Help needed for a file server/nas solution

Hi everyone

I have a synology DS1812+ and a ss4200 box with WHS v1 on it. The ss4200 box is used to pretty much back up everything that's stored on the synology box.

The ss4200 box is running out of free space (4x2tb), but WHS v1 does not support larger drives than 2tb. I have a copy of whs 2011, but I've read that they got rid of the drive extender feature where it combines all the drives into one.

Should I get a copy of server 2012 and make a storage pool? If anyone has experience with storage pools, is it possible to have a partition on 1 disk for the os and have the remainder of the unallocated space go to a pool? I already have 4x3tb wd red drives. I'd like to allocate like 100 gb for the os (c:\ drive), and the rest combined into 1 disk for shares.

Additional thing to note is that my ss4200 box has c2d e4700 and 2GB of memory.

Is there a better solution for what I'm trying to accomplish, or should I be looking to replace the ss4200?

Thanks

I don't have any personal experience with storage pools, but I have been impressed with Server 2012 all around. However, have you thought about moving to a flavor of linux? The money you save on the OS could be spent on an upgrade for the ss4200 or some additional disks.

Ideally I would run the os from a separate HDD, unfortunately the ss4200 only has 4 sata ports. I like the form factor of the ss4200. I have a co-worker whose wife works for M$, I can probably get the os for like $50.

I have considered linux, but I felt like it was a pain to set up shares and specific access when I helped a friend with CentOS recently. Maybe I was doing it wrong, lol. I guess I would have to do a software raid 0 in linux to combine all the drives.

When moving from whs v1 to whs2011, picked up stablebit drivepool and have nothing but positives to say about it. Running short on space? Just add another drive to the pool. One drive died (and you're running full redundancy)? Np...identify/remove the drive (adding a new one if needed).

I run the os on a dedicated drive but you could certainly partition your os drive and add the non-os partition to the pool if you want.

FreeNAS has been working well for me so far, and I'm far from a Linux or networking guru. I'm running the OS off of a USB flash drive so I don't have to worry about the OS being on the same drives as my 5x2TB RAIDZ storage or wasting a SATA port on a dedicated OS drive.

So far I've setup the following:

• CIF shares for sharing with Windows machines
• FTP sharing for remote access
• SSH if needed
• Mumble server for VOIP
• Transmission plugin
• Plex Media Server for music streaming to mobile devices and remote PCs

There is quite a lot of support out there for FreeNAS from the community as well, and I would usually google for guides when I needed help. The official site has some good video guides as well.

Is the performance affected by running the os from a flash drive?

I've got teamspeak, sftp, plex, and other things running from the synology box, so this box doesn't need to do any of that.

I really don't need any type of redundant raid, as the synology box serves as a backup.

Is there an option to pool multiple drives using FreeNas to have the shares be all in the same place, or do I need to go with raid 0 for that?

The ss4200 box has no display out, do you know what kind of remote management / remote desktop options FreeNas offers?

if you are going to do a windows server make sure you do Server 2012 R2 as R2 is based on 8.1 while 2012 is based on windows 8. my home server is a Server 2012 R2 box, I have a separate HDD (which I highly recommend) also with Server you can do a easy Soft raid system I am running raid 1 (mirror) to protection the information but you can easy do Raid 0, 5 or JBODs.

I don't know much about the ss4200 but you could add a raid card if you have the Expansion port for more sata ports


Matts option is cheaper (free OS) and normally Linux is Less of a resource hog over windows, but if you are like me you will have to do extra work learning a Linux disro.
if you plan on upgrading you server I recommend looking at the classy for used hardware I found a 2p 24core (2x12) G43 motherboard and processers for $250 and only spent another $250 on hardware (not counting HDDs)


quick EDIT: just notice you posted if you just want a massive Drive Pool you want just a bunch of drives (JBOD) which FreeNas should do

If you are interested, you can take a look at the images for this product. It exactly has enough room for 4 HDDs, 4 sata ports. It's a tight fit. It does have a pcie 1x slot. Maybe there is some kind of small pcie 1x to sata so I can attach a small ssd to it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859117003

medo145 said:

Is the performance affected by running the os from a flash drive?

I've got teamspeak, sftp, plex, and other things running from the synology box, so this box doesn't need to do any of that.

I really don't need any type of redundant raid, as the synology box serves as a backup.

Is there an option to pool multiple drives using FreeNas to have the shares be all in the same place, or do I need to go with raid 0 for that?

The ss4200 box has no display out, do you know what kind of remote management / remote desktop options FreeNas offers?

Click to expand...

AFAIK, there isn't a difference with USB or HDD for the OS. FreeNAS recommends using a USB drive for the OS (4GB minimum, but recommend 8GB or bigger) since there isn't any partitioning and the OS will take up the whole drive regardless of size. Something I forgot to mention was that the amount of RAM installed affects the performance of FreeNAS, so you want as much as possible (they recommend 8GB minimum, but you can use less). Can you add more RAM to your system?

I believe the FreeNAS "stripe" option in the Volume Manager will pool drives without redundancy.

FreeNAS uses a web-based user interface for management and remote access. So, if you use your WAN IP and port number (open the port on router), you should be able to access the web GUI on a PC outside of your local network. On your local network, you can just use the FreeNAS LAN IP of course.

Unfortunately I can't add any more ram. From what I have read, 4GB is the limitation for that chipset 2GB per bank. That board only has 1 dimm slot. WHS runs pretty well with just 2GB. I'm surprised that they recommend 8GB. Surely it doesn't need that much just for file transfers and steaming media from it. Maybe the extra memory helps with the creation and maintaining of the software raid?

I'll try to set up a FreeNas VM tonight and I'll allocate 2GB to it to see what it feels like.

That's a good idea to test in a VM. I think the RAM suggested has something to do with the software storage pools as well, like caching the reads/writes. So, if there are a ton of transfers being done or the RAM amount is small, then the transfer speed will be limited to disk speed instead of the RAM cache speed which may not even matter to you and your situation.

medo145 said:

Unfortunately I can't add any more ram. From what I have read, 4GB is the limitation for that chipset 2GB per bank. That board only has 1 dimm slot. WHS runs pretty well with just 2GB. I'm surprised that they recommend 8GB. Surely it doesn't need that much just for file transfers and steaming media from it. Maybe the extra memory helps with the creation and maintaining of the software raid?

I'll try to set up a FreeNas VM tonight and I'll allocate 2GB to it to see what it feels like.

Click to expand...

freenas actually recommends 8GB for the OS and 1GB per TB of disk space after that.

For a different alternative, I would look at openmediavault

Where did you find that info? I thought FreeNAS allocates ~1GB for the OS and the rest is free to use for the 1GB per 1TB storage recommendation.

Apparently freenas loads the os into ram, that's why they recommend that much.

MattNo5ss said:

Where did you find that info? I thought FreeNAS allocates ~1GB for the OS and the rest is free to use for the 1GB per 1TB storage recommendation.

Click to expand...

It's written in their hardware recommendation guides on their site

Does it matter how these are arranged?