The choice of an operating system depends heavily on what you are going to do with the nas server. I have a server with 16 gb ram and 4x1tb hdds configured as raid 10. If you are talking about rebuilding, a zfs system will only rebuild the actual data on disk, rather than the full disk in the case of a hardware raid card. Zfs has two tools zpool and zfs to manage devices, raid, pools and filesystems from the operating system level.
Zfs software raid uses some cpu and a small amount of ram. So how hard is it to crash and kill a freenas 11 zfs raid z1 array. The hardware raid card has no insights into what file system or data you have on the disk. Before listing linux or freebsd distros for creating network attached storage os, i would like to say there is no best operating system either for nas or computer. The fact that it uses a thoroughly enterprise file system and it is free means that it is extremely popular among it professionals who are on constrained budgets. Instead, it has the software raid but the software raid requires 5 hdds. All the top servers, san, and nas all use software raid.
Use freenas with zfs to protect, store, and back up all of your data. If you want to add additional disks beyond what the motherboard supports, host. Now i have to configure that server for the freenas, but i have found that the freenas wont support the hardware raid. Selfbuilt nas wfreenas and a hardware raid controller. Freenas hardware upgrade unix and linux dslreports forums. I setup a freenas box several months ago as a test and put in 2 120gb hard drives setup in a raid 1 mirror configuration. Freenas is an operating system that can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share data over a network. Id honestly use neither, and i would not trust a software raid for a production server of any kind. Recently, however, i have been looking into freenas. Software raid commands all the highest end use cases.
You can build your own nas server for your small business by using an old or new serverpc hardware. The opensource linux nas software is light linux distros but enough power to handle your storage problem. Zfs has a selfhealing mechanism which only works if redundancy is performed by zfs. Deciding between hardware and software raid in my freenas. Zfs and hardware raid often does not play well and you might lose the pool under certain circumstances. Bsd opensolaris and linux raid software drivers are open source. One of them will be used for the os and cant be used for other raid configuration. Top hardware components for freenas nas servers freenas is a freebsd based storage platform that utilizes zfs. Unlike hardware raid, you will not suffer from data loss that can occur from interrupted writes or corrupt data returned from a hardware cache.
Here is a list of some best open source nas linux operating system available on the internet. Raidz2 and raidz3 using freenas while unraid offers just raid 0, parity raid1 and dual parity. It eliminates most, if not all of the shortcomings found in legacy file systems and hardware raid devices. Hardware raid is perfectly fine, and often really useful for the smb market, but is in no way superior to software raid. I have a a dell poweredge 2900 with a perc h700 raid controller, 48gb of ram, 8x3tb hdds. Freenas is the simplest way to create a centralized and easily accessible place for your data. Freenas storage operating system open source freenas. You can install it on ordinary hardware too, just like unraid. In this guide, we focus on software that understands a nas server primarily as a system for the provision of data in your. Selfbuilt nas w freenas an d a hardware raid controller guys, i am just starting to do research and spec out a desktop nas freenas but as i read more into it i found that mobo raid controllers i plan to do 4x3tb raid5 are considered evil of all sorts, so they encourage people to get a controller.