Noobie

[sxj1704]

Hi,
I've been thinking for some months of buying a large capacity (empty of HDD) NAS to store my films. But cost has stopped me, until I read a few articles about building your own with basically an old PC. Something which I have.
I'll be extremely honest (and no doubt naive), but with virtually no knowledge of such things, I set about installing the very good NAS4Free (NAS4Free-x64-LiveCD-9.1.0.1.636) on a 160Gb HDD, I attached the first of my existing HDD (formatted NTFS) and it worked perfectly.
Once I did all the GUI set up and added the HDD, mount point, permissions, CIFS etc, I could see/map to it on my Windows 7 PC and play one of the films from my main TV via my WD Live Hub, I was quite pleased with the results.
Until it came to adding my other NTFS HDD's.
I just get no where, and it usually comes down to an error message 'Wrong partition type or partition number'.
Do I assume that I can only install multiple HDD's as a RAID, and not see them as individual HDD as they are now? I know the benefits of the different Raids by the way.
If it has to be Raid, then my problem is that I have 7 HDD ranging from 1Tb to 2Tb, so shifting the contents to empty the drives, formatting the first lot of HDD's and then Raid, is almost a no go. I've not really got the spare capacity to move all the TB of films I have, and therefore I'll possibly have to give up on NAS4Free.
However, if someone out there with infinitely more knowledge can point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful.
My apologies if this subject has been raised before and answered, but I couldn't find anything in the forum search.
Many thanks in anticipation.

[rostreich]

Heya...I try to make it simple

I set about installing the very good NAS4Free (NAS4Free-x64-LiveCD-9.1.0.1.636) on a 160Gb HDD

Would work, but better install it on 2 GB or more USB Stick, if your mobo can boot from USB.

I attached the first of my existing HDD (formatted NTFS) and it worked perfectly.

NEVER EVER use NTFS on BSD/UNIX/LINUX OS. It isn't stable, not really supported and your data is not safe! Use the native UFS or ZFS (only with a decent amount of RAM).

Once I did all the GUI set up and added the HDD, mount point, permissions, CIFS etc, I could see/map to it on my Windows 7 PC

This is mostly the easiest part and when you got it to work, you know this already.

I just get no where, and it usually comes down to an error message 'Wrong partition type or partition number'.

You just have to learn the logics, this is usually noob error, but we can fix this.

Do I assume that I can only install multiple HDD's as a RAID, and not see them as individual HDD as they are now?

Wrong, you can add as much as you have free hd slots on your mobo (PATA, SATA, extern USB disk). But without RAID it won't make much sense. Really.

I know the benefits of the different Raids by the way.

Then please use it. Disks can die in seconds and so your data....I lost my data once and it was a very bitter experience.

If it has to be Raid, then my problem is that I have 7 HDD ranging from 1Tb to 2Tb, so shifting the contents to empty the drives, formatting the first lot of HDD's and then Raid, is almost a no go. I've not really got the spare capacity to move all the TB of films I have, and therefore I'll possibly have to give up on NAS4Free.

Please list all of your disks with capacity. I'll could give you tips for using raid with different disk sizes, which will work but will waste disk space.

However, if someone out there with infinitely more knowledge can point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful.

I'll make you the NAS-Master, son.

My apologies if this subject has been raised before and answered, but I couldn't find anything in the forum search.

Wrong searching words...

[sxj1704]

Hi Rostreich,

Many thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

My 32Gb OCZ USB stick has finished loading onto my GigaByte MB as I type and I've configured the 'Network Interfaces' and the 'Network IP Address'.

By the way, my NAS details are;

9.1.0.1 - Sandstorm (revision 636)
Build date Tue Feb 5 01:10:15 CET 2013
Platform OS FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE (reldate 901000)
Platform x64-liveusb on AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
System Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. M61P-S3
Memory 3.5Gb DDR2

I know what you mean about HDD failing. Lost one or two much to my regret (they seem to have been Seagate's, which I no longer buy).

My current HDD are;
WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
Samsung HD204UI 2TB
Samsung HD154UI 1.5TB
Samsung HD103SJ 1TB
Samsung HD103UJ 1TB

If I do go down the route of moving all my films (which will take quite a few hours to complete) from each of the above and then formatting those drives, which file system should I use when I format them, UFS or ZFS?

