On 27/08/2013 14:05, Tanstaafl wrote: > On 2013-08-27 7:42 AM, Alan McKinnon <[email protected]> wrote: >> On 27/08/2013 13:36, Tanstaafl wrote: >>> I'm wondering what the best way would be to get something set up for ZFS >>> file storage. I have some older servers that I can use, so was leaning >>> toward FreeNAS... > >> Mine are HP mini-servers (the cube shaped ones) with 4 SATA bays running >> FreeNAS 8.0.something. >> >> Dunno if you've worked with FreeNAS before, but it's literally a case of >> write the image to USB or flash storage and boot off it. Then play. >> >> You will need to be able to boot off a USB stick, CF card or similar, >> FreeNAS uses an entire drive for it's system partition and it's a shame >> to waste a whole high-capacity disk just for a 2G system image > > I haven't worked with it before, but this comment of yours means I soon > will be - thanks... :) > > So, once I have something up and running and fully configured, it is > relatively easy to backup the new/running system image, in case the > flash drive ever crashes and burns?
It's a small image (<100M compressed), so just keep a copy handy somewhere and reflash. The GUI has a function where you can backup the running config, a restore is a simple matter of click restore in the GUI The USBstick/CF card you boot off will keep a copy of the current image and one version back (i.e. the one the current one replaced), so you can boot the old system by pressing F2 if the new one fails for some weird reason. Most of the config is GUI-driven in a browser, a lot but not all options can be set on the CLI. But honestly, it's a file server and you will find that once you set your shares up the way you like you will seldom change stuff. Your main interaction will probably be watching the pretty connectd graphs in a browser For shares you get everything you could possibly need - cifs, nfs (2,3 and 4), iSCSI, FTP, scp, some Apple thing, and tftp and a few more. And rsync! > Thanks Alan, starting to get excited about playing with ZFS. > > How would you rate their docs and support community (for the free version)? Support is top-notch, on par with what you find around here if that helps ;-) Each major.minor version has a .pdf manual published, while the next version is in development, the docs get updated on a wiki and the final version is an export of that. There's a forum with knowledgeable users and the devs hang around just in case regular users can't help with a question. No mailing list though :-( And the forum does have a lot of noise from n00bs, but that's common with web forums. Like on Gentoo, you quickly learn to spot those posts and scan over them. > > Thanks again Alan > > Charles > -- Alan McKinnon [email protected]
