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24Mar/100

My FreeNAS Build (Part 1 of 3)

FreeNAS LogoI've decided it was time to get back to the roots of my geek and setup my own FreeNAS system for the house. I've been using Mozy at home and it backs up my primary PC just fine but it's seriously lacking in features that could make my life easier, not to mention it's $$ each month I could be saving! Some of the shortcommings of my current solution (Mozy) is it doesn't back up any of my laptops, it doesn't download torrents in the background and it doesn't sync my iTunes library. These and more features are built in with FreeNAS.

I picked up a nice XPS 400 case/MB/CPU/RAM from a co-worker and started the search for all the other goodies I would need to build my new NAS. After much reading, I decided I'd go the route of installing the FreeNAS software on a compact flash drive hooked up via SATA. It's super fast, more reliable than CD and seemed like one of the more common methods of installation.

As for the data storage, I opted for an Adaptec 2610SA SATA RAID Controller with (4) Western Digital 500GB SATA drives. I'll be running these in a RAID 5 configuration which should yield just over 1TB of disk space. 1TB of disk space should be plenty for my needs for the next few years, I would suggest you take a serious look at your data storage needs before building your own, plan for the future as upgrading is possible but why bother, plan ahead!

To date, I haven't gotten all the parts in yet, once I do I'll post my build with pictures of the build process for everyone.

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  1. Glad your back, even though I don’t get the Geek Speak. I enjoy following your learning interests.


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