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Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

humaidq.ae

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Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#21

Post by joshgachnang »

amenod wrote: post #18
vetinari wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP microserver doesn't have drive hotswap. The first time you find out your drive is dying, you really want it.

Curious: why? Can't you simply shut down the NAS^wmicroserver and replace the failing drive then? (assuming the downtime is not a problem, which is probably the case with most home NAS installations)

One fear I've heard from Sys Admin friends is that you'll have another drive failure when the machine tries to boot back up (and possible data loss if you're only running RAID5). As I understand it, there's a nonzero chance the drive is fine while it's still running, but will disappear or have trouble spinning back up after a reboot, so you want to rebuild your array before rebooting.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#22

Post by vetinari »

amenod wrote: post #18
vetinari wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HP microserver doesn't have drive hotswap. The first time you find out your drive is dying, you really want it.

Curious: why? Can't you simply shut down the NAS^wmicroserver and replace the failing drive then? (assuming the downtime is not a problem, which is probably the case with most home NAS installations)

You don't know, whether you will be able to boot and mount the degraded array. Maybe you could, or maybe you will have to start shaving the yak.

With hotswap, it is up and running, you can start repair straight away.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#23

Post by moreorless »

nicolaslem wrote: post #2

I was surprised that there are very few PC cases made for small NAS. So this solution of buying a consumer product and installing FreeNAS on it makes sense.

These things are great for small NAS.

https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proli...

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#24

Post by funkaster »

tra3 wrote: post #17
funkaster wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used a rockpro64[0] with an off the shelf PCIe SATA card for my home NAS (4x4TB disks). So far I'm extremely happy with it (using it for almost 8 months). The rockpro is running debian/ZFS. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/

Cool! Does it require a custom kernel?

it has had mainline support for a while now, there are even now daily official debian builds available as well: https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-c...

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#25

Post by pimeys »

nicolaslem wrote: post #2

I was surprised that there are very few PC cases made for small NAS. So this solution of buying a consumer product and installing FreeNAS on it makes sense.

I built my FreeNAS build into the Fractal Design Node 304. It fits six hard drives, and the computer fits into an IKEA shelf nicely.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#26

Post by humaid »

linsomniac wrote: post #20

RAID drive fails, "I regretted installing ClamAV". Don't regret it! It allowed you to find a drive failure before a second drive failed, and allowed you to recover your data while it was still recoverable! This is a good thing! Archival data is a tricky problem. If you don't regularly read it, you may find that when you do need to read it, that the sector has suffered some bit rot. What's one of the most likely cases…

Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#27

Post by linsomniac »

humaid wrote: post #26
linsomniac wrote: post #20

RAID drive fails, "I regretted installing ClamAV". Don't regret it! It allowed you to find a drive failure before a second drive failed, and allowed you to recover your data while it was still recoverable! This is a good thing! Archival data is a tricky problem. If you don't regularly read it, you may find that when you do need to read it, that the sector has suffered some bit rot. What's one of the most likely cases…

Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!

Oh, my other advice is: Avoid Seagate drives. Historically, I've found Hitachi to be the most reliable, and the BackBlaze hard drive stats seem to confirm that, though they tend to have small numbers of Hitachi drives. This is because they optimize for price not reliability. I've had good luck with other brands, but I've pretty much had universally bad luck with Seagate. Last year I replaced the last of our Stagate 15K drives with SSDs because, largely, I was tired of doing warranty returns every month or two.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#28

Post by zepearl »

linsomniac wrote: post #27
humaid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!

Oh, my other advice is: Avoid Seagate drives. Historically, I've found Hitachi to be the most reliable, and the BackBlaze hard drive stats seem to confirm that, though they tend to have small numbers of Hitachi drives. This is because they optimize for price not reliability. I've had good luck with other brands, but I've pretty much had universally bad luck with Seagate. Last year I replaced the last of our Stagate 1…

I used to always buy Hitachi as well, but when I decided a few weeks ago to replace all my old 4TB HDDs with 8TB HDDs I found out that they're quite expensive (did they use to be that expensive?).

Well, in any case now I bought 8 Toshiba N300 8TB (4 HDDs for a server and another 4 for a NAS, both used by a RaidZ1) and so far they worked (and they're not loud and don't vibrate like hell when the disk is spinning, unlike the WD Gold).

It's the first time that I buy Toshiba HDDs - I'm quite sure that if they would have been Seagate then at least 1 would have already failed.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#29

Post by podge »

funkaster wrote: post #14
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't really a case of buying the hardware with the intention of installing another OS on it, though. The author had the QNAP for 4 years, running their OS on it, and decided to install FreeNAS when rebuilding. That said, I'm surprised that they explicitly support installing Linux -- the post links a QNAP wiki page that explicitly uses the phrase "supported hardware" when describing which machines their guide t…

I used a rockpro64[0] with an off the shelf PCIe SATA card for my home NAS (4x4TB disks). So far I'm extremely happy with it (using it for almost 8 months). The rockpro is running debian/ZFS. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/

Interesting! I've been thinking of building a NAS and hadn't considered the rockpro64. Have you found that 4GB RAM has been sufficient for ZFS? I'm currently running a small ZFS array with 12GB RAM and the box never seems to use anything close to that amount, but ZFS has a reputation as something of a RAM hog.

Re: Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

#30

Post by linsomniac »

zepearl wrote: post #28
linsomniac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, my other advice is: Avoid Seagate drives. Historically, I've found Hitachi to be the most reliable, and the BackBlaze hard drive stats seem to confirm that, though they tend to have small numbers of Hitachi drives. This is because they optimize for price not reliability. I've had good luck with other brands, but I've pretty much had universally bad luck with Seagate. Last year I replaced the last of our Stagate 1…

I used to always buy Hitachi as well, but when I decided a few weeks ago to replace all my old 4TB HDDs with 8TB HDDs I found out that they're quite expensive (did they use to be that expensive?). Well, in any case now I bought 8 Toshiba N300 8TB (4 HDDs for a server and another 4 for a NAS, both used by a RaidZ1) and so far they worked (and they're not loud and don't vibrate like hell when the disk is spinning, unli…

Hitachi have always been a little more expensive than the others, from my memory. The Deskstar consumer line could be around 10-20% more than competition and the Ultrastar enterprise 25-50% more than Deskstar. Going from memory.

I've had good luck with the few Toshiba drives I've had. That's what my storage system is running right now because it was the only thing I could find in 1TB laptop form factor when I bought them 6-7 years ago.

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