Thinking of getting a FreeNas box.. Does anywhere pre make them? I think it could be a nightmare finding all the parts for them, but I could be wrong. Is there any chance that the older Apple G4's or G5's would be able to run FreeNas? __________________  24-inch iMac 3.06GHz Black iPhone 4 32 GB 2.0 GHz Mac Mini HTPC 16 GB iPad | |
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 Apr 29, 2010, 07:37 AM | #2 |
| macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Chicago | As far as I can tell, FreeNAS isn't available built for PowerPC. On the other hand, OS X on a G4/G5 should be able to do everything a FreeNAS box can do - without doing much of anything to setup. A FreeNAS box is just a cheap PC, with possible upgrades to number of hard drive bays and size of power supply (for more drives). There aren't any special, hard to find parts. If you tell us what your objective is, the users here will give you more ideas. |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 07:49 AM | #3 |
| Thread Starter macrumors 6502a  Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Florida's Treasure Coast | Thanks for the response. I mainly just want to have a centralized data storage as well as backup for my house computers. I would like 1 massive iTunes library that can also sync with my Mac Mini and Plex 1 massive video storage area that can also sync with my Mac Mini and Plex And then the ability to save all my images and home movies to more than one place for redundancy. My house isn't prewired with Ethernet, so the distance is a bit of an issue, but can be resolved I am sure. __________________ 24-inch iMac 3.06GHz Black iPhone 4 32 GB 2.0 GHz Mac Mini HTPC 16 GB iPad |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 07:58 AM | #4 |
| macrumors 68030 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK | FreeNas is based on FreeBSD, hence requires a x86 machine. Rather than using a G4 or G5 I highly recommend the FreeNas route. Although Mac OS can deliver most services FreeNas can, the really tempting ones like iSCSI or ZFS are not supported though. I recently build a new FreeNas machine for my home network based on ZFS. These are the parts I bought: 9 x 2TB WD 20EADS (8 for the server, 1 spare) Intel Gigabit CT Desktop PCIe NIC 4GB Kingston RAM Asus P7P55D Deluxe (9 SATA ports, 8 for the storage array, 1 for the system drive) Intel Core I3 530 (smallest I could get for the board, plenty of fast for the FreeNas box) 530W Be Quiet Power Supply and a case with 9 5.25" bays for 3 hot swap hard drive bays that each hold 4 drives Some silent fans and you're done. Total cost was about 1500€. The drives are configured as a raidz2, so two parity drives, which gives me a total capacity of 12TB (advertised of course). I haven't measured the power consumption of the machine yet, but I reckon it's below 150W. |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 08:27 AM | #5 |
| macrumors 65816  Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Don't step into the kawoosh... | You can also look into something like unRAID. I run it for all my storage needs and it works great. You can read up on it on the unRAID Wiki and the unRAID Forum. Feel free to ask questions and I will try to answer. __________________ Vista: It's the blond version of OS's; pretty and fun, just... not functional for everything |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 09:58 AM | #6 |
| macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Chicago | Transporteur has a nice setup - which reminded me that with a G4 especially, and maybe a G5 too, you will need a SATA card (serial ATA, which all the new large drives are) to use large new internal hard drives. Take a look here: http://eshop.macsales.com/search/Har...ntroller+Cards For a G4, you'd need this: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/FTST1S2/ or this: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonne...hnology/TSATA/ |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 10:47 AM | #7 | |
| Thread Starter macrumors 6502a Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Florida's Treasure Coast | Quote:
 __________________ 24-inch iMac 3.06GHz Black iPhone 4 32 GB 2.0 GHz Mac Mini HTPC 16 GB iPad | |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 11:31 AM | #8 | |
| macrumors 68030 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK | Quote:
You could also go with AMD which makes the machine a little less expensive. I would have opted for AMD, too but there was no AMD board with that much SATA connectors, which is why I went the Intel route. | |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 01:25 PM | #9 |
| Thread Starter macrumors 6502a Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Florida's Treasure Coast | Is there just like a check list somewhere of parts to buy that will all be compatible, or is it something you have to piece together on your own? __________________ 24-inch iMac 3.06GHz Black iPhone 4 32 GB 2.0 GHz Mac Mini HTPC 16 GB iPad |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 01:37 PM | #10 |
| macrumors 68030 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK | Processors / Main boards are generally all compatible, as long as they are x86 (which excludes PowerMacs for example). You have to care about RAID controllers though. Compatible controllers are on this list: http://freenas.org/freenas_users_hardware |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 06:07 PM | #11 |
| macrumors 68020  Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Silicon Valley | So if you like the DIY route, then I recommend building a server on Debian. I used a pretty neat piece of hardware, the sheevaplug. It's literally the size of a wall wart power adaptor. I have it sync my iTunes library over and power music throughout the house via squeezebox server. Works great! I also use it as a NAS and as a web server with the Tonido. I have a few blog articles here. FreeNAS is great, but the project is in transition right now so I don't think it's the best time to jump onboard. It's currently based on FreeBSD, but the project is migrating to Debian... so i would wait until that is done and just build your own debian based box for now. __________________ Travel Blog: Cloud Commuting | Technology Blog: Not Quite Mainstream | Cashback: BigCrumbs |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 06:28 PM | #12 | |
| macrumors 68030 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK | Quote:
I'm just wondering how they will deal with the ZFS issue. AFAIK ZFS is still not implemented in Debian, isn't it? | |
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| Apr 29, 2010, 06:33 PM | #13 | |
| macrumors 68020 Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Silicon Valley | Quote:
As for ZFS, I'm really not sure.... I THINK it is implemented in some linux distros, though... not sure... __________________ Travel Blog: Cloud Commuting | Technology Blog: Not Quite Mainstream | Cashback: BigCrumbs | |
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| Apr 30, 2010, 05:53 AM | #14 | |
| macrumors 68030 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK | Quote:
 My servers generally run for 3 years without any changes at all. Once they finally do what I want, I don't touch them again. The software (FreeNAS) runs absolutely stable so I don't see any reason to update the software and risk the stability of the machine. | |
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| Apr 30, 2010, 08:52 AM | #15 | |
| macrumors 68020 Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Silicon Valley | Quote:
However, that's how I learn... and each subsequent build was much better than the previous! __________________ Travel Blog: Cloud Commuting | Technology Blog: Not Quite Mainstream | Cashback: BigCrumbs |
