G+_Jason Perry Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Okay I have a good idea bad idea question. I want to build a media server on top of FreeNAS. My end goal is to include all of the usual suspects and fine tune everything till it's just right. I know I have been told it is cheaper to buy a synology NAS rather than build one and install FreeNAS but I want the specs to be good enough that I can beat the crap out of it and my wife wont complain. Here is my question. Do I build my server and install ESXi then FreeNAS or do I just install FreeNAS? I like the idea of it being a virtual server because I would like to get around to building a server to host my desktops and just turn every screen in my house into a thin client then I would have some redundancy having the two servers. Or am I just asking for headaches? Plus who knows when or even if the second server would come Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Travis Hershberger Posted November 16, 2014 Share Posted November 16, 2014 Just a quick note, you can get used servers for about the price of a NAS box assuming you have a place to put it where the noise will not be an issue (I wouldn't want one of these in a bedroom closet for example.) www.xbyte.com www.stikc.com (Stallard Tech) In the SMB world it isn't so much a question of if I should install a hypervisor, instead it's "Why should I not?" In other words, it's becoming the accepted normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 I have a utility room in my basement that I am going to be using. The only thing it will be disturbing is the furnace and water heater. I am 100% pro visualization but I am also a believer that you don't know what you don't know. And I don't have a formal education in this it is all learning through google and finding out the hard way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_bryant thompson Posted November 17, 2014 Share Posted November 17, 2014 I'm using Windows Home Server but I'm moving to droboNs with a beefy standalone media computer running Plex, Windows Media Center, PlayOn/PlayLater, TiVo Desktop, MediaMonkey and likely scanner and document storage with print serving to boot. I'm finding that WHS2011 doesnot play well with some of these media programs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 My plan is to have a HDHomeRun or two streaming OTA signals and a Happauge receiving the cable signal. From there its all up in the air. I currently use Plex and love it but am looking at getting MythTV in the mix for the recording and am wondering if I am going to have to bring XBMC in for things to work together nicely, though I would rather run fewer things running to minimize headaches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Perry Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 That is where the thought of ESXi comes from I would rather 1 server one function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Kirk Miller Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I wouldn't recommend running freenas under esxi unless you know how the reservation, shares, and limits work and have them configured properly. An oversubscribed server could bring your freenas instance to a halt. There are also other considerations such as HBA using hardware pass through (VT-D) or to use RDM's that come into play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Stede Bonnett Posted November 23, 2014 Share Posted November 23, 2014 I have a number of FreeNAS machines, but my home server is Linux w/ZFS (2x6-disk RAIDz2 with 24GB RAM) running a number of single-purpose VM's in VirtualBox (Plex, SFTP, PRTG and the like). You really need to understand how ZFS works to pull this off at a level comparable to what FreeNAS does out of the box (like recommending disk setups and creating snapshot schedules and choosing the best path-naming scheme for the disks). Either way you should try to grok what a dataset is and why you would want them and where. Also +1 to lz4 compression on everything. Easiest solution? Make a storage server with FreeNAS, then make another VM server with ESXi/KVM/Proxmox/etc that stores it's images on a dataset there (iSCSI extent or NFS) and has access to shared bulk storage over SMB (e.g. so you can just drop a stuff onto the fileserver that your Plex VM will index and serve out without having to allocate huge virtual disks and figure out how to back them up). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Alan Edwards Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 I wouldn't virtualise the storage box for a home network. You'll be dealing with several layers of abstraction to rebuild the array if (when) a drive dies. I would use something like an HP MicroServer for the FreeNAS box (or a standalone NAS) and build an ESXi box for the media server. I've got FreeNAS on a MicroServer and ESXi running on a home-build Pentium G2120 for Plex Server and several other VMs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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