

FreeNAS 9.2 is out - tachion
http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2013/12/freenas-9-2-0-release.html

======
rll
I just built one recently. Motherboard-wise you should get one that supports
ECC ram. Other than that it doesn't matter that much. You typically don't use
the onboard SATA ports either, so the motherboard specs aren't very important.
I built one recently. A bit of CPU overkill, but otherwise a pretty standard
build. You can see the hardware list here:

[http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/58-Building-a-
NAS.html](http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/58-Building-a-NAS.html)

~~~
rektide
What reasons are there for ignoring the onboard SATA ports?

~~~
rll
It is also hard to find a motherboard with 8 SATA ports. They are out there,
but you end up getting them split across different types of controllers which
makes things complicated. And since you can pick up an M1015 for around $100
and flash it to IT mode I see no point in messing around with shaky onboard
SATA controllers.

~~~
tachion
Recently you can also get an Asrock Avoton motherboard with 12 SATA ports,
spreaded across three controllers, but that shouldnt be any problem.

~~~
rll
That board actually splits the SATA ports across 3 controllers and they are
not all 6Gbps. It also costs nearly $400 and doesn't support ECC ram. If you
are going to build a ZFS-based NAS you really should be using error correcting
ram. Buying a cheap $130 Supermicro board and a $100 M1015 seems like a
smarter and cheaper solution.

~~~
tachion
It uses 3 controllers, true, but 8 ports out of 12 are SATA III 6GB/s ports,
and the controllers split should not be an issue. The statement about not
supporting ECC is untrue, that board in fact does support ECC RAM. Also, its
$400, but its not a board alone but it also includes the CPU and cooling for
it, it wont require PCI controller due to high number of ports (wider choice
of smaller cases) and requires amazingly low amount of power.

------
tinfoilman
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4122937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4122937)

Lowcost home file storage,

HP Proliant Microserver (mine is N60L me thinkz) Can get cash back on it if
you look around (sometimes 35% back) ECC memory 8gb max (recommended if going
for ZFS) Western digital reds 3tb x 4 (reds have 3 year warrently and built
for raid) ZFS in raid 2 i think. (one disk redundancy)

Total space is about 7.9tb

Running FreeNas from a usb inside the case.

it works, and cost wise it was cheap minus the drives.

~~~
BuildTheRobots
HP UK are currently offering £50 cashback on servers bought on/before the 31st
December.[1]

So basically, you've got until newyears to get one ordered.

CCLonline[2] and ebuyer.com[3] are offering the servers for £180, so £130
after cashback.

I've got one already at home and plan on ordering two more tomorrow.
Surprisingly powerful boxes, can take upto 16gb DDR3 (ecc unbuffered),
internal USB and proper hardware virtualisation.

[1]
[http://h41225.www4.hp.com/UK_focus/PA0074%20-%20HP%20Microse...](http://h41225.www4.hp.com/UK_focus/PA0074%20-%20HP%20Microserver%20%C2%A350%20Cashback%20December%202013%20v2.pdf?jumpid=re_r10104_uk/en/ent/tsg/promoindex-
ot-xx-pu-golden_offers_smb/chev-hp_microse_18068/)

[2]
[http://www.cclonline.com/product/108949/704941-421/Branded-S...](http://www.cclonline.com/product/108949/704941-421/Branded-
Servers/HP-ProLiant-G7-MicroServer/SRV0383/)

[3] [http://www.ebuyer.com/430446-hp-proliant-g7-n54l-2-2ghz-
micr...](http://www.ebuyer.com/430446-hp-proliant-g7-n54l-2-2ghz-microserver-
ebuyer-704941-421)

PS> "zfs in raid 2" -I believe you mean raidZ, the zfs equivalent of raid5.
raidZ2 (zfs raid6) would only leave you with approx 6tb usable space rather
than the 9 you're quoting. As the microserver has only 4 drivebays (well, 5 if
you use the optical bay) you'd probably get better speeds and same real space
by using the zfs equivalent of raid10 rather than raidz2.

~~~
Axsuul
Thanks, nice find! But doesn't the max RAM say 8 GB?

~~~
josephb
16gb works just fine, regardless of what the sticker says :-)

~~~
dshep
Which RAM are you using? I've only been able to find 4GB sticks and that are
unbuffered ECC. All of the 8GB I've found are registered ECC.

------
aus_
ZFS is great. But one thing scares me away from using it. With ZFS, you can't
just simply add a new disk raidz set. You have to either build a new pool to
send your data to, or :

1\. Buy the same amount of (but larger) hard-disks 2\. Replace them one by one
3\. After the last disk is done, the size will grow. 4\. Sell your old hard-
disks.

Much more painful then other raid solutions.

~~~
brianlweiner
Depending on how you have the arrays organized, I'm sure you can expand a
zpool with additional sets.

