Need advice on Raid and FreeNas

[Jim Freeze]

Hi

I am setting up a file server for a small office (10 computers).
My first attempt at this I used FreeNas. It was easy to setup
and I like that the system is dedicated.

One downside of this method is that the write times are slower
than I expected. I am using SATA2 drives w/ 8MB buffer on a
100MB network, but the write times I was getting was about
2.5GB per hour. I expected 5 GB in ten minutes.

The mother board I am using has a built in raid controller, but
I have never read about anyone having warm fuzzies using
a built in raid card.

I assume I could use a hardware raid with FreeNas and have
it setup the CIFS and NFS systems. It is also nice to
be able to boot from a USB drive.

Another downside is that it is not easy to build and install scripts
onto a FreeNas system.

Can someone tell me if I am heading down the wrong path using
FreeNas? Should I just use a hardware raid and install FBSD
so I have access to the ports and and configure samba and nfs manually?

I could probably work around the script issue if I could figure out how
to get a fast raid with FreeNas, since I like the simplicity and the fact
that I can upgrade the system very easily.


Thanks for any input.

-- 
Jim Freeze