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You could take a look at Proxmox, if you are considering FreeNAS because of the GUI. Proxmox would do the same for your virtualisation needs as FreeNAS would for your storage and it has ZFS onboard.
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Jun 8, 2016 11:36
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Or UnRaid if you want something really simple. I'm using it to host about 10 docker images and a couple of VMs. So far I have no complaints coming from ESX.
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Jun 8, 2016 12:57
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SamDabbers posted:How about using the HighPoint card in JBOD/non-RAID mode (so you don't need an expander) and running a storage VM under Hyper-V with the disks passed through? Then you aren't limited in your choice of OS or file system for software RAID, and you can export the storage via SMB/NFS/iSCSI/etc to use it outside of the VM. Your solution requires him to use Hyper-V in Windows 10/Server 2012 (which needs its own disk(s)) as a semi-baremetal hypervisor with both host-OS and an appliance guest-OS on top (which needs even more disks), at which point might be more efficient to take a little time and get used to FreeBSD with the handbook, so you can use ZFS directly on the disks (plus ZFS as a root file system, meaning FreeBSD itself will be faster and more reliable) and bhyve for a semi-baremetal hypervisor if he needs it - because, let's be honest here, while most of the appliance OS' that give you a NAS device are quite good, none of them let you get away with much more than simple filesharing without at least a good bit of command-line fiddling. SAS expanders are enclosures with all disks hooked up to a minimum of two external connectors which makes it possible to provide both daisy-chaining for expandability and redundancy, but require specific storage HBAs that can handle a lot more disks - whereas SAS enclosures are enclosures with one external connector for each four disks which gives you zero expandability or redundancy, but you can use any storage HBA. IOMMU (the generic name for the technology that Intel and AMD respectively call VT-d and IOV) is available for quite a few desktop CPUs, and has been a feature on non-k Intel CPUs since Sandy Bridge and has been a feature on the higher-end i7 -k CPUs (including HEDT), since Haswell(-e). I agree with Horn that if he's looking for a solution that's the least linuxy, going with UnRAID is the best option for now - at least until FreeNAS 10 comes out, which may change things. I also think it's worth mentioning that I don't think this thread will ever come to any consensus about what is best - and we're all too lazy to keep a consistently up-to-date list of pros and cons for which-ever flavour we like - so the best suggestion may be to just tell people to take a little time and try things out, before they settle on a permanent solution. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 8, 2016 |
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Jun 8, 2016 13:56
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IOwnCalculus posted:Synology seems to be reasonably well liked. More expensive than DIY but reasonably quick. Counterpoint: DIY Xpenology - easiest DIY there is. Done in 5 minutes.
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Jun 8, 2016 19:36
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Thanks guys for all the suggestions and advice. I'm up and running with FreeNAS in a VM. It was pretty painless all things considered. My main gripe is that the mapping between the disks in the VM and the HighPoint LUNs is completely lost. I might be able to build a spreadsheet based on the disk serial numbers, or maybe the GPT IDs, but it's less than ideal. Also, performance is only 60MBps for both sequential read and write, with no apparent CPU bottleneck anywhere. It could be the HighPoint HBA, it could be FreeBSD being FreeBSD, but at this point this will do. I'll probably move to a host with Linux on it in the fall, and run ZFS natively. I would imagine the ZFS disks are interchangeable between FreeBSD and Linux?
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Jun 9, 2016 00:50
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If you're passing through LUNs / VMDKs then you probably can't actually put those disks in a baremetal ZFS setup.
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Jun 9, 2016 05:16
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FreeNAS should, in theory, be able to import the zpool directly, but I'm not sure any other appliance NAS can import the pool - and even importing it in FreeBSD is a bitch because of the way FreeNAS uses GEOM to setup partitions and encrypt them (in software, if AES-NI is not available) by default. Best practices for creating a zpool involve setting the gpt label of the partition to the serial number of the disk before pool creation, then adding devices by label (ie. /dev/label/<sn> instead of /dev/ada0), and putting physical labels on the disks where you can easily see them without taking them out - it can be done after pool creation but involves exporting your pool and importing it with the -d switch. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 08:23
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Hi Jinx posted:Thanks guys for all the suggestions and advice. I'm up and running with FreeNAS in a VM. It was pretty painless all things considered. Nope, as mentioned GEOM throws a spanner in the works. Linux, Solaris and OSX are fine.
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Jun 9, 2016 10:34
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FreeBSD (through bsdinstall or manual root-on-zfs setup via a shell on the netinstall.iso) is fine too - it's just FreeNAS that uses GEOM, and I can't really fathom why.
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Jun 9, 2016 14:27
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Learned an important lesson today: I need to periodically shut down my Synology, remove the drives, and clear out all of the accumulated dust. My HDDs are currently idling 15°F cooler 
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Jun 9, 2016 20:16
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Stutes posted:Learned an important lesson today: I need to periodically shut down my Synology, remove the drives, and clear out all of the accumulated dust. My HDDs are currently idling 15°F cooler I thoroughly dust all my computers every few weeks with this thing, it kicks rear end. Just make sure your fans don't spin when you blow air on them.
