[patseguin]

Hey guys, I'm trying FreeNAS and ZFS on my media server based on the recommendation of a few users.

First of all, I have 4x 2TB drives. Am I better off with RAID 10 or 5 for my setup?

Also, once I've created the ZFS volume I assume I can just create the folders, share them, and copy my data back and then use those shares as my sources on my Zotac box running Win 7? Will I need anything extra in order for Windows to see ZFS shares?

[hazeh]

I'd do a bit more reading before committing to anything

Depends on how much redundancy you want (if any), but with 4 disks I'd use raidz1.
I'm not sure if you were using 'normal' terminology to describe the setup or not, but don't put zfs on top of a controller's own array - you'll lose performance and the top benefits of zfs.

Once you've got your system set up, yes... You can simply create folders, create shares for the folders and load them with data.
If your htpc is running windows, it's probably easiest if you use samba shares that windows will read and write to natively. OS/Applications don't care about the file system/raid array/whatever, a share is presented to your network and your network can access them.

[patseguin]

Yeah I hear ya on reading more, hehe. What I was told was best to do was to break the hardware array away from my motherboard and use raidz1 (which I assume is a software raid in FreeNAS). My assumption is that I would format all 4 drives using ZFS and then build the raid, create folders, share them, and copy back media.

I take it raidz1 is the same as RAID1 (8TB storage total with 4TB available)?

What started out as a fun project is kind of stressing me out now. I did buy 4 new 7200 rpm seagate 3TB drives and will be using those. Is my best option still to use FreeNAS or should I just stay with Windows 7 and just use a hardware RAID 10 or maybe Windows software RAID? I just want the best combination of protection and available space and protection from losing data. I have a choice of my AMD990FX on board raid controller or an LSI SAS/SATA RAID controller I have in the parts room, but it only supports SATA II, not SATA III.

[Roman_V_M]

I take it raidz1 is the same as RAID1 (8TB storage total with 4TB available)?

No, this ZFS has its own terms. raidz1 is close to raid5, i.e. you loose 1 disk equivalent of capacity in your array in exchange for data protection against 1 disk failure.

raidz1 is indeed a software raid but it much more reliable than software raid5 due to end-to-end data integrity checks.

[patseguin]

Ah ok so if I have 4x 3TB drives, I'll have 9Tb available and good redundancy? How's performance? Good enough I assume for streaming 1080p movies?

In my Googling I found some article that said you need an odd number of drives for raidz1. Is that true?

EDIT: Is FreeNAS GUI oriented? They didn't show much at their website. I'm beyond the ways of want to enter CLI commands. ;-)

[hazeh]

raidz1 is the equivalent of raid 5 - It'll use all the disk's space, minus one for parity, your 4x2tb disks will give you 6tb of usable space and allow for one disk failure at a time. zfs is independent from freenas, and zfs is 'basically' a software raid and filesystem all in one.
If you decide to use zfs, it doesn't really matter if you use your onboard controller or your external card - as long as you can turn the raid feature off and simply pass through the disks to your system (this won't be a problem for your built in controller, you'd have to double check your card supports this).

I'm a big fan of software raid over hardware (and even more so of zfs over both), but honestly think you'd be best off using what you're most comfortable with. The biggest drawback of zfs for most 'normal uses' (especially on a forum like this) is expanding your array in the future. zfs requires careful planning and bulk purchases of disks to maintain performance and redundancy, while your other options probably allow simply adding a disk at a time, growing the array without a second thought.

Only you can decide the level of redundancy, which strongly relates to the usable space available. If you're going down the zfs route, you need to regard it as a 'fun project'. As much as a die-hard nix/zfs fan I am, there's absolutely nothing wrong in running windows 7 using a software raid or your LSI card. Fully checksum'd data, bitrot protection, snapshots etcetcetc is great, but it also won't make or break your media storage solution. Also, completely unrelated - my own silly opinion is that media storage is relatively disposable

I wouldn't worry about sata II/III differences - If you've got a 'large storage' disk that can realistically throttle the bandwidth of your controllers, can you nip round my house in your time machine and give me next week's lottery numbers?

There's a few threads on unraid too - Another solution to consider and stress you out That provides a nice simple solution to a growing media collection, providing redundancy and easy expansion.

[hazeh]

Ah ok so if I have 4x 3TB drives, I'll have 9Tb available and good redundancy? How's performance? Good enough I assume for streaming 1080p movies?

In my Googling I found some article that said you need an odd number of drives for raidz1. Is that true?

EDIT: Is FreeNAS GUI oriented? They didn't show much at their website. I'm beyond the ways of want to enter CLI commands. ;-)

My zfs box gives me 90+MB/s read using samba, easily enough throughput to saturate a gigabit connection and even more easily enough to stream many many 1080p movies simultaneously.

I wouldn't worry too much about disk count, especially for a usage like this - but optimal usage is something like 3/5/9 disks in raidz1 or 6/10 in raidz2 (which if it isn't obvious by now, is using 2 disks for redundancy)

freenas, nexentastor, zfsguru etc - All provide GUI's for zfs, although the command line isn't at all tricky for simple uses.

[patseguin]

Well I have 4 disks, so now what?

OK I think I get it. Since I will have 4x 3TB drives, if I go raidz1 I will have 1 drive for redundancy? How would that even work since 1 drive would be less than the array capacity?

[hazeh]

Like I said, I wouldn't worry about it that much for a media storage box.

....And it works by using special magic, the same way as all raid system do - You could have 5000 hard disks spinning away full of data and use another single drive for parity.

[patseguin]

That unRAID system looks great. I can even add drives of not the same size and expand as I go. So, if my case will hold it, I could put in all 4 3TB drives and 4 2TB drives and have 15TB at my disposal.

[wsume99]

That unRAID system looks great. I can even add drives of not the same size and expand as I go. So, if my case will hold it, I could put in all 4 3TB drives and 4 2TB drives and have 15TB at my disposal.

Actually in that configuration you would have 17TB of storage. One of the 3TB drives would be parity which would leave 3x3TB and 4x2TB data disks for a total of 17TB.

[patseguin]

Even better!