Backup options between Windows Server & FreeNas?

[Gerr]

I am in the process of building two servers, one will run Windows Server 2016 Essentials and mainly be an app server.  The other server will run FreeNas and mainly just be a data storage server.  The servers will have a 10G connection between them for speedy communication.

 

Windows server as a domain controller, NVR recorder(Blue Iris), and a Plex server.  It will have 4 local drives...2x 500G WD Re4 in Raid1 via mobo for OS, single 3TB WD Purple for NVR recordings, and a 250GB Crucial MX200 SSD to run the Plex app and store the metadata.  

 

The FreeNas server will just be a storage server, mainly accessed through the Windows Server as mapped drives.  I will use a pair of 16GB USB drives for the OS.  Plex storage will be a 3x3TB HGST NAS RaidZ1 array.  A mirrored pair of 3TB WD Red drives will act as the NAS to where home drives will be remapped.  A mirrored pair of 4TB HGST NAS drives will be used for client backups.  Lastly, a mirrored pair of 1TB WD Reds will act as the backup for the Windows Server.

 

 

Current backup plans(highly adjustable)...

 

Plex Storage - my transcoding system has an external 6TB drive so when I finish a transcode, I copy that file to both the FreeNas share as well as the external drive for an exact copy.  This is done manually and allows me to power off that external devices except for when needed.

 

Plex app & metadata - I have a spare 320GB 2.5" AV drive that I can use to back this up to, will probably encase it into an external USB enclosure and hang it off the Windows Server and use the server's built in backup to just mirror the data from the Plex app SSD to it every so often.

 

NAS - I have another 6TB external eSATA/USB3.0 drive that I would like to use to backup the 3TB FreeNas share to.  Since this NAS will contain documents, I would like a reversion history, so plugging this drive into the Windows Server and using its backup or a 3rd party backup like Acronis to do full-decremental-incremental backups would be ideal.

 

Windows Server OS - use built in Windows Server backup or 3rd party back to the FreeNas 1TB mirrored share.

 

NVR drive - not going to backup this up.

 

 

Does this setup make sense, or should I do something different?

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, Gerr said:

x 500G WD Re4 in Raid1 via mobo for OS,

 

Never use mobo raid, just don't

 

Run a single drive and keep current bakcups on the network.

 

For the servers, Id run esxi or linux with kvm on both and then run everything in a vm.

 

Id make a big storage pool in the nas, instead of having lots of seprate drives.

 

Total budget?

 

Id probably buy a single server with a 4x 4tb hdds in raid 5 with zfs and then use kvm on that system to run the vm of everything you need.

[Gerr]

Mobo Raid for simple mirroring is fine.

 

All parts already bought or are reuse parts from other projects.

 

I do have the option of using Linux with ZFS instead of FreeNas, just thought FreeNas would be easier.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Gerr said:

Mobo Raid for simple mirroring is fine.

 

All parts already bought or are reuse parts from other projects.

 

I do have the option of using Linux with ZFS instead of FreeNas, just thought FreeNas would be easier.

Id still suggest running windows server in a vm, and run everything in there own vm, so its easier to manager and work with.

 

What hardware do you have laying around?

[Gerr]

Besides the drives I mentioned earlier...

 

Windows Server:

Lenovo TS140

Xeon E3-1226v3 CPU

16GB(4x4GB) Hynix DDR3-1600 ECC RAM

 

ZFS Server:

Xeon E3-1225v3 CPU

Asus P9D-WS mobo

16GB(2x8GB) Crucial DDR3-1600 ECC RAM

SeaSonic 450W Gold PSU

Fractal Design Define R4

LSI 9211-8i HBA card

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Gerr said:

Besides the drives I mentioned earlier...

