Dream Home Server Project

[Deano727]

Hey guys

 

So to preface this, this thread is to help me with some specific questions but I feel I they may be misinterpreted if I don't give you the overall goal for this project.

 

So, basically, at the moment I'm renting from my parents (separate living space, same property... if that matters to anyone, lol) and so this means that I am still on their home network (that I have set up) and will one day have to move everything onto an entirely new network in a new location. It also means that I don't have a crazy budget to do all of these things, I prefer to completely exhaust what I have already before getting anything new.

I am basically a tech horder/repurposer. I have taken a bunch of old parts, computers, phones etc and I have been trying to create like a smart home experience. One day I will have everything automated, controlled from a single hub with remote access, voice etc. Long way off, yes but it is a project after all. My focus for this thread, however, is a central storage system. I have an old desktop with pretty basic components, Core 2 Duo and stock board, very little RAM etc. With it but not installed I have a variety of (very) old HDDs ranging from 160Gb in size to 500Gb including a few 2.5" drives. They're mostly Seagate Barracudas and I think thy're all 7200 RPM. It currently runs Linux and I use it for streaming Netflix and YT in my living room. I have now replaced this with an old laptop with no screen (the hinge gave out and would short out the board occasionally - so I removed it entirely). I now wish to turn this old desktop into a NAS server for 2 very specific purposes. My idea is to use the old HDDs in this desktop and potentially use them in a RAID array so that WHEN one of them craps out I can get familiar rebuilding the data.

 

My NAS server should serve as a mass file storage location, an on site physical location for bulk files that I do not wish to keep on any active PC but would one day possibly use again (if these get lost entirely I wouldn't care), an on site physical back up for photos, videos and other files that are important to me (I already make use of cloud backups for most of these) across multiple devices including Macs, Linux PC's, Windows PC's, and android and iOS mobile devices (I would care very much if I lost these but I currently have redundancy so I'm alright). I'd ideally have remote access to these files. The server would also ideally run automatic backups of all devices either in the background or whenever the device is on but not in use (I'm not a big fan of running my devices 24/7) so in the event of a complete drive crash, I can clone the new drive from an existing image and carry on.

 

Now, research can get me through deciding which applets/software/programs I should use to do all of this but I am very open to suggestions as I'm sure many of you have vast amounts of experience and if I can avoid falling in some of the same holes you did, that would be awesome! However, I am trying to evaluate whether I should go ahead and start using this old PC as mentioned above, or if I should wait until I move to my new place and set up a new network from scratch. I am at this point primarily wanting to familiarize myself with the FreeNAS OS, practice troubleshooting and do all of the fiddling, setting up and get everything working before I commit to crazy hardware. So, do I give it a go on this old hardware just for practice? Or rather wait and do it all on new hardware that I trust? Just a note, with the practicing I do not intend to trust it with any data, I will only dump useless data to it for the sake of testing and getting hands on and I fully intend to one day upgrade to proper purpose-built hardware. I'd also love input as to which RAID to use (if at all).

 

Appreciate anyone reading through all of this. It's more for a collection of great ideas for me to consider, experiment with etc.

[Deano727]

Interesting story about the desktop I want to use... It was a server for a business many years ago (still ran XP) but got completely encrypted by ransomware after someone clicked on an exe file in an email. Fortunately they had multiple backups in various locations so I think they only last like a few hours of data. It was given to me to wipe and destroy. I did some playing around to see what I could do but ultimately nothing worked, even formatting the drive! Only way to format was format c: from cmd! Haha!

[BryanNichols10]

5 hours ago, Deano727 said:

Hey guys

 

So to preface this, this thread is to help me with some specific questions but I feel I they may be misinterpreted if I don't give you the overall goal for this project.

 

So, basically, at the moment I'm renting from my parents (separate living space, same property... if that matters to anyone, lol) and so this means that I am still on their home network (that I have set up) and will one day have to move everything onto an entirely new network in a new location. It also means that I don't have a crazy budget to do all of these things, I prefer to completely exhaust what I have already before getting anything new.

I am basically a tech horder/repurposer. I have taken a bunch of old parts, computers, phones etc and I have been trying to create like a smart home experience. One day I will have everything automated, controlled from a single hub with remote access, voice etc. Long way off, yes but it is a project after all. My focus for this thread, however, is a central storage system. I have an old desktop with pretty basic components, Core 2 Duo and stock board, very little RAM etc. With it but not installed I have a variety of (very) old HDDs ranging from 160Gb in size to 500Gb including a few 2.5" drives. They're mostly Seagate Barracudas and I think thy're all 7200 RPM. It currently runs Linux and I use it for streaming Netflix and YT in my living room. I have now replaced this with an old laptop with no screen (the hinge gave out and would short out the board occasionally - so I removed it entirely). I now wish to turn this old desktop into a NAS server for 2 very specific purposes. My idea is to use the old HDDs in this desktop and potentially use them in a RAID array so that WHEN one of them craps out I can get familiar rebuilding the data.