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Jun 9, 2016 22:15
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I would like a dual NIC 4-bay NAS with easy to use user accounts/permissions. Is the QNAP TS-451 a decent NAS? It's almost half the price of the Synology DS415+.
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Jun 10, 2016 03:01
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fletcher posted:I thoroughly dust all my computers every few weeks with this thing, it kicks rear end. Just make sure your fans don't spin when you blow air on them. That...doesn't seem ESD safe.
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Jun 10, 2016 03:27
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PerrineClostermann posted:That...doesn't seem ESD safe. I know three other people, plus myself, that use that thing regularly and I've never had a single problem.
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Jun 10, 2016 03:28
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Make that four. That thing is awesome
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Jun 10, 2016 03:59
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I use one of these to blow out my computers: https://www.amazon.com/Toro-51585-E...ric+leaf+blower
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Jun 10, 2016 04:32
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PerrineClostermann posted:That...doesn't seem ESD safe. Well there is an ESD safe version that's not sold directly by amazon (third parties or from the company's website) but 
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Jun 10, 2016 04:41
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PerrineClostermann posted:That...doesn't seem ESD safe. Has anybody ever actually had ESD issues when working on computers? I never even think about it, even when I'm working on carpet and poo poo
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Jun 10, 2016 05:59
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fletcher posted:Has anybody ever actually had ESD issues when working on computers? I never even think about it, even when I'm working on carpet and poo poo I still compulsively touch a grounded surface every time I work on something but no, as far as I know, ESD has never been the component killing boogeyman they taught us to fear.
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Jun 10, 2016 06:13
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Last (and honestly only) time I saw an ESD issue, was gently caress i'm old 16 years ago or so at a LAN party. I forget why but someone was screwing around in someone else's desktop and I believe they fried the RAM. It might've been powered on at the time too.
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Jun 10, 2016 06:19
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I just leave the power lead connected so the thing is grounded.
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Jun 10, 2016 10:22
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fletcher posted:Has anybody ever actually had ESD issues when working on computers? I never even think about it, even when I'm working on carpet and poo poo Ages ago we used to have computers with the original Antec Sonata at work and I occasionally wore pants that generated quite a bit of static electricity. I noticed a phenomenon that if I touched the chromed USB port cover on the Sonata it would immediately reboot. What's disturbing is that I couldn't figure any kind of electrical connection from the cover to the computer. It was just chromed plastic cover attached to the plastic case front with about 1 cm distance to the USB ports. Still rebooted every time. I would wish someone tested ESD. Take an old computer and see how big a static discharge it would take to fry the RAM sticks.
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Jun 10, 2016 16:42
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I converted my always-on computer from windows to unraid and the plex performance has greatly dropped. Windows, it would take about 2-3 seconds for the video to start. On unraid, it takes around 10 seconds. Is it because it's now running in the docker sandbox? Should I try installing plex as a plugin instead?
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Jun 11, 2016 02:26
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The new FreeNAS UI looks pretty nice. Not just visually, seems like feedback and responsiveness is vastly improved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TS6vvpP1yQ Edit: bhyve+docker will be a huge shot in the arm for the ecosystem. Chilled Milk fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jun 11, 2016 |
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Jun 11, 2016 06:26
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Finally got to build my DIY NAS and throw Nas4Free on top. So far I'm quite happy! I went from about 40 MB/s of throughput on my older Synology to 80 MB/s on the new NAS. And it's just faster overall (GUI, listing directories, etc). At 70W it does consume more power though. I was wondering if anybody had recommendations for the fine tuning of the system? For instance, I'm wondering about the Power Management and Acoustic Level settings - since the NAS is right next to me, it'd be nice to save on the decibels. I'll definitively run some tests to see how that impacts the performance, but any tip could be good to know! E: Also, SyncThing on Nas4Free is still version 12.x. My other computers run the latest major release, 13x. And those are not compatible. How dangerous would it be to just copy the FreeBSD build manually on the NAS (keeping in mind to keep the correct ownership etc) ?
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Jun 11, 2016 08:40
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The Milkman posted:The new FreeNAS UI looks pretty nice. Not just visually, seems like feedback and responsiveness is vastly improved.
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Jun 11, 2016 13:16
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Does freenas10 support volume expansion like synology?
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Jun 11, 2016 15:51
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FreeNAS uses ZFS. You can enlarge RAIDZ or mirror arrays by swapping drives one after another for bigger ones. You can't expand a RAIDZ by adding more drives to it.
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Jun 11, 2016 15:57
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Newegg in their current promo email has 4tb HGST NAS drives for $139.99
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Jun 11, 2016 16:21
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MeruFM posted:I converted my always-on computer from windows to unraid and the plex performance has greatly dropped. One of the features of Unraid is it will spin down the drives and only spin up the ones you are reading from. It sounds like maybe this is happening and the extra time is spinning the drive back up. You can turn this off, see if that changes things.