 

Windows Server:

Lenovo TS140

Xeon E3-1226v3 CPU

16GB(4x4GB) Hynix DDR3-1600 ECC RAM

 

ZFS Server:

Xeon E3-1225v3 CPU

Asus P9D-WS mobo

16GB(2x8GB) Crucial DDR3-1600 ECC RAM

SeaSonic 450W Gold PSU

Fractal Design Define R4

LSI 9211-8i HBA card

id probably then install linux on the zfs server, use zfs for storage and run windows server and other services in vms. you save power and you don't seem to need more cpu or ram.(id move more dimms over to the zfs server so you have 24gb) You can then fireup the ts140 and add it to the cluster if you want more vms.

[Gerr]

One problem, I don't know jack about how to setup VM's.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Gerr said:

One problem, I don't know jack about how to setup VM's.

fire up a linux system and play with virt-manager. its pretty easy

[Gerr]

So, put all my best hardware into one box, run Linux on it, setup any RAID volumes as ZFS, and run Windows Server as a full domain controller, dns server, dhcp server, nvr system from within a VM?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Gerr said:

So, put all my best hardware into one box, run Linux on it, setup any RAID volumes as ZFS, and run Windows Server as a full domain controller, dns server, dhcp server, nvr system from within a VM?

yep, but id run the domain controller, the nvr, all on a seprate vm.

[Gerr]

Can you run multiple instances of Windows Server with a single license?

 

This sounds like a lot for a single system to run, even if I max it out with a Xeon E3-1231v3 CPU, 32GB ECC RAM, and a bunch of HDD's.  Linux OS, 2x Windows Server VM's, Plex Server, NVR server, domain controller, dns server, dhcp server, etc.

 

Also, which distro would you recommend?  The only one I have ever played with is Ubuntu MATE.

[Electronics Wizardy]

You need multiple licences unless you have a datacenter licence.

 

It will run fine on a single system. Most of the time services like dns, dhcp, domain controllers use almost nothing. And for ram, they will only use how much they need.

 

For distros, id go centos.

[leadeater]

48 minutes ago, Gerr said:

Can you run multiple instances of Windows Server with a single license?.

 

43 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You need multiple licences unless you have a datacenter licence.

Windows Server Standard allows you to run 2 VMs per license.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

Windows Server Standard allows you to run 2 VMs per license.

does this still apply if there both vm's on somethign like linux or esxi?

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

does this still apply if there both vm's on somethign like linux or esxi?

Yes.

 

For Hyper-V you can run a 3rd instance as the host, for host purposes only. If you use it for something else, like create a SMB share then that is outside the standard rights of a single Standard Edition license.

 

Standard Edition: 2 virtual instances + host (if applicable) or 1 physical instance

 

Edit:

Forgot, the 2 virtual instances MUST be on the same physical hardware.

[Gerr]

I am using Windows Server 2016 ESSENTIALS...not Standard!

[Gerr]

Found this...

 

• The Essentials edition is designed for small organizations with up to 25 users and 50 devices. It allows only one instance of the server software to be run in the physical or virtual environment (Essentials edition licenses can't be combined). Client access licenses (CALs) aren't needed.

[leadeater]

39 minutes ago, Gerr said:

I am using Windows Server 2016 ESSENTIALS...not Standard!

Yea sorry, just giving extra details re the Datacenter comment.

 

Essentials is a single use license virtual or physical install, it's designed to run everything under the one OS.

[Mikensan]

For plex and NVR and such - you don't need a M$ server. You can run this in a linux distro or on Windows 7/8/10. Unless you need a direct feature of Windows Server, there's not much reason to use it. You can lock down a Windows Desktop to run the bare minimum services and be secure.

 

Active Directory / DNS / DFS / Storage Spaces / WSUS and all the like, are specific roles/features that Windows Server offers - if you're not going to use them but just plex/NVR, it's a waste of money (assuming you're paying for the license).

 

I also second going virtual with that much horse power. Hyper-V is included in even essentials, so you could if you want still run Server Essentials on the host, but it requires a little more powershell here and there. ESXi or Proxmox (KVM) give you a nice GUI to work with to create and manage VMs. You're giving a lot of horsepower to a single task in your original setup.