 

My NAS server should serve as a mass file storage location, an on site physical location for bulk files that I do not wish to keep on any active PC but would one day possibly use again (if these get lost entirely I wouldn't care), an on site physical back up for photos, videos and other files that are important to me (I already make use of cloud backups for most of these) across multiple devices including Macs, Linux PC's, Windows PC's, and android and iOS mobile devices (I would care very much if I lost these but I currently have redundancy so I'm alright). I'd ideally have remote access to these files. The server would also ideally run automatic backups of all devices either in the background or whenever the device is on but not in use (I'm not a big fan of running my devices 24/7) so in the event of a complete drive crash, I can clone the new drive from an existing image and carry on.

 

Now, research can get me through deciding which applets/software/programs I should use to do all of this but I am very open to suggestions as I'm sure many of you have vast amounts of experience and if I can avoid falling in some of the same holes you did, that would be awesome! However, I am trying to evaluate whether I should go ahead and start using this old PC as mentioned above, or if I should wait until I move to my new place and set up a new network from scratch. I am at this point primarily wanting to familiarize myself with the FreeNAS OS, practice troubleshooting and do all of the fiddling, setting up and get everything working before I commit to crazy hardware. So, do I give it a go on this old hardware just for practice? Or rather wait and do it all on new hardware that I trust? Just a note, with the practicing I do not intend to trust it with any data, I will only dump useless data to it for the sake of testing and getting hands on and I fully intend to one day upgrade to proper purpose-built hardware. I'd also love input as to which RAID to use (if at all).

 

Appreciate anyone reading through all of this. It's more for a collection of great ideas for me to consider, experiment with etc.

Hey there! 
 

im sure there are others with more experience than myself, but here’s my two bits. 
 

That machine you mentioned should be more than enough for simple file storage. I’d recommend at least 8 gigs of ram in it so that any kind of plugins and such will run well. I use freeNas and it’s awesome for my purposes (storage and media server) you mentioned automatic backups and that is something you can do through freeNas or you can set up a plugin (jail) to do it for you. A jail is basically a segment of the operating system that is dedicated to a specific task. IE, I have one set up to run my emby server. 
 

as far as storage, freeNas requires that you have the OS on its own private boot drive. So what’s best practice is if you have a small sata or m.2 (if you mobo allows which I doubt core 2 duo does) ssd and put your OS on there. Then you can put in hdd as your actual storage. 
 

As far as remote access, I can’t help you there, but the freeNas website has a pretty good guide that could get you on your way. 
 

you mentioned raid. Now of course raid is only for redundancy. There’s multiple different types and each has different trade offs. FreeNas supports 4 types as standard but I’m sure more can be set up. The most basic is striping. This works by writing a portion of the data to each drive, that way if one drive fails you only loose a small amount of files. The next is mirroring, Which allows two drives to act as one with the capacity of only one of the drives. What mirroring does is write the same information to both drives so that if either one fails, you still have your data. Then you move into raid z. Now you have raid z raid z2 and raid z3 which all have different amounts of drives you can lose and different amounts of disk space that must be reserved to redundancy (amount of storage you can’t use). These methods all depend on the number of drives you want to use, and how much storage you are willing to give up to redundancy. 

if you set up a NAS for your files you can’t lose, I’d still keep them on whatever cloud storage you choose in addition to having it on your server in case of a physical disaster (ie fire) you can still get your data. 

 

hope some of this helps! 

[Jarsky]

Through the wall of text im not 100% sure what you're asking, but it sounds like you just want advice on storage & backup?

The network element is an entirely different discussion. 

 

Just as Bryan pointed out, that system is plenty of power for running basic file storage. I second his comment about 8GB of ram for ARC cache, dedup and any potential jails or VM you might want to run for some sort of automation or additonal functionality. 

 

In a small home environment, backup is initiated by the client. Something like Windows 7 Backup & Restore, or third party like Veeam Agent for Windows, and Apple Time Machine or Get Backup for your Mac's, and apps like Bacula for Linux with GUI, or with no GUI you could just create cronjob's with rsync to backup important directories. All of them support backup to a network share. Then schedule them for outside of your typical usage hours

 

[Deano727]

10 hours ago, BryanNichols10 said:

you mentioned automatic backups and that is something you can do through freeNas or you can set up a plugin (jail) to do it for you.

Thank you @BryanNichols10, appreciate your input. I'm definitely going to read up on jails etc. You also brought the RAM capacity to my attention. I currently only have 4Gb running in the system, it's DDR2. I'm going to have to look for a few more modules, I've seen them quite cheap, do you think its worth pushing it to higher than 8Gb (I'll need to see if 16Gb is even supported), or is that overkill? Also, thanks for the run down on the drive setup. Striping the data across multiple drives is basically what I had in mind where if one or two drives go down I'll be able to rebuild the data (I know it's not quite that simple but I'll read up on it). Do you know if it's possible to, say, set up a bank of drives within the NAS for striping and then use 2 separate drives in the same system for mirroring? That would be for my most precious data. I will definitely continue with my cloud backups although I don't necessarily trust that with everything either after some of the stories I have read...

