Home Server on a Budget

Hardware Hub Networking
1

Howdy, Syndicate. I had a thread yesterday about some particular FreeNas questions, and I've taken care of all of that. Now to bring you the build so you can tear it apart. 

The Mission:

To be able to backup mine and my roommate's Windows 7 PC's, stream (movies, music, and steam installs) from one, solid location. 

The Software:

A simple FreeNas setup with CIPHS. 

The Hardware: 

Case: Coolermaster Elite 120 Advanced ($49.99 USD @ MACMALL)

Mobo: ASRock E350M1 ($68.99 USD @ SuperBiiz)

Storage: 3x 3TB HGST Deskstar Coolspin 3.5" HDD ($99.99 USD a drive @ B&H), running FreeNas off USB

PSU and 8GB DDR3 on hand

Switch: TRENDnet TEG-S80g ($31.00 USD @ Amazon) 

CAT6 cables everywhere, and a few wireless access points we have lying around. 

 

I've been testing the "Mission" section on our flimsy home network using my PC as a "server" for the past few days, and everything seems to work well enough even without gigabit. I'm confident all will be well; however, I would love for you guys and your expertise to give me a few pointers.

 

Also, for a small 4-man home network, is it worth purchasing a fourth 3TB drive to run in RAID 5? I know redundancy is infinitely valuable, but keep in mind I'm on a budget. I'm considering it heavily, but I wanted to know what you all thought. 

2

You can run raidz1 with three drives. You'll get 6TB of storage, and any one drive can fail and the pool will still function. With four drives, you could do raidz1 for 9TB (one can fail), raidz2 for 6TB (two can fail), striping across two mirrors for 6TB (two can fail as long as they are not in the same mirror, better performance than raidz), mirror all four for 3TB (three can fail), or stripe across all four for 12TB (don't do this unless you don't mind losing 12TB of data when one drive fails).

Remember, hardware RAID is a bad thing and you should avoid it on FreeNAS.

3

Oh, I definitely tend to stick to software RAID. My only reason for wanting to purchase the extra drive and run it in a 5 setup is that I'm fairly certain the 9TB of storage from the original 3 will be pushed close. I'm thinking the first backup and game/media movement to the server will take up between 4 and 6. 

4

Well if you were considering striping alone without the fourth drive, then please, I implore you, get the fourth for raidz1!!