# prebuilt NAS(-like) system compatible with FreeBSD?



## Longevity (Nov 1, 2010)

I want a NAS device with 4 drives that runs FreeBSD.  Unlike many of the other threads here, I don't want to discuss building one.  I want to buy one pre-built.  In order of preference, I'd like to:

1.  Buy a NAS that already comes with FreeBSD pre-installed.
2.  Buy a NAS that I can install FreeBSD onto.
3.  Buy a desktop that can hold 4 drives and is compatible with FreeBSD.

I'm new to FreeBSD.  Can you either tell me a known good product or point me to resources I can use to answer this question myself?

Thanks!


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## aragon (Nov 1, 2010)

2. http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/BAREBONE_SERVER_Series_2.html

I haven't seen it with FreeBSD, but it uses an Intel D510 motherboard which should work 100% in FreeBSD.


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## Longevity (Nov 3, 2010)

Thanks for the suggestion.  I did some poking around about Tranquility and found a thread about poor quality control and poor customer service that concerns me.

Then I found the HP ProLiant MicroServer and fell in love.  There's a thread that claims basic compatibility with FreeBSD.


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## Terry_Kennedy (Nov 5, 2010)

Longevity said:
			
		

> I want a NAS device with 4 drives that runs FreeBSD.  Unlike many of the other threads here, I don't want to discuss building one.  I want to buy one pre-built.  In order of preference, I'd like to:
> 
> 1.  Buy a NAS that already comes with FreeBSD pre-installed.
> 2.  Buy a NAS that I can install FreeBSD onto.
> 3.  Buy a desktop that can hold 4 drives and is compatible with FreeBSD.


Can you give a little more background on what you're aiming for and the reason for wanting a pre-built one? This could be because it is for work and you want a system with a whole-package hardware warranty (in which case price is probably less of an issue), or perhaps it is for personal use and you don't want to have an expensive learning experience where you find that certain hardware doesn't work well together, has poor driver support in FreeBSD, or similar.

What sort of capacity are you looking at? You say 4 drives, so I'll assume total raw capacity of 2TB (4 x 250GB 2.5" drives) to 8TB (4 x 2TB 3.5" drives). How much space are you willing to sacrifice for data redundancy? 1/4 (RAID 5, no spare), 1/2 (RAID 0 + 1), or something else?

What are your performance requirements? If you need top-level performance, a desktop-class board with whatever integrated Ethernet is included may not have enough network performance. Add-on Ethernet port(s) imply a somewhat larger chassis with the appropriate expansion slot(s). This would also rule out most of the "all-in-one" systems which don't have expansion slots.

How important is data integrity to you? Will you be using ECC memory? Parity? No error checking? If you want ECC, you may be looking at server-class boards which cost more than desktop boards. At that point, it may make sense to add more drives as the cost of the rest of the system can easily exceed the cost of the drives. A server-class board may also have remote management (virtual keyboard/monitor), useful if you and the system are not in the same room when updating, as well as allowing recovery from some hardware failures without needing to visit the box (the old "Keyboard not detected - press F1 to continue" situation).

Will you be doing any local processing on the NAS (for example, MP3 encoding) or is it just simple file serving? The answer to this will affect your choice of CPU(s). Note that if you use the ZFS filesystem, there are guidelines for minimum memory size and CPU capacity. A hardware raid controller (3Ware, LSI 1068, etc., not the "soft RAID" found on some boards) will reduce CPU and memory requirements but trades off a higher cost for the controller card and perhaps reduced flexibility (do you need to go into the RAID card's BIOS to reconfigure the RAID set / rebuild a drive, etc.)?

What will you do for backup, if anything? How will the backup device(s) attach?

Once you know the answer to those questions, you'll have a better idea of what sort of hardware you want.

I've been building my own FreeBSD-based NAS boxes for over 10 years now, after outgrowing various commercial products. My previous generation (6 years ago) was a 6TB rackmount system (3 RU). The replacements I just finished recently are 32TB in the same size, do 500Mbyte/sec disk I/O continuously for days, and have some serious CPU/memory behind them (dual E5520's w/ 48GB ECC RAM). I've spent a lot of time considering the issues I listed above, and for the most part didn't wind up with any hardware I didn't use, because I carefully went over each of my requirements before buying anything.

Obviously, a smaller server like the one you're considering will require a lot less planning to come up with something that will suit your needs, but it is a good idea to at least consider these points, or you may wind up with something that isn't a good match to your requirements.


