question on media to install on

[rceit]

Hello All!

Can anyone tell me the 'preferred' media to install nas4free on? Is there any benefit between a name brand usb pen drive vs a small older 7200 rpm 40 / 80 gig HD?

The servers will be dell optiplex i5 PC's with 8 gig ram, limited array of HD's ( 3-4 ) 250's or 500's. Max users for any one server will probably be no more that 20 people.

If a pen drive is satisfactory, do I clone it to another for a failsafe? Can I run a mirrored one?

Thanks for any comments

[JoseMR]

Hello All!

Can anyone tell me the 'preferred' media to install nas4free on? Is there any benefit between a name brand usb pen drive vs a small older 7200 rpm 40 / 80 gig HD?

The servers will be dell optiplex i5 PC's with 8 gig ram, limited array of HD's ( 3-4 ) 250's or 500's. Max users for any one server will probably be no more that 20 people.

If a pen drive is satisfactory, do I clone it to another for a failsafe? Can I run a mirrored one?

Thanks for any comments

Hello, the term "preferred" is relative and vastly vary from user to user and the type of scenario.

Preferred Installation:
Most users prefers to install NAS4Free Embedded(recommended) to quality flash media rather than HDD/SSD's, the main benefit is that you will save all SATA ports solely for storage drives, secondly the OS will remains isolated from the data drive(s), and third they are quieter and less power consumption since embedded platform loads the OS into RAM during boot process and runs from there, so the flash disk will remains idle most of the time, more info HERE

On the other hand with NAS4Free Full installs(advanced users only), HDD/SSD's are the recommended choice since the OS runs entirely from the disk, therefore you want the best performance and reliability possible, tough you can also use quality USB3.0 NAND flash media for Full installs as I posted previously HERE.

NAS4Free Boot Mirroring:
NAS4Free Embedded does not support boot mirror and not essentially needed, though restoring a failed disk is simple as plug a new USB, install NAS4Free and restore your previously saved configuration and up and running.

NAS4Free Full UFS(legacy) mirror install is not supported.

NAS4Free Full RootOnZFS is the only advanced installer option which support mirroring and boot environments, and is generally recommended for developers and advanced users who want full control and customization.

Regards