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Jun 11, 2016 16:35
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Don Lapre posted:Does freenas10 support volume expansion like synology? Kind of. You can't expand it with a single disk at a time and keep everything redundant, but you can add more vdevs to a pool. So if your initial configuration is: code:code:code:code:
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Jun 11, 2016 19:40
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I'd like to build a FreeNAS setup but so far the sticking point is finding a motherboard that supports ECC that is not too expensive, any good options out or on the horizon? Cheapest I have seen are around $200CAD. I'd like to get a pentium or possibly i3, socket 1151 for the potential for upgrades. Or if I go with a non-ECC setup am I just asking for problems with freenas/ZFS?
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Jun 11, 2016 19:57
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That's a  right there - you'll find plenty of people on the FreeNAS forums and elsewhere who are adamant that ZFS doesn't need ECC possibly because they haven't yet observed data corruption caused by a lack of ECC memory, but probably because they misunderstand the nuanced statement of one of the ZFS developers who said that it no more needs it than any other software based RAID needs it, as there are good reasons why every software-based RAID user would want ECC for their memory (although the article only mentions ZFS, it applies equally to all software-based RAID solutions). Ultimately, it's worth noting that ZFS was designed for enterprise storage where data integrety is key, and that it needs ECC because it does not handle memory corruption.So, can you get away with not using ECC and still have safe data? Science says not in the long run, but since a cloud based backup solution costs as little as 10 bux a month, you can probably justify it since you're going to need a backup solution anyway. As for systems that'll support ECC, you're gonna be as angry with Intel as every other home builder is, because none of desktop CPUs support ECC for market segmentation reasons. Besides that, ECC also requires motherboard support - so you're probably looking at either a workstation or a server motherboard of some description. The biggest problem with desktop CPUs is that they don't support that much memory - 32GB being the upper end outside of HEDT - and ZFS is very memory hungry as you ought to have discovered if you've been doing your homework. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jun 11, 2016 |
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Jun 11, 2016 21:04
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ECC is a problem for all use of consumer systems, not just data storage.
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Jun 11, 2016 21:40
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There are a number of Pentium and i3 chips that support ECC btw. If you want to go backwards a socket, the 1150 Supermicro x10sl7 is used by a number of people for FreeNAS. There's one on ebay right now for $150 USD, doesn't really state if thats new or used but I would assume used. But that price basically includes an LSI 2308 controller which on its own would be a couple hundred.
phosdex fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jun 11, 2016 |
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Jun 11, 2016 21:54
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D. Ebdrup posted:So, can you get away with not using ECC and still have safe data? Science says not in the long run, but since a cloud based backup solution costs as little as 10 bux a month, you can probably justify it since you're going to need a backup solution anyway. D. Ebdrup posted:The biggest problem with desktop CPUs is that they don't support that much memory - 32GB being the upper end outside of HEDT - and ZFS is very memory hungry as you ought to have discovered if you've been doing your homework.
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Jun 12, 2016 01:31
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Thanks for the responses on that! I'm thinking perhaps going with a B150 chipset + Pentium 4400 and running something like unraid instead.. All I need is something for a media server/downloader really. I've been going back and forth between building one and just getting a synology/qnap for ages now.
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Jun 12, 2016 01:46
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priznat posted:I'd like to build a FreeNAS setup but so far the sticking point is finding a motherboard that supports ECC that is not too expensive, any good options out or on the horizon? Cheapest I have seen are around $200CAD. ZFS won't make things worse than they would be with a cheap non-ECC NAS or a consumer motherboard RAID. Maybe I'm wrong, because the regular scrub runs could actually gently caress up your data due to random bit errors when otherwise it'd be safe on disk? You're probably still better off with ZFS. In any case, if you can buy Xeons, there's no reason to run consumer level stuff. You can find plenty of used Xeon boards on ebay, with CPU and RAM, even for under a hundred bucks. If that isn't your idea of fun, the next step up would be, as far as I know, an entry-level Xeon board like the ASRock Mini ITX, or a Xeon D board, but I doubt you can pull either off for less than $500 with CPU, and then you'll need to add RAM.
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Jun 12, 2016 01:56
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If you're going to spend that much anyways, try looking at a Lenovo TS120 (or TS440 on the high end) or a Dell T20. They're regularly on sale at very affordable prices.
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Jun 12, 2016 02:08
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Combat Pretzel posted:If bitrot via memory doesn't get detected, it eventually ends up in your online backup. 1: It offers you previous versions of files 2: It isn't continuous. This means anything can be restored even with eventual bitrot (which can happen even with ECC memory*, an article that I also linked in my previous post), and that it isn't suceptible to crypto-lockers. As for ZFS and memory, if you follow the guideline of 1GB memory for every 1TB of raw storage, even a 4x4TB pool in raidz1 would need 16GB memory - and that leaves absolutely no memory for the OS itself, or additional applications that you might want to run. *: Presumably this applies to any other software RAID that depends on ECC memory for its in-memory corruption protection. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 06:49
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