I presume that I can then transfer my films (.MKV) via LAN to the newly formatted drive(s) via my Windows 7 PC?

Thank you for your time and wit Sensi, and I look forward to more of your wisdom!

[raulfg3]

If I do go down the route of moving all my films (which will take quite a few hours to complete) from each of the above and then formatting those drives, which file system should I use when I format them, UFS or ZFS?

ZFS is better , UFS is recommended for only one disk on old hardware because uses very low resources and it's a bit fast than ZFS, but for your Hardware ZFS is the best option.

I presume that I can then transfer my films (.MKV) via LAN to the newly formatted drive(s) via my Windows 7 PC?

Is the easy , and less intrusive option, I recommended to you.

[armandh]

I open a N4F stored .MKV movie file from my win or linux desktops using VLC
[right mouse open with VLC] but the hardware and video for playing the movie needs to be capable of the .mkv
the storage not so much
the stream from the storage uses very little of the N4F processing capacity
as it takes place in small bursts over the length of the movie.

+1 on ZFS for the storage drives in a redundant configuration.
it is about as safe as you can be but....
please do not make any storage, however safe and redundant, the only copy.
fire, flood, lightning or other external force will kill a NAS
power interruptions are usually, but not always, recoverable
UPS is an important part of the safety net

[rostreich]

Many thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

You're welcome

If I do go down the route of moving all my films (which will take quite a few hours to complete) from each of the above and then formatting those drives, which file system should I use when I format them, UFS or ZFS?

ZFS! Always and ever.

I presume that I can then transfer my films (.MKV) via LAN to the newly formatted drive(s) via my Windows 7 PC?

Yup, thats the way to go!

Thank you for your time and wit Sensi, and I look forward to more of your wisdom!

And here it comes:

My 32Gb OCZ USB stick has finished loading onto my GigaByte MB as I type and I've configured the 'Network Interfaces' and the 'Network IP Address'.

Good! x64 Version is the way to go with ZFS.

Another thing: Could you stack up your RAM? 3,5 GB isn't much, won't run 'fast', but anyway it will run stable. Really, the more the better. ZFS is hungry for RAM and gives you performance in return.
Also check that you have latest firmware upgrade for your mainboard installed.
Then go into BIOS and disable all unneccessary functions for a NAS. that is in common sound, LPT and serial port. this is a bonus step, it will give you more stability (less components which could lead to an error) and saves some watt.

But as I see, you have liveusb...erm...this writes only config to the usb stick. Installing the system onto stick is better. Nuke your stick and check it, use my tutorial there: viewtopic.php?f=55&t=2556
Then boot from the cd, choose option 9 and install embedded version without swap space. thats important, because swap has constant writing and this onto flash media is bad for it, your stick won't last long.

Boot from your created stick. Then reconfigure you network settings. And then install ZFS kerntune, follow the instructions and set according to your RAM size. I hope you could upgrade to 4 GB or more. watch here: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1278&p=10011&hilit=tune#p4894

I know what you mean about HDD failing. Lost one or two much to my regret (they seem to have been Seagate's, which I no longer buy).

Yeah, but this can happen to every manufacturer I made good experience with Samsung drives. With a good RAID chosen you won't care about dying disks anymore. For myself, I write data only to RAID arrays since I lost data. Makes me sleep better.

WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
WD20EARX 2TB
Samsung HD204UI 2TB
Samsung HD154UI 1.5TB
Samsung HD103SJ 1TB
Samsung HD103UJ 1TB

Whoa, this is better than expected. I thought you had every disk on another capacity.

First, read into ZFS, the functions and what can be done and what should be avoided. -> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzHapVf ... edit?pli=1

With these disks I would make the following: A raidz2 with your five 2TB disks. It will give you a pool of 6 TB space where two disks can die at once.
Your other disks are the ones, which you use as your spare space. Are 3,5 GB enough for your data/films? I hope so. Otherwise lend a bigger disk from a friend or buy a big one as spare space.

Most people say that it's uncommon that 2 disks at once will die in home environment, but think about my comments in this thread, especially when it comes to resilvering (the term for raid rebuilding with ZFS):
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=2741

Also read the part with the eco green whatsoever disks and the aggressive spindown and take precautions against it.