[Deano727]

8 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Through the wall of text im not 100% sure what you're asking, but it sounds like you just want advice on storage & backup?

The network element is an entirely different discussion.

Thank you, yeah, sorry about that haha I got carried away! XD

 

Basically exactly what you guys have given me, I wouldn't have picked up on the RAM requirements until at least much later. You've also given me some things to read up on. I've heard of Veeam but Get Backup and Bacula I hadn't heard of so I'll look those up.

 

You mention ARC cache as well, I'll look it up but I'm assuming thats for the more frequently used files or does it serve a different purpose?

 

Also, what do you guys think of running the OS off of a USB until I can get my hands on a small SSD? Currently the smallest option is a 160Gb HDD which is probably less than ideal... Thats a lot of space for such a small OS, so would I be able to partition the SSD and us some of it for file caching or is it better to leave the entire drive for the OS and plugins?

[Jarsky]

11 hours ago, Deano727 said:

You mention ARC cache as well, I'll look it up but I'm assuming thats for the more frequently used files or does it serve a different purpose?

Yeah for writing and frequent files. FreeNAS by default allocates up to I believe 40% of memory to your ARC. When you have older drives and no L2ARC (ssd) its a good way of getting better performance

 

11 hours ago, Deano727 said:

Also, what do you guys think of running the OS off of a USB until I can get my hands on a small SSD? Currently the smallest option is a 160Gb HDD which is probably less than ideal... Thats a lot of space for such a small OS, so would I be able to partition the SSD and us some of it for file caching or is it better to leave the entire drive for the OS and plugins?

Yeah for sure you can run FreeNAS off USB, just keep in mind you need a second USB to install to (you cant install to the USB with the installation media). You might consider also making it a boot mirror with another USB stick incase one of them dies. Its a feature of FreeNAS

 

 

https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U3.2/install.html

 

Quote

To install from a USB stick to another USB stick, two USB ports are needed, each with an inserted USB device. One USB stick contains the installer. The other USB stick is the destination for the FreeNAS^® installation. Take care to select the correct USB device for the FreeNAS^® installation. It is not possible to install FreeNAS^® onto the same USB stick containing the installer. After installation, remove the installer USB stick. It might also be necessary to adjust the BIOS configuration to boot from the new FreeNAS^® USB stick.

 

[BryanNichols10]

18 hours ago, Deano727 said:

Thank you @BryanNichols10, appreciate your input. I'm definitely going to read up on jails etc. You also brought the RAM capacity to my attention. I currently only have 4Gb running in the system, it's DDR2. I'm going to have to look for a few more modules, I've seen them quite cheap, do you think its worth pushing it to higher than 8Gb (I'll need to see if 16Gb is even supported), or is that overkill? Also, thanks for the run down on the drive setup. Striping the data across multiple drives is basically what I had in mind where if one or two drives go down I'll be able to rebuild the data (I know it's not quite that simple but I'll read up on it). Do you know if it's possible to, say, set up a bank of drives within the NAS for striping and then use 2 separate drives in the same system for mirroring? That would be for my most precious data. I will definitely continue with my cloud backups although I don't necessarily trust that with everything either after some of the stories I have read...

Hey I’m happy to help. 
 

unless your are planning on running VMs or many many jails, there’s no real need to go over 8 especially if you’re only really using it for file storage. You’d probably be okay with 4 but 8 is a nice and cozy spot. 
 

and with the drives definitely. In FreeNas drives are arranged in pools. A pool is simply a group of drives that you want to be in a certain accessible raid format or file system. It may be more tricky to do what you mentioned? But you can definitely do that. 

[Deano727]

21 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Yeah for writing and frequent files. FreeNAS by default allocates up to I believe 40% of memory to your ARC. When you have older drives and no L2ARC (ssd) its a good way of getting better performance

 

Yeah for sure you can run FreeNAS off USB, just keep in mind you need a second USB to install to (you cant install to the USB with the installation media). You might consider also making it a boot mirror with another USB stick incase one of them dies. Its a feature of FreeNAS

 

 

https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U3.2/install.html

 

 

This was super helpful! Thank you! I had no idea you could do that and that would be easier now than getting an SSD (prices have gone crazy where I live). Thanks again!

[Deano727]

15 hours ago, BryanNichols10 said:

Hey I’m happy to help. 
 

unless your are planning on running VMs or many many jails, there’s no real need to go over 8 especially if you’re only really using it for file storage. You’d probably be okay with 4 but 8 is a nice and cozy spot. 
 

and with the drives definitely. In FreeNas drives are arranged in pools. A pool is simply a group of drives that you want to be in a certain accessible raid format or file system. It may be more tricky to do what you mentioned? But you can definitely do that. 

Thats awesome! Thank you. I'm going to have to do a lot of research and fiddling around with it but I'll try!

[BryanNichols10]

2 minutes ago, Deano727 said:

Thats awesome! Thank you. I'm going to have to do a lot of research and fiddling around with it but I'll try!

yeah man! good luck its a lot of fun!