I've dabbled with FreeNAS in the past and had such a great experience with pfSense (a similar FreeBSD-based project) that I jumped in with both feet on my home office server build. But my initial impressions were, frankly, terrible. I've got the system running and stable now, but I'm finding it difficult to recommend FreeNAS at this point. 2017 Update: I'm still running … [Read more...] about FreeNAS First Impressions
FreeNAS
Migrating Data With ZFS Send and Receive
I'm a huge fan of rsync as a migration tool, but FreeNAS is ZFS-centric so I decided to take a shot at using some of the native tools to move data. I'm not sold on it for daily use, but ZFS Send and Receive is awfully useful for "internal" maintenance tasks like moving datasets and rebuilding pools. Since this kind of migration isn't well-documented online, I figured I would … [Read more...] about Migrating Data With ZFS Send and Receive
My FreeNAS Build: Supermicro X10SL7, Intel Haswell Xeon, ECC RAM
In my last post, I talked about my decision to build a FreeNAS box. Today I'm going to dive into the hardware I selected, starting with the motherboard, CPU, and memory. FreeNAS runs on any PC hardware, but building a reliable and scalable storage solution means picking higher-end components. I selected a Supermicro X10SL7 server-class motherboard with 14 (!) SAS/SATA ports … [Read more...] about My FreeNAS Build: Supermicro X10SL7, Intel Haswell Xeon, ECC RAM
Hello FreeNAS! Goodbye Drobo and Iomega…
Long-time readers of my blog know of my love for Drobo, but the time has come to say goodbye. My old Drobos (and Iomega ix-4) are showing their age and I decided to go in a different direction: I'm building a FreeNAS server. In this article I'll talk about my thinking behind this move; later posts will talk in more detail about the hardware and software setup. Bulk Home … [Read more...] about Hello FreeNAS! Goodbye Drobo and Iomega…
The Dumb Disk Fallacy
I am spending a few weeks examining the truths and fictions that bind our industry together. Let's start with one of my favorite old canards: That enterprise storage must be overpriced because bare disk drives are so cheap. I have seen this straw man argument set up by so many throughout my career that it has become laughably predictable. Every time a new high or low point … [Read more...] about The Dumb Disk Fallacy