FreeNAS (FYI, soon to be renamed to TrueNAS CORE). FreeBSD + OpenZFS
- https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U3.2/freenas.html
- Important: https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U3.2/zfsprimer.html
8 HDDs in RAIDz2 (2 parity drives)
- 4TB * 8, requires 32GB RAM or
- 8TB * 8, requires 64GB RAM, longer resilver.
Mirror is possible (less usable space).
DO NOT BUY WD RED!
Machine choices:
- iXSystems official hardware https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/#buyawesomefreenasmini. FreeNAS is pre-installed. $1700
- https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/servers-storage-and-networking/poweredge-t340-tower-server/spd/poweredge-t340/pe_t340_13159c_vi_vp?configurationid=a02155ec-8abe-4541-a259-763b69ed14d1 $2000–$3000
Network will be a bottle neck. The usual 1Gb ethernet is only a little bit less than throughput of a single HDD. But may be ~ half or less for 8 HDD setup. (for sequential operations anyway)
Can be worked around by using 10Gb ethernet internally (need 10Gb switch/router).
- Can allow 2 (raidz2) or 1–4 (mirror, based on luck…) HDDs to fail simualtaneously.
- HDD upgrade can be done 1 (raidz2) or 4 (mirror) at a time.