[http://www.itsacon.net/computers/unix/expanding-a-zfs-
pool/](http://www.itsacon.net/computers/unix/expanding-a-zfs-pool/)

zpool add -f poolname raidz[or raidz1,raidz2,etc] /dev/driveid /dev/driveid
/dev/driveid ...

You'd then have a pool with another raidz section within it, whose size was
represented by the capacity of each of the sections within.

------
tachion
FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD and provides great platform (allowing you to use
such awesome features like ZFS, BSD/Linux Jails virtualization and many
others)for self made NAS appliances made out of any hardware available, but
also for very solid business product (like TrueNAS), when proper hardware is
used. Personally, I've switched to FreeNAS after being in love with Synology
for many years.

~~~
gitaarik
I have a Synology atm but I'm thinking of making a FreeNAS machine when I'm
done with the Synology. What would you say are the biggest differences? What
features did you miss the most? What features did you gain by using FreeNAS
that you thought were very nice?

~~~
tachion
What I've really lost is a no-brainer solution, as in purchasing, plugging and
that's it, I've also lost a vendor lock in but I dont really miss any of these
;) The most important thing I've gained is the reliability - in case Synology
dies we're screwed until we're able to buy the same or close enough model in
order to get back our data. With FreeNAS (and the bare FreeBSD based solutions
people mentioned here) I can simply take out the disks and plug them into
anything that has the ability to run FreeBSD/NAS to get back my data, since
its just ZRaid on top of ZFS. I've also gained the flexibility of building the
right NAS for my needs thanks to the wide hardware choice, FreeBSD and Linux
Jails virtualization, and most things I really was afraid of, that are AFP
support and Time Machine targets are there. And, the coolnes factor, you get a
chance to dig around and build it on your own, gazzilion TB's of storage ;)

------
Axsuul
I'm thinking about building a NAS this week. Any build recommendations,
suggestions on where to start? I know people used to recommend NAS4Free over
FreeNAS, is that still the case?

~~~
crest
FreeNAS was suffering from technical debt because it was build on the code
base of a firewall appliance for small CF cards. The project initiator gave up
on it and it needed a rewrite. Most active contributors had a Linux background
and wanted to use a Linux distro as starting point. At that point iX Systems
moved in and offered to take over. They started the rewrite and leveraged the
improvements made in FreeBSD. The new FreeNAS lacked some features home useres
wanted e.g. a BitTorrent client and media streaming until the new plugin
mechanism was ready.

I'm a FreeBSD user and tend to avoid any automagic between me and the system
but the FreeNAS 9.2.0 RC looked very promising.

~~~
dannypgh
I enjoyed a brief experience with FreeNAS but ended up wishing I had a full
FreeBSD system -- it's easy to miss things like ports and the like. I was able
to upgrade in-place to FreeBSD 9-STABLE however, which was a great experience.

I probably should have better documented by upgrade-in-place procedure but at
the time I didn't know whether it would work. It was fairly straightforward,
using documentation for root on ZFS.

------
sreitshamer
Has anyone successfully written a FreeNAS plugin? My experience is with Linux,
not FreeBSD, and I'm struggling to figure out how to package up my server as a
FreeNAS plugin.

------
jmuguy
Still no HyperV support for directly attached disks/raw storage :(

~~~
tachion
FreeBSD 10.0 should be out soon
([http://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.0R/schedule.html](http://www.freebsd.org/releases/10.0R/schedule.html))
and there should be something there to make your day
([http://vvm.blog.tut.by/2013/10/08/freebsd-10-on-
hyper-v/](http://vvm.blog.tut.by/2013/10/08/freebsd-10-on-hyper-v/)).

------
pibefision
Is there a recommended motherboard or cpu to use this in a house?

~~~
tachion
Basically, its anything that FreeBSD can run on (and that's a lot, on its own:
[http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.2R/hardware.html](http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.2R/hardware.html))
and that will at the same time fill your needs (in terms of platform
architecture, power consumption, number of available/supported IO/storage
options, size and so on). If you're still unsure, there's a great community
and forum available, and some general hardware guide can be found here (it
covers entire NAS appliance): [http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-you-want-
some-hardware-...](http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-you-want-some-
hardware-suggestions.12276/)

~~~
pibefision
thank you!

------
kudu
How does this compare to NAS4Free
([http://www.nas4free.org/](http://www.nas4free.org/)), the original FreeNAS?

~~~
tachion
They are very similar, yet very different at the same time ;) You can read
more here: [http://ivoras.net/blog/tree/2013-02-22.freenas-vs-
nas4free.h...](http://ivoras.net/blog/tree/2013-02-22.freenas-vs-
nas4free.html) and here: [http://forums.freenas.org/threads/freenas-vs-
nas4free.16422/](http://forums.freenas.org/threads/freenas-vs-nas4free.16422/)

