make the easiest choice here for dealing with failures and long term expansion to grow beyond 8TB (if the linux/freenas options even equate out to nearly 8TB on 3, 4TB drives combined with single parity minimal)?
So quick summary is this:
1. I'd like to have 1 or 2 drive failure ability (raid 5 or 6 later on)
2. Be able to grow the array later on
3. Be able to stream at least 2 blurays at once (though really this is only ever going to be 1 at a time for now I think) to my Home Theater PC over gigabit
4. Have a web gui for managing and have alerts on failure
*it may also be nice to host gui apps for HTPC needs as well, ones supported in linux, but not a requirement, hence FreeNAS becomes one option since i may or may not need this, i think.
Thus far it would seem linux options of standard linux ubuntu? with mdadm and the gui or maybe flexraid or unraid would work, I believe flexraid supports expansion?
Thanks for any tips here
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