What OS for NAS?

[tsegreto]

I am building a home NAS running in RAID6 or 10 with a Xeon E3-1240v6, this will be my first NAS. Primary uses with include Plex, torrenting (Transmission), FTP, SAMBA, SSH, etc. I would like it to also AirPlay (for anyone who has an Apple TV). I have a feeling Ubuntu server will be my best bet, am I correct in my assumption? What else should I consider?

[Snappawapa]

I have had good experience with FreeNas  . It takes care of alot of the setup, as it is designed to be a NAS system. It is great for handling the typical file transferring protocols you mentioned. It also has a kind of an app repository I have had mixed experience with getting apps to work.

 

All in all, it is a great system for an advanced user, with a good knowledge of how linux works. It has a bit of a learning curve, but is pretty good at what it does. Definitely google is your friend with this one, there are many gudes out there and they have a halfway decent help/guide repository themselves.

 

Otherwise, I would go with Ubuntu Server, like you mentioned, or potentially something like ArchLinux if I wanted to get red if a cluttered OS (not that Ubuntu Server is particuarly cluttered (citation needed), but arch is a very much pick-and-choose of most of the software that is installed)

[tsegreto]

I am not terribly experienced, I actually have't used Linux since 2011ish.

[Snappawapa]

In freenas's case, it is really helpful to know how permissions are managed, the rest is straightforward enough if you are willing to sit down and tinker with it/ google things. For what you are describing using it for, I would reccomend it.

And hey, it's Linux.... all free to tinker and try things out

[tsegreto]

Yeah, I tinkered with Linux before, just not a pro at it. I can navigate around a shell but am rusty. I am not worried about the level of complexity, I'm just wondering what would serve me the best and give me the most options as I might want to run a few VMs later on.

[paddy-stone]

If you might want to run some VMs I would suggest ESXi as a hypervisor, then have freenas in a VM for your home server. That way you can have some threads free for your VMs.

[geo3]

15 hours ago, tsegreto said:

I am not terribly experienced, I actually have't used Linux since 2011ish.

If you chose to go the Ubuntu server path here's a step by step I wrote for setting up Ubuntu as a NAS box : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CvZOr_21Prkaxwou1gV3uNFuGx4k1KvCfmNU-ov63XY/edit?usp=sharing

[Mcthunda820]

Really take a look at how you plan to use your time. You can get really time invested with an OS you are not familiar with. There is nothing wrong with running even windows desktop OS for a home NAS. If you are willing to tinker and want the experience, ubuntu/freenas are both good/great options. Not matter what solution you go with be sure to know the answer to these three questions:

 

1: how important is the data i'm storing?

2: Am I taking the proper steps to secure the data? (mainly determined by question 1)

3: Am I comfortable troubleshooting the system I've built? Remember that a backup is only as good as your ability to use it in a disaster situation.

 

If you're just storing a bunch of movie backups that you don't care to loose? Throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Otherwise, make sure you understand the system you are using.

[tsegreto]

3 hours ago, Mcthunda820 said:

Really take a look at how you plan to use your time. You can get really time invested with an OS you are not familiar with. There is nothing wrong with running even windows desktop OS for a home NAS. If you are willing to tinker and want the experience, ubuntu/freenas are both good/great options. Not matter what solution you go with be sure to know the answer to these three questions:

 

1: how important is the data i'm storing?

2: Am I taking the proper steps to secure the data? (mainly determined by question 1)

3: Am I comfortable troubleshooting the system I've built? Remember that a backup is only as good as your ability to use it in a disaster situation.

 

If you're just storing a bunch of movie backups that you don't care to loose? Throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Otherwise, make sure you understand the system you are using.

A lot of the data is just movies and such, I am going to be also using cloud storage (Dropbox/iCloud) to back up the data as well. Hence why I am considering RAID 5. I don't mind tinkering, I would like a stable system though.

[Mcthunda820]

I think you could pretty much make anything work. Ive used a dual core pentium processor in the recent past to do exactly what you are doing with zero raid. Pre-transcoding was a must for this setup...

 

I'll tell you what I did about a year ago and you can go from there. This setup could download, stream to two Tv's at a time and still had room for more-

 

Hardware:

CPU- i5 6600k overclocked to 4.1 ghz

Hyper 212 evo cooler

16gb ram

8gb CF card and internal reader (for esxi OS)

2 x 120gb intel ssd raid 1 (OS disks for VMs)

4 x 4 TB WD has drives in soft raid 10 (dedicated to freenas)

Atx mobo with dual gigabit nics.

4u rackmount case

OS: ESXi

 

Created 5 VMs. I like putting as few services on each VM as possible so that if something does break (or I screw it up, lol) I don't have to worry about taking everything down.

 

Freenas VM: iSCSI and NFS services.

Ubuntu VM x2: plex (NFS for video storage)

Ubuntu VM: pre-transcoding and other automated file operations over NFS

Ubuntu VM: VPN and Usenet/torrent client

 

If you would like to know anything about this setup, just ask.