 

Also I believe Server 2016 is charging by cores now, think the most basic license is 16 cores (2x 8) if I'm not mistaken. Shame they don't let you divvy it up (sucks to assign only 2 cores and get billed for 16).

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Also I believe Server 2016 is charging by cores now, think the most basic license is 16 cores (2x 8) if I'm not mistaken. Shame they don't let you divvy it up (sucks to assign only 2 cores and get billed for 16).

That is the physical core licensing model, once you license the host anything virtual on top of it requires no extra licenses beyond what you are entitled to. This is mostly applicable to datacenter as standard only allows 2 virtual instances. With datacenter once you have enough licenses for the physical cores your free to run as many VMs as you like.

[Gerr]

I am not going to virtualize as I am already learning Windows Server & Linux/ZFS/Freenas, so adding virtualization on top of that is a little heavy.  Plus I have the hardware, so just going to run separate systems.

 

Windows Server Essentials system will be the NVR server as well as the normal domain controller stuff.  It will also be in charge of backups for the whole network.

 

ZFS server - just going to use FreeNas as it's simpler to setup and doesn't need a drive to run off of, just usb drive.  I think I will run Plex from this server to help balance the work load between systems.  Plus generates less network traffic if the plex server is on the same box as where the media files are.

 

However, my original question was about how best to do backups on these systems and people went off on a virtualization tangent and never did answer my original question.

[Mikensan]

1 hour ago, Gerr said:

I am not going to virtualize as I am already learning Windows Server & Linux/ZFS/Freenas, so adding virtualization on top of that is a little heavy.  Plus I have the hardware, so just going to run separate systems.

 

Windows Server Essentials system will be the NVR server as well as the normal domain controller stuff.  It will also be in charge of backups for the whole network.

 

ZFS server - just going to use FreeNas as it's simpler to setup and doesn't need a drive to run off of, just usb drive.  I think I will run Plex from this server to help balance the work load between systems.  Plus generates less network traffic if the plex server is on the same box as where the media files are.

 

However, my original question was about how best to do backups on these systems and people went off on a virtualization tangent and never did answer my original question.

I wanted to mention it before but normally you do not put anything else on a domain controller. Somebody gets a hold of your domain controller you're up a creek. Hyper-V is just a couple clicks to get going on Microsoft Server, so you can later start virtualizing anyway should you change your mind. FreeNAS by version 10 will have some virtualization going too.

 

I host plex on my freenas, feel free to ask for any help in getting that going. I ended up creating a jail and installing it via a port so I can update it more frequently.

 

Since you're going to create SMB/CIFS file shares on the FreeNAS box, then just use windows backup and keep it simple. Windows backup in its current form is pretty solid.

[Gerr]

I want to run Blue Iris, which is a Windows only app, so thought it would work well on the Windows Server box.  However, I do have a separate transcode Win10 system that I wasn't planning on leaving on 24/7, but guess I can and use it as the NVR.

 

How do you back up your Plex jail?

 

Any word on when FreeNAS v10 will be released?

[Chukie]

 

Going back to basics..

 

Your first ides its a good aproach for something like blue iris U need windows. And running it on VM maybe, only maybe, can have problems over hardware relays like video capture boards or adapters.

Keep it simple, install your windows and make everithing working first.

 

For the second server, u can setup linux as storage server via nfs or samba, use freenas if u know howto. And use btrfs snapshots for a fast and virtualy no impact short terms backups, U can have a office setup backups every hour for a week or so. Rally easy. Btrfs work right out of the box whit no fancy need or know.

 

Use bacula for the long terms ones, free and ultra realiable system.

 

[Gerr]

I don't know Linux, so thought FreeNAS would be a simple server to setup.  I really like the sound of ZFS and multiple co-workers recommended it, so really looking for a distro that has that.