FreeNAS Alternative

[Orch]

Just started setting up FreeNAS on a HP Microserver, but quickly realised a) it's too complicated for my basic brain and basic needs, plus b) I would need to format my existing drives, but don't have anywhere to shift the data to in the meantime.

So, I think I'm heading down the wrong path. All I'm trying to achieve right now is moving 2 x 1TB hardrives out of my PC into the server and continue to stream the media content to Kodi devices around the house.

I will look into RAID/backup options at a later date.

What would be a good OS to use?

 

[Orch]

I've been using OpenMediaVault for the past couple of years on my N54L.

Easy to install, easy to setup.

http://www.openmediavault.org/

Thanks Cansa. Glad to hear you say that, that's one of the options I was considering. I assume no need to format drives before adding?

 

[Orch]

XPenology is fantastic, it's Synology software for your non-Synology branded server.

Will check that one out as well, thanks

 

[Orch]

I use NAS4FREE, it has support for NTFS.

I would recommend that you watch some Youtube tutorials on which ever solution you decide on. Most NAS solution aren't that complicated once you have time to play.

One thing for sure, if you don't want to risk the data on your 2*1Tb drives I would buy a backup device. Maybe put a 2Tb drive in your NAS first and copy your data over. You only have to get click happy and boom your data has gone.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-e...ernal-hard-drive-wdbwlg0020hbk-hd-419-wd.html

Yeh this is what's worry me, I came pretty close last night tbh.

I might actually do that.

 

[Orch]

+1 for openmediavault

A freeNas dev started it, it's debian/linux based and has a very good/helpful community around it.

Good to hear, thank you. I think that's winning so far.

 

[Orch]

Went with Open Media Vault in the end, and bought a WD Red 3TB on the way home. All setup nice and easy, really pleased with it.

Not so pleased to realise my max transfer speeds are around 4.5MB/s. 2TB is going to take days to transfer!

 

[Orch]

Transferring films from PC hard drive, drag and drop into server folder, over home network via 200mbps homeplugs

it's an old house so could the eletrical wiring strangle it? or am I doing things in a stupid way?

 

[Orch]

never really transferred much over the network tbh.

would be nice if I could get close to 25MB/s though! would still be 5 times faster!

 

[Orch]

Yeh could do actually, will try that

 

[Orch]

Can't for the life of me work out how to get the PC to recognise the drives on the server :\

 

[Orch]

Yeh I am. Being dumb here I expect but now they are direct connected, windows just shows an unidentified network and I can't see anything to transfer to?

Appreciate your help so far!

 

[Orch]

Doesn't give me the option to change it seemingly. Windows 10

 

[Orch]

Did a quick google...

https://tinkertry.com/how-to-change-windows-10-network-type-from-public-to-private

Is it there?

Sorry Stew, gave up in the end and left it running at 4MB/s. Got up this morning to 16% of 606GB completed and it now running at 650kb/s

That can't be right. Do we think it's more likely to be the network or the hard drive?

Will have a dig around at work today and see if I can find a long Cat5 cable, then I'll plug them both into the router directly, no homeplugs.

Although I don't understand why it's at 650kb/s this morning

 

[Orch]

This is what happened to the already slow speed early in the morning

 

[Orch]

Well, it's not the read speed of the old drive, just tried transferring from an SSD to the server and it's the same restriction.

So far I have tried

- Disabling “TCP Auto-Tuning”
- Disabling “Large Send Offload (LSO)”
- Disabling IP6
- Set Speed & Duplex to auto in network card properties
- Disabled Windows Firewall
- Disabled Windows Defender

None have made any difference.

have rebooted server and client numerous times.

I'd actually be chuffed if I got 5MB/s back now lol

 

[Orch]

Had a look at iperf, no idea how to use it. Will have another look later.

A router reboot has got me back to 5MB/s, more investigations once kids in bed.

 

[Orch]

How many drives do you have in your server?
What drive are you running OMV on?
Can you show me screen shots of the following form the webgui :-
Storage > File Systems
and
Storage > Physical Disks

Cheers

One 3TB drive

 

[Orch]

I chatted with David in IRC

[+Davidh2k] i dunno, we always have some guy once in a while that gets really bad transfer rates
[+Davidh2k] he has to run 'iperf -s' <- on the server
[+Davidh2k] and at the other end he has to run 'iperf -d -c HOSTNAMEofSERVER' <- on the client. If the client is a winbox, you can get iperf for windows from here

https://iperf.fr/iperf-download.php

Ok, will give it a shot, but don't have a clue how to achieve this. I'm guessing I need to SSH into the server then enter that command? It's been a few years since I've done anything via SSH!

 

[Orch]

There is no "give it a shot", just a "i will do".

It's a command prompt, just the commands happen on a remote computer.

You will need>

Putty
ip addy of server
root
password (you set this during installation)
iperf -s

copy and paste what you see to pastebin and post the link here.

You're over estimating my abilities

what am I doing wrong?

By the way I now have both PC and Server connected directly to the router. Currently getting 11MB/s

Server specs

don't know if any of this is relevant

Spoiler

 

[Orch]

Hang on, my router is a standard plusnet 2704n, which is 100mbps. So 11.3MB/s is basically full speed isn't it?

So I need a gigabit router to see anything quicker?