[FreeNAS]: Hardware Compatibility and naming Conventions

Hardware Compatibility and naming Conventions

 What is the hardware naming convention under FreeNAS(FreeBSD)?

ad0 is the first hard-drive, the Operatin System drive. ad1,ad2,ad3 .... ad999 are the second et .......storage drives.
ad0s1 is the first partition on the first drive, and ad5s4 is the fourth partition of the sixth drive. 
fd0 is the first flopy drive.
acd0 is the first ATAPI (IDE) CDROM drive.
cd0 is the first SCSI CDROM drive.
da0 is the first SCSI direct access disk-drive(can be USB drive).
da0s1 is the first partition on the first SCSI direct access disk-drive, and da5s4 is the fourth partition of the sixth SCSI direct access disk-drive. 

Warning: Drive names may change as drives are added or removed.

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What is the best hardware solution for your own FreeNAS server?

Before you do the math:
Think about your data storage requirements

► How important it is to you (personal or business data)

► Can it be easily replaced or is it replicated elsewhere?

► How often you access/change the information

► What is the expected growth rate of data (will I max out the storage media and how do I expand it?)

The Performance

• How many users access the information
• What your network infrastructure is (the old 10/100/1000 debate)
• Cables,
• Switches (and hubs),
• Routers
• (some have multiport routers with wireless and are talking about GigE (why? wirless does not do GigE and the switch ports will more than likely be 10/100)
• Accessability and Security
• Will you be accessing the data locally, or via a WAN?

            and finally
The budget
Do I have any/some/no existing hardware that can be used to build my FreeNAS platform?
How much money have I got to spend? 

Note: by draggaj

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Hard Drive

Replacement: Hard drives are the most important parts of data storage devices.If the drive fails there are no replacements 

Performance: Size, drive speed, transfer speed, buffer memory, brand and model are just some characteristics on witch depend your system performance.

Failure: If your system breakdown you can replace the failed parts, reinstall FreeNAS or move the hard drive to a different system to recover your data. If your hard drive die, the information on the drive is lost forever.

Size: You can use hard drives up to 2TB under FreeNAS(FreeBSD ), but you must keep in mind that you need a hard drive supported buy BIOS to boot FreeNAS from hard drive.

Motherboard

Replacement: Motherboards can be replaced or upgraded without any data lost. 

Performance: 

P2 motherboards

P3 motherboards are the good choice, old but not too old.

P4 motherboards

Processor

Replacement: Processors can be replaced or upgraded without any data lost. L1 and L2 cache size of the processor can make a difference.

Performance:

P2

• P3 it’s a good choice, for the server reliability and SoftwareRAID.

P4

Multi-Processors

RAM

Replacement: memory can be replaced or upgraded without any data lost.

128MB:

• 256MB: can be a good decision for small system < 1 TB.

512+MB :

Network Cards

Replacement: Network cards can be replaced or upgraded without any data lost. 

10Mb

• 100Mb NIC’s, cheap cables and switches are the best solution for the money.

1Gig

                What is the point of having one single gigabit connection to one single computer on your LAN?
                Full upgrade to gigabit include industrial grade cables (home made cables are too noisy), gigabit switches, gigabit routers, gigabit NIC’s, in one word the whole network.
                Once you upgrade everything, you wrongfully believe that your network will work at Gigabit speed? Wrong!
                If your workstation access the internet you must setup the maximum MTU to 1500, like that you can’t take advantage of higher “jumbo frames” MTU 9000. If your server use MTU 9000 and your workstations use MTU 1500,  packet fragmentation will slow down your network.
                What about the hard drives transfer speed? 

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If you don't have a need for more speed than 100BaseT gives you, there's no reason to spend bigger bucks for gigabit upgrade.

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Here is the math calculation:

1 x 1 x 1 x 0 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 0
For any zero in your formula the network upgrade results will be zero.