I loved this video. Good basic info. Enjoyed everything being handled in a nonchalant way. More videos in this style please.
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yes pls
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Neither does FreeNAS⌠they say you should have minimum 8GB of memory and they recommend 1GB per 1TB of storage for optimum performance.
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Yeah, but Unraid will run on a potato.
Personally I use a 4-bay Synology NAS which I purchased over five years ago for <$300. All it does is serve media files over the network, so it doesnât matter that its CPU is slower than a modern smart watch. I use a Nvidia ShieldTV for Plex Media Server, which transcodes multiple video streams in hardware and works beautifully while also acting as a great streamer box.
So will GNU/Linux and you can install samba/nfs to serve out files as you wishâŚ
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Sure, but thatâs a full-fledged computer while weâre talking about NAS appliances with pretty web UIs and such. I donât want to mess around with my file server, it isnât a toy, I use it daily. I have a local linux box and a bunch of Linodes for fun projects.
When I sit down on the couch I want to hit play and have a movie immediately start playing and never, ever, have to turn to the other person sitting on the couch and say âHold on, Iâll have this fixed in a jiffy!â
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And in the world of web UIs for managing storage⌠the only two options are freenas or unraid??
Those are the two major players for DIY NAS appliances, yes. Iâm sure there are others.
So Isilon or datadomain by EMC isnt a major player⌠they are paid with pretty web UIs.
edit⌠guess those arent really diy tho.
Yeah, lets talk about hundred thousand dollar NAS in a thread about DIY NAS.
Edit: You edited that fast. 
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Still plenty of options to choose from.
FreeNAS
NAS4Free
CryptoNAS
NASLite
Openfiler
OpenMediaVault
EasyNAS
Rockstor
TurnKey
Yes, I like Snapraid under OpenMediaVault quite a bit myself. I agreed there are other options, but Unraid and FreeNAS are the two bigshots.
So I do have a question, and ironically its probably the least technical question I can ask.
How do you actually find/buy media outside of buying DVDs or downloading them illegally.
Everyone keeps saying that you can store media on a media server. Wellllll thats great and all, but I own 2 dvds and all of my music is taken care of on a separate dedicated system.
So what good is a media server compared to hulu, netflix, amazon, etc.
If I use a media server, can I stay current with popular shows? How would I do that?
If the history channel has a random special documentary, how could I get it. Same goes for the discovery and travel channel.
I feel like so many people have cut the cord, but I havenât seen any evidence that there is a legitimate way to get the same content on a personal media device.
Am I missing something. Am I just a special case that still needs to be patient as technology and media cooperations catch up. Or has there been a solution this whole time that has been smacking me in the face?
Does anything other than FreeNAS on that list use ZFS? If I were going to build a dedicated storage server, I would want it have ZFS.
Wonât FreeNAS as well? Their minimum requirements talk about 8 GiB of RAM, but you can find people talking about a working FreeNAS with only 2 GiB of RAM, with some in the comments saying they run ZFS with only 1 GiB of RAM.
I canât find the actual minimum requirements for Unraid, but maybe they are also more than is actually needed?
Have you looked at MythTV for recording over the air TV station broadcasts?
It wonât help you with History Channel and other Cable-specific content, but it could help fill in the gaps.
@ryan @kreestuh at 9:25 you make a RAID 0 logical drive in the Option ROM Configuration for Arrays (ORCA) program; wonât this prevent ZFS from talking directly to the drive?
Me trying to find out more about this controller, âHP Smart Array P410â and its software:
- Controller support page at HPE
- Configuring Arrays on HP Smart Array Controllers - Reference Guide (pdf)
By the way, if find broken links in HP documentation, try changing the domain from hp.com to hpe.com in the URL.
As much as I like the video and the idea, it already has some massive disadvantages for an average geek. IMHO
Firstly, the lowest common denominator. You seemed to have started with a great premise of âit will run on RPiâ but immediately jumped to a server. Massive, loud, power hungry, needs a wired connection. Pretty much a no no for an apartment dweller. Here is one thing that most people already have - an old laptop! Small, mostly quiet, power efficient, has built in wireless and doesnât need to be stored in a basement. With some trickery you could mount it to the back of your TV. The biggest disadvantage of this approach that I see is extra HDD space, but that can be addressed as well. It is also a much better deal if your friends or family are looking for one of these solutions and you are willing to become their tech support slave.
Next, redundancy. It is really no crucial for media content to have a backup, but it is important for a general file storage/backup from other devices. Hope this will be addressed in future videos.
Lastly, it would be nice to see a low budget RPi or old desktop version of this build in parallel. I know it is some extra work, but it would be a much more âdown to the groundâ approach for general public.
Not hating, keep it. Hope this was constructive.
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While what youâre saying is perfectly valid, keep in mind this is a âhow to build a media serverâ video/series, not a âhow to build a bullet proof backup solutionâ, so not going with redundancy is - as you stated - perfectly reasonable.
Another thing that came to my mind though⌠How is FreeNAS (or ZFS in general I guess) handling differently sized volumes now? Last time you did a NAS series it was all âyou need equally sized drives or the world is going to endâ, but the video clearly shows non-equal drives.
Does that work properly now? Or does it just discard the remaining free space? Itâs one of the reasons why I had doubts about FreeNAS as well.
I noticed, that in the browserâs address bar it says âfreenasâ. How does that work ?