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## olav (Nov 5, 2010)

Actually all Asus motherboards with AM2+ or AM3 socket support unbuffered ECC memory. All Athlon 2 and Phenom 2 CPU supports unbuffered ECC memory. So you don't need an expensive motherboard with an expensive CPU


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## Longevity (Nov 7, 2010)

Terry_Kennedy said:
			
		

> Can you give a little more background on what you're aiming for and the reason for wanting a pre-built one? This could be because it is for work and you want a system with a whole-package hardware warranty (in which case price is probably less of an issue), or perhaps it is for personal use and you don't want to have an expensive learning experience where you find that certain hardware doesn't work well together, has poor driver support in FreeBSD, or similar.



I'm wanting a pre-built one because it's been a long time since I've built a computer and I don't want to spend the time and attention cost.  It's for personal use.



> What sort of capacity are you looking at? You say 4 drives, so I'll assume total raw capacity of 2TB (4 x 250GB 2.5" drives) to 8TB (4 x 2TB 3.5" drives). How much space are you willing to sacrifice for data redundancy? 1/4 (RAID 5, no spare), 1/2 (RAID 0 + 1), or something else?



At the moment I need 500 GB but I'm looking with an eye for growth.  I chose 4 drives for two reasons:


I want mirrors because I don't feel safe with RAID5 or similar given BER.
I want to be able to grow the storage without having to replace too many drives at once.  With 4 drives I can do two striped mirrors and be able to grow the pool of storage by upgrading only a pair of drives at a time.



> What are your performance requirements? If you need top-level performance, a desktop-class board with whatever integrated Ethernet is included may not have enough network performance. Add-on Ethernet port(s) imply a somewhat larger chassis with the appropriate expansion slot(s). This would also rule out most of the "all-in-one" systems which don't have expansion slots.



They're minor:  I'm going to do only file serving, ZFS compression, and scrubbing on this machine.  The MicroServer has two expansion slots!



> How important is data integrity to you? Will you be using ECC memory? Parity? No error checking? If you want ECC, you may be looking at server-class boards which cost more than desktop boards. At that point, it may make sense to add more drives as the cost of the rest of the system can easily exceed the cost of the drives. A server-class board may also have remote management (virtual keyboard/monitor), useful if you and the system are not in the same room when updating, as well as allowing recovery from some hardware failures without needing to visit the box (the old "Keyboard not detected - press F1 to continue" situation).



Data integrity is very important to me, so ECC is a requirement.  That's why I got so excited by the MicroServer--it supports ECC memory and remote management for about $400!  Before I found it I was looking to build a system based on the Supermicro X8SIL-F.



> Will you be doing any local processing on the NAS (for example, MP3 encoding) or is it just simple file serving? The answer to this will affect your choice of CPU(s). Note that if you use the ZFS filesystem, there are guidelines for minimum memory size and CPU capacity. A hardware raid controller (3Ware, LSI 1068, etc., not the "soft RAID" found on some boards) will reduce CPU and memory requirements but trades off a higher cost for the controller card and perhaps reduced flexibility (do you need to go into the RAID card's BIOS to reconfigure the RAID set / rebuild a drive, etc.)?



Simple file serving, and I prefer software to hardware RAID.



> What will you do for backup, if anything? How will the backup device(s) attach?



I will back up with two methods:

I bought a second MicroServer on which I plan to run Linux with ext4.  My NAS will rsync to it nightly.
I will run CrashPlan which will back up snapshots every 15 minutes both to a cloud service and to my computer at work.



> I've been building my own FreeBSD-based NAS boxes for over 10 years now, after outgrowing various commercial products. My previous generation (6 years ago) was a 6TB rackmount system (3 RU). The replacements I just finished recently are 32TB in the same size, do 500Mbyte/sec disk I/O continuously for days, and have some serious CPU/memory behind them (dual E5520's w/ 48GB ECC RAM). I've spent a lot of time considering the issues I listed above, and for the most part didn't wind up with any hardware I didn't use, because I carefully went over each of my requirements before buying anything.



Impressive!



> Obviously, a smaller server like the one you're considering will require a lot less planning to come up with something that will suit your needs, but it is a good idea to at least consider these points, or you may wind up with something that isn't a good match to your requirements.



True enough.  Thanks for taking an interest and sharing your wisdom.


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