Also read the whole threads:

viewtopic.php?f=66&t=2539 <- about green eco spindown and failures due to this
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=2710 <- darkfall's comment (an even number of disks is better in raid, if you could afford another 2 GB disk would be indeed nice and gives you a 8TB pool)

Also before you format your disks in the NAS to ZFS clean them right. Works best with DBAN of UBCD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ , Acronis True Image Boot CD minimum 2010 version (has Drive Cleaner on it, but commecial) or Active Killdisk Free for Windows http://killdisk.dgeko.de/

then in short, import the disks with unallocated space, format as ZFS (tick on the 4k switch everywhere you see it, regardless if the disk has this sector size! future disks have all 4k and you'll regret it when you don't do it in future), go to ZFS, create 'vdev1' with all 2 TB disks and choose raidz2. create a 'pool1' with this 'vdev1'. then create 'dataset1' in 'pool1' and share the 'dataset1' with CIFS like you already done it. create datasets for every type of data you want to save. dataset1 for movies, dataset2 for pictures etc. you get the point. this will keep everything nice, in order and fast! you could name dataset1 movies, if you like it more.
one small thing it's worth to speak about: youre using 2 TB disks of different manufacturers. Western Digital and Samsung. 2 TB mostly differs from the manufacturers. Manufacturer 1 has 2048MB space as 2TB declared and Manufacturer 2 has 2047,5MB declared as 2TB, for example.
Since you don't know if the WD differs from the Samsung, you'll have to use the 'force' command when you add the vdev to your pool when creating it. ZFS sets the usable space then according to the disks. if you don't use the 'force' option, you'll get an annoying error message in the webgui which doesn't point to the right direction and is always there, not correctable. until you restart from the beginning with default setup of n4f.
and then think for the case, when a disk dies. you need a disk with the correct aligned capacity as the others. if the disk has only one byte less, then resilvering won't work.

report if you stumble across errors or don't understand things.
good luck and have fun

+1 on ZFS for the storage drives in a redundant configuration.
it is about as safe as you can be but....
please do not make any storage, however safe and redundant, the only copy.
fire, flood, lightning or other external force will kill a NAS
power interruptions are usually, but not always, recoverable
UPS is an important part of the safety net

+1 to this, about backup of the NAS we'll talk later. now we get it running.

[sxj1704]

Hi Rostreich,
Once again, thanks for the very detailed reply.
It will take me a little time to read up on everything you've said.
As for the 'liveusb', there I go again, not quite knowing what I'm doing with this new stuff, but I'll be sure to follow your tutorial, thanks.
As for the extra ram, all the slots are full on that MB, but no doubt I'd have overkill if it was installed on my main PC;
Name Intel Core i7 Extreme 990X
Codename Gulftown
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU X 990 @ 3.47GHz
Package (platform ID) Socket 1366 LGA (0x1)
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 24576 MBytes
Channels Triple
Memory Frequency 666.2 MHz (2:10)
But I need that one for Windows stuff!
Anyway, I do have another 2 'spare' HDD's;
WD10EACS 1TB
WD30EZRX 3TB
That are connected to my Win 7 PC.
So I'll have a think about what you've said concerning the RAIDs and perhaps adding those two.
I'll update when I've decided and I will take you up on your kind offer if I have problems.
Many thanks and much appreciated

[armandh]

FYI here are the 3 most basic types of boot setup

1] just live cd or usb [no one does this]
loads to memory; nic, ip, and setup must be restored at each boot.

2] live cd or usb and additional config storage [popular on very old hardware if there is no USB boot]
loads to memory with resident configuration at each boot

3] step 9 on the console screen used to transfer the embedded N4F to a FAT formatted boot medium [usb or ide flash, or small Hdd]
original live source is removed and the N4F loads from the new boot flash or drive to memory with resident configuration.

I will let others explain the full install which is a bit over the top for the storage you describe.
[I've never found it necessary and do not wish for a drive spinning 24/7]

[rostreich]

Okay, we'll see how you decide

Edit:

As for the extra ram, all the slots are full on that MB, but no doubt I'd have overkill if it was installed on my main PC;

You have 1x 2GB, 1x 1GB and 1x 512MB?
Try to get another 2x 2GB, gives you 6 GB, this will rock better. RAM is cheap atm.

I will let others explain the full install which is a bit over the top for the storage you describe.
[I've never found it necessary and do not wish for a drive spinning 24/7]

You can add the drive where the full installation is and spin it down, too. Just import this disk with UFS preformatted file system.