Home NAS and Router(VPN)

[Stin6667]

HI

At the moment in the house each computer has at least a 512GB SSD and a 2TB for storage. and then We have a 6TB for mass storage. I want to make things more simple and streamlined. I also saw Level 1's(youtube) video about making your own router and what he showed peaked my interest and wanted to give that a try. So I want to merge both Ideas.

 

( just want to say I am a complete noob when it comes to networking, but this is my 1st project so I can learn)

 

What I am thinking of using:

An old workstation

-i5 2400 4 cores 4 threads, 3x 4X pie, 1x 16X

- 4 Sata ports ( one is a cd drive, because of my work we still need those... So when I need one. it is there)

-(adding) 3 10tb HDD ( 2 in the beginning and one more later)

-(adding) 6 port RJ45 2.5Gb pie nic ( the house only has cat 5e, and I can not install new cabling)

-(adding) wifi 6 or lower card

-(adding) M.2 to Pie card( hopefully dual) ( as a cache) 

-(adding) Sata M.2 2x 512gb or 2x 256gb

 

Software I am thinking of using:

Pfsence

FreeNas with btfs or Zfs

Kodi/plex

 

So the way I thing I am going to set it up:

1) Using FreeNas I will create 2 systems 1 for the NAS and 1 for the router.

   - free nas will get 4 threads/cores 

   -  The router will get 4 threads/cores

2) I will passthrough everything from the router to the NAS for the networking.

3) On the network I will make different folders for the different things I need. ie Document, Movies, Songs etc

 

This is as far  as I have gotten. 

Can this be done?

Am I on the right track? Any hints. 

Anything I should be aware of? etc Any help will be much appreciated. The cheaper this can be the better (wife).

 

Thanks

J

 

 

 

  

[Electronics Wizardy]

why so many network ports? Id just get a single 10gb ports and have a switch with vlans.

 

Don't add wifi, get a wifi ap for that.

 

You probably want a better hypervisor like proxmox, freenas isn't a good hypervisor.

 

Also how do you play to manage storage, zfs isn't very good at adding that 3rd drive later on.

 

 

[Stin6667]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

why so many network ports? 

2 computers in the house

PIe

Ps3 

Xbox 360

And one spare for anything else in the future

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Stin6667 said:

2 computers in the house

PIe

Ps3 

Xbox 360

And one spare for anything else in the future

but get a network switch for all of those ports. No reason to have a router with all of those ports.

[Stin6667]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

how do you play to manage storage

Well, I was thinking of using btfs with rade 10. Bust still not sure. Still learning and seeing what will be a good fit

[Stin6667]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

proxmox,

I have heard of this but can you please refresh my memory... thanks

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Stin6667 said:

Well, I was thinking of using btfs with rade 10. Bust still not sure. Still learning and seeing what will be a good fit

well raid 10 needs 4 drives, but with raid 1 you would get the full space on 3 drives.

 

But thats linux only, and you lised freenas, which is zfs only.

 

1 minute ago, Stin6667 said:

I have heard of this but can you please refresh my memory... thanks

Its a linux based hypervisor. Good for running vms, so make a vm for the router, and then plex, and then storage. Pretty good for this use case.

[Stin6667]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

but get a network switch for all of those ports. No reason to have a router with all of those ports.

Okay as small one is a good idea. thanks!

[Stin6667]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

well raid 10 needs 4 drives, but with raid 1 you would get the full space on 3 drives.

 

But thats linux only, and you lised freenas, which is zfs only.

 

Its a linux based hypervisor. Good for running vms, so make a vm for the router, and then plex, and then storage. Pretty good for this use case.

So making this a Linux based set up will make it easier to do and fit better with with I want to do? Do I need to know alot of coding? ( my exp on Linux is just pop os for a short time)

[Stin6667]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

but with raid 1 you would get the full space on 3 drives.

But there won't be much redundancy would there? Also would it be possible to add in drives as and when I need to? Also, I am assuming all the same sizes for each drive

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Stin6667 said:

So making this a Linux based set up will make it easier to do and fit better with with I want to do? Do I need to know alot of coding? ( my exp on Linux is just pop os for a short time)

Freenas isn't a great hypervisor, so you probably don't want to use that if you want vms for things like a router.

 

You can use proxmox basically all in a browser, so you don't need to know linux commands.

 

 

Just now, Stin6667 said:

But there won't be much redundancy would there? Also would it be possible to add in drives as and when I need to? Also, I am assuming all the same sizes for each drive

Btrfs lets you mix and match drive sizes with reduncancy. Look at the space calculator. https://www.carfax.org.uk/btrfs-usage/

 

You can also easily add drives to a btrfs array.

[Stin6667]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Freenas isn't a great hypervisor, so you probably don't want to use that if you want vms for things like a router.

 

You can use proxmox basically all in a browser, so you don't need to know linux commands.

 

 

Btrfs lets you mix and match drive sizes with reduncancy. Look at the space calculator. https://www.carfax.org.uk/btrfs-usage/

 

You can also easily add drives to a btrfs array.

( 1st thanks for all the help) Okay so can I use btrfs with proxmox? Cause It sounds like a combination of the two would be ideal for what Im going for.

Are there any costs associated with either on?

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, Stin6667 said:

( 1st thanks for all the help) Okay so can I use btrfs with proxmox? Cause It sounds like a combination of the two would be ideal for what Im going for.

Are there any costs associated with either on?

yea you can use btrfs in proxmox, I think you have to make it in the cli though, but you can easily find the commands to make the filesystem online.

 

Proxmox is free.

[Stin6667]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yea you can use btrfs in proxmox, I think you have to make it in the cli though, but you can easily find the commands to make the filesystem online.

 

Proxmox is free.

Thanks for all the help!