Pools and Datasets
FreeNAS is all about storage. And data redundancy. Given the importance on Pools and Datasets, I have found that you don't actually interact with them very much ... well, when I say interact, I guess I mean create.
This
link has a very good intro to FreeNAS terminology and is well worth the read.
Initially, I put my 8 4TB HDDs into one pool using RaidZ3 (5 drives for data, 3 drives for data redundancy). There are a number of raid calculators out there ... this is the
one that I used. With RaidZ3, my 32TB was reduced to 18TB. Given that I have extra drives sitting around in my 2nd server (testing), I decided that I can forgo the three drive redundancy and cut it down to 2.
With RaidZ2, my 32TB is now reduced to 22TB. Still - more than enough space for what I am currently using (about 5TB).
Pool Creation.
Storage, Pools, Add, Create new Pool ... I was going to show a pic here but I don't have any HDDs available for the new pool (they are all in the existing pool) so the screenshot is really dull.
Dataset Creation
I am still not sure about datasets. Do I create one big dataset and then create folders (in Windows) inside that dataset. Or do I create a handful of datasets and map different windows drives to each dataset. Or do I create one dataset ... and additional datasets inside that dataset.
My googling has revealed that there isn't a single approach that is suggested. Most people say '
do what feels good to you'. Great - very helpful.
Anyway ... here is what I did this time ...
- Created a single dataset for each Windows drive mapping that I wanted (with one exception)
- Datasets are ...
- FreeNAS
- General - Everything else that doesn't fit below
- Manuals - I like to keep copies of the manuals for the stuff we have
- Music
- Pictures
- PlexMedia - This is where my movies, TV shows, etc are that plex will use
- PlexMetaData - This is a dataset that will house various plex meta data ... watched status of shows, any edits I make (eg sort order)
- RecordedTV
- Software - Storage for the software installs that I download
- Temp
Another important aspect with datasets is permissions. I really screwed up the permissions in my first FreeNAS install. This was the primary reason that I decided to burn it all down and start again.
So ... 100% windows sharing will be used (see below) so ACL type is windows. Each dataset is owned by FNRuff and the FNUsers group ... with the exception of the PlexMetaData dataset which is owned by plex and the FNUsers group.