Installing Freenas

• Download a copy of the 64bit USB image – Atom processor is 64bit
• 4GB USB Memory stick (2 gb is too small since most manufactures use 1,000 MB when really they should be 1,024 – talk about a crime)

Then boot up H340.

Pretty simple and painless. All the drivers that are needed are loaded and there is no need to recompile anything.

Sit back and watch the magic.

My Goal

I wanted a second storage option where I could offset my primary storage to secondary unit as a backup server. This would allow the primary to fail and I would still have my data online available. It is by far not a disaster recovery or a backup of the data.

I setup a Raidz so I could maximize disk usage of 1 TB drives . RaidZ2 would be too much for the processor and with only 2GB of ram I’m already asking a lot with Raidz.

Quick Network Throughput Test:

Transfering 4GB continous file

“Stock”

• RaidZ network throughput:       31mb/s
• RaidZ2 network throughput:     30mb/s

MTU 9000

• RaidZ network throughput:       33mb/s
• RaidZ2 network throughput:     28mb/s

To be honest it’s not a real test, but it does give me an idea if I really care to do a real test. It is what it is – a slow processor. It’s still kick ass for a cheap storage device.

Temperatures

CPU

• sysctl -a | egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp"  
  or
  sysctl -a |  grep empe

Idle

dev.cpu.0.temperature: 26.0C
dev.cpu.1.temperature: 26.0C

Large Transfers (RSYNC)

• Transfer 1.36 TB

dev.cpu.0.temperature: 35.0C
dev.cpu.1.temperature: 35.0C

HDD

– I can’t figure out how to get a script to run.  I want to be lazy, but I can’t so the old fashion way will have to do.

 smartctl -a /dev/ada[X] | grep empe

ada0 – WD – Stock WHS Drive  (Bottom of tray)

• 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 110 098 000 Old_age Always – 37

ada1 Seagate Tray 4

• 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 066 057 045 Old_age Always – 34 (Min/Max 33/36)
• 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 034 043 000 Old_age Always – 34 (0 16 0 0 0)

ada2 Seagate Tray 3

• 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 065 060 045 Old_age Always – 35 (Min/Max 34/37)
• 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 035 040 000 Old_age Always – 35 (0 19 0 0 0)

ada3 Seagate Tray 2

• 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 063 059 045 Old_age Always – 37 (Min/Max 35/38)
• 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 037 041 000 Old_age Always – 37 (0 20 0 0 0)

It points to I will most likely need a better fan to dissipate heat if the server gets busy.

Things I don’t like so far:

• Reboot – lots and lots
  • Anytime a jail service changes
  • Network changes
    • For some reason I have to go back to console for simple changes like MTU
  • If I plug in an esata drive – System sees a new drive, but I can’t re mount it…wtf?!?
  • Hotspare removal – same issue
    • rebuild require e to shutdown change drive
• UPS server – I can’t get it to connect to my UPS network
  • Not sure why it’s not playing nice.
• Monitoring – Almost none. Rudimentary and simple email based only.
  • seems like up to the user or third party
• I’m finding it difficult to accept this is utilized in an enterprise solution
  • Not intuitive or maybe I’m too accustomed to hardware raid
• LED lights – Reading up on how to setup the drive lights.

Granted some of the issues it’s me not familiar with the operating system.

Click the next page for Plugin setup for Plex