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FreeNAS - Yay or Nay?
- Thread starter stockhausen
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Soldato
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yes i do.
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If you don't mind me asking:
- what hardware are you using it with?
- how easy / trouble free did you find it to install?
- how trouble free / reliable has it been in use?
- for how long have you been running it?
- what made you choose to run FreeNAS rather than buying a NAS box or building one based on Linux & SAMBA?
- anything else of interest about it?
Soldato
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I have tried freenas in the past and it's easy to setup, but is a PITA to get sabnzbd running (usenet downloader).
I run arch linux on my homeserver now, it uses a bsd style system similar to FreeBSD, which FreeNAS is made from.
What hardware? Asus AMD AM2+ mainboard, Sempron 140, 512mb ram, 3TB storage. onboard Nvidia 8200.
A monkey can manage FreeNAS as it's all done through a web interface.
I used freeNAS for a few weeks, but my arch linux box has been running for years.
Why I built a home server? I can add as many HDD as I want, I can setup a mailserver, printer server, web server if I want to.
Why dont you install virtualbox, burn the FreeNAS CD and try it yourself? That way you can see what it does and how it does it.
I run arch linux on my homeserver now, it uses a bsd style system similar to FreeBSD, which FreeNAS is made from.
What hardware? Asus AMD AM2+ mainboard, Sempron 140, 512mb ram, 3TB storage. onboard Nvidia 8200.
A monkey can manage FreeNAS as it's all done through a web interface.
I used freeNAS for a few weeks, but my arch linux box has been running for years.
Why I built a home server? I can add as many HDD as I want, I can setup a mailserver, printer server, web server if I want to.
Why dont you install virtualbox, burn the FreeNAS CD and try it yourself? That way you can see what it does and how it does it.
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Thanks for all that Oxy - a 2.7GHz CPU and just 512Mb RAM - I am most impressed - just goes to show how memory efficient FreeBSD is!
I take it you have multiple drives in a RAID setup to offer 3TB? I was under the impression that there was an "issue" with > 2TB, how tricky was it to get over this (assuming it is actually a problem)?
I have already downloaded FreeNAS and based on what you have said, I will certainly set up a test / evaluation system with it - although in the initial instance, I will probably NOT go for 3TB.
Again, thanks for posting
I take it you have multiple drives in a RAID setup to offer 3TB? I was under the impression that there was an "issue" with > 2TB, how tricky was it to get over this (assuming it is actually a problem)?
I have already downloaded FreeNAS and based on what you have said, I will certainly set up a test / evaluation system with it - although in the initial instance, I will probably NOT go for 3TB.
Again, thanks for posting
Soldato
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I don't bother with raid as my server is simple media server. I don't really care if a HDD fails 
You don't need a fast cpu or ram, you could use a pentium3 just fine, basically because I am doing nothing intensive and am not running a GUI.
I understand freenas has a raid setup thing in its web interface, I have never bothered with it though.
What do you intend to use the server for? will you need torrents or usenet?
You don't need a fast cpu or ram, you could use a pentium3 just fine, basically because I am doing nothing intensive and am not running a GUI.
I understand freenas has a raid setup thing in its web interface, I have never bothered with it though.
What do you intend to use the server for? will you need torrents or usenet?
Take a look at unRAID (http://www.lime-technology.com) if you're interested in having redundancy *and* expandability
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Initially, just general backup and (shared) storage around the house (.MP3s, photos, correspondence, etc.) - I wont be using Torrents or Usenet. If it works well, I may end up using it in a commercial environment.
Thanks for that, I have just had a look at it but will probably focus on FreeNAS initially. I was particularly amused by the following comment / offer from the unRAID site
. . . oh, it has to be on 3 x HHDs in the case of the free unregistered version
Soldato
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I'm just a humble home user but you sound as if you may work in IT.
Maybe it would be worth while "playing" with debian and/or FreeBSD (which FreeNAS is based off) to setup a homeserver yourself.
With a bit of reading you will not need a GUI and by using a proper linux/BSD distro you will be able to easily install a mailserver, webserver, or whatever else.
FreeNAS is great until you want to install something that isn't in the OS by default, the FreeNAS dev stripped FreeBSD down and installled there apps, but it makes installing other things hard.
Maybe something you wish to consider.
Maybe it would be worth while "playing" with debian and/or FreeBSD (which FreeNAS is based off) to setup a homeserver yourself.
With a bit of reading you will not need a GUI and by using a proper linux/BSD distro you will be able to easily install a mailserver, webserver, or whatever else.
FreeNAS is great until you want to install something that isn't in the OS by default, the FreeNAS dev stripped FreeBSD down and installled there apps, but it makes installing other things hard.
Maybe something you wish to consider.
The 2 terabyte problem is that it's currently difficult (perhaps impossible) to boot from a volume greater in size than two terabytes. As most people who have this much storage have heard of partitioning it's not a great issue.
I'd choose arch/debian over freenas personally, but it's probably a preference thing.
I'd choose arch/debian over freenas personally, but it's probably a preference thing.
Ditto. I find single purpose distros like FreeNAS, IPCop, et al. make it really hard to do anything beyond what they are designed for.
At least with a standard distribution you can install something else to use up those squandered CPU cycles. In addition to being a NAS, my Debian box is currently running a MySQL server, a torrent client and a usenet client and I'm thinking about popping a folding client on there too.
But if you want something that just works, then I guess FreeNAS is a pretty solid choice.
Soldato
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I'm currently running FreeNAS and been very impressed so far! It's running on an Intel Atom D945GCLF with 2Gb RAM and the actual operating system is on a 512Mb USB pen. Have only been using it for about a couple of weeks but seems fairly solid. Chose it over a full install purely as it was simple (very simple) to install, took about 30 minutes to get up and running. Web interface is simple and straightforward to use, plus had everything I required.
Plenty of information is available if you wish to add additional functionality. I tried out setting FreeNAS up as a print server and it appears to work well, although that was only done as part of testing and haven't actually set it up properly yet.
The only downside at the moment is file transfer speeds but that's due to only having a 100Mbit connection. Will be upgrading to 1Gbit very shortly which will solve that issue
Plenty of information is available if you wish to add additional functionality. I tried out setting FreeNAS up as a print server and it appears to work well, although that was only done as part of testing and haven't actually set it up properly yet.
The only downside at the moment is file transfer speeds but that's due to only having a 100Mbit connection. Will be upgrading to 1Gbit very shortly which will solve that issue