Need advice on Raid and FreeNas

[pete wright]

On 7/19/06, Jim Freeze <jim at freeze.org> wrote:
> 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.
>

a better metric for us would be network throughput and disk I/O over a
shorter period, like kilobit's per sec.

> 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.
>
hmm...actually the oposite is generally true.  what motherboard are
you using, and what is the RAID controller chipset?


> 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.
>

I'd hit the FreeNAS list regarding questions about scripting and configuration.

> 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?
>
it really depends on how you would like to admin it.  some folks
prefer using a full FreeBSD RELEASE, others seem to prefer FreeNAS.


-pete

-- 
~~o0OO0o~~
Pete Wright
www.nycbug.org
NYC's *BSD User Group