G+_Dallas Traina Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 I have a question for you know it alls. I am looking at setting up a home NAS using WD Red or Green drives in the 4TB or 6TB sizes. My question is, is there anything wrong with using an external NAS enclosure that supports Raid configuration instead of a server running FreeNAS? If is did use one will I still be able to use it to host all of my music and movies to my other devices, including a RaspBMC? Thanks in advance!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_G Riedell Posted November 22, 2014 Share Posted November 22, 2014 Recovery from a hardware failure is the first thing that comes to my mind. One of the benefits of using software RAID on a FreeNAS box is that in the event of a major non-drive failure, the data can be quickly "recovered" (or so I've been told) using a new NAS box with different hardware. Though I've never tried to confirm this. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong about this) Not to mention the cost savings if you already have a spare PC sitting around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Travis Hershberger Posted November 23, 2014 Share Posted November 23, 2014 Most nas boxes just use Linux software raid under the hood, so if the box itself dies you can pop the drives into a computer and have the raid back and running in minutes. (Yes, I've done this..... not a fun day.) Stick with the Red drives for any RAID/NAS, the green drives will randomly drop from the array due to no TLER being turned on in the firmware. Also, stay away from RAID 5 and/or RAIDZ1. The likely-hood of loosing data with those is tremendous. To the point where if you're considering using RAID 5, you might as well just use scarry/no RAID 0. (This is assuming Red drives and not Red Pro drives, but even with Red Pros the chance of 2 drives failing is still high.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_G Riedell Posted November 23, 2014 Share Posted November 23, 2014 Travis Hershberger Very informative. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ Posted November 23, 2014 Share Posted November 23, 2014 I run FreeNAS for fun... I use Synology/ioSafe for work. FreeNAS is great... incredibly powerful and flexible... but once you start building it out for high-availability the price will quickly surpass the price of a dedicated NAS... Additionally, most old PC hardware uses FAR more power than a dedicated NAS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Ben Tyger Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 My only issue with dedicated NAS hardware is that every time a new generation of disks comes along you have all new hardware. If you have generic hardware, all you have to do up add/replace your HBA and you can use the new type of disk(s) (considering the mobo shad the bandwidth). You can also mix hardware generations. In most dedicated boxes, that is not an option or you can only do that with a performance penalty. While the dedicated box may be cheaper in the short run, it may be costing more in the long run. I also want to say this comment is based on home usage. Business / enterprise usage is a different beast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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