Do I really need my own FreeNAS + ownCloud system?

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fl0w3n

New Member
Nov 26, 2018
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I'm no stranger to what happens when you hang around the forums and the "ideas" start trickling in, and the $$ starts trickling out.

With that said, before I dive into all that STH has to offer, I want to get my bearings straight since there's a lot I don't understand about this side of the tech. I'm pretty comfortable with hardware and my google-fu, spent lots of time building rigs and over clocking/benchmarking back when I had time.

Now, my question or rather my situation that I'd like y'alls input on - I have an older gaming desktop (3570k, ASUS M-IV-Gz, 970 SLI, etc) but I currently have it in storage since I keep moving and don't currently have space to setup a desktop.
I will be getting a basic used ThinkPad, but I'd like to get access to my files from the desktop and centralize them so once I do get the desktop back up and running I can easily share between the two. As a sweet bonus, accessing these files from the WAN would be awesome as well. I'm just talking about photos, documents, files/programs, backups primarily. Not really streaming media. I'd migrate the ~1.5 TB on the desktop to this centralized location and build from there. I use Windows 7.

So, what I'm looking for:
  1. A mounted drive that's common between my desktop and laptop that I can use for general storage
  2. Possibility of securely accessing this data from outside my LAN


Here's what I see as my options:
  1. The most exciting one, but also most excessive - SilverStone CS280 case where I'd build an mITX rig around (8) 2.5" drives
    1. This opens a whole can of worms - I'd likely go used on the hardware for budget
    2. I'd likely go SATA III 2.5" drives, unless I can get SAS 6gbps 10k/15k drives for cheap
    3. Would onboard controller suffice or at that point am I really looking at needed a dedicated controller card?
    4. At that point, will an Embedded solution be satisfactory - or do I need to go beefier on CPU power?
    5. I could probably get away with 2TB total storage, so for budget if I got (8) 500 GB drives in a Raid 10 i could probably make that work. Although the more the better
    6. I picture setting up FreeNAS + ownCloud on this, which should hit both my criteria points above
  2. The most budget friendly and maybe easiest one, but doesn't give me access outside my LAN
    1. I already have a 4TB Red in my desktop, just get a second 4TB Red, Raid 1 them for redundancy, setup my desktop in the corner/closet headless and share the drive in Windows with the Laptop. I have a hodgepodge of other 1TB and 2TB drives, nothing else matching really. And a Samsung 850 1TB OS drive
  3. Or, do I get a prebuild Western Digital diskless NAS like the EX4100 and populate it with a mix of drives I already have and purchase some more matching ones?



This is a huge mind dump, and I hope I laid it out clearly enough to get some feedback from the community. Ultimately it comes down to, epeen vs common sense and budget. Thanks in advance.
 

Aestr

Well-Known Member
Oct 22, 2014
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Seattle
Well you already summarized my thoughts in your last paragraph. Based on your requirements you don't need freenas and/or onecloud at all. In fact if all you wanted to do was get access to those files that solution is likely to cost you more money and time in the long run than something simple and off the shelf.

Now that the common sense is out of the way let's talk about what you want to do. If you like playing with software, have the time and money to allow you to build this and get it working and don't have other users that will be upset when you have downtime because you're playing with things then go for it. You'll have some fun and hopefully learn some things that will benefit you in the future.

Depending on your level of skill with securing services and how good you are keeping your systems patched with the latest updates you might find it easier to provide remote, secure access to your files using a VPN rather than exposing something like Owncloud. Something like OpenVPN can be easily installed on almost any device that might access the files and the service can be installed on your server running freenas multiple ways.

Either way you decide to go I'm sure people here will help you figure out the best approach. Good luck!
 

nthu9280

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2016
1,628
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San Antonio, TX
I second the OpenVPN path. Personally, I can't keep-up with security stuff so even if I use OwnCloud, that would be behind my firewall.
If you are not currently using that desktop, why not make that a headless ESXi host, put pfSense VM & another storage VM. I'd think that will be the least burden on the wallet for the cost of used 3TB or 4 TB SATA drives and a HBA, Intel Quad NIC.
 

fl0w3n

New Member
Nov 26, 2018
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That's what I was figuring to hear. I do have the time, and reliability isn't critical since I'll be only user. However, I don't really have the money to do it right and I'd probably lose interest if it means sitting and waiting for deals for the next year to build it.

But before I fully discount dedicated hardware to do this, I have two questions:
1. For a rig like I described, what's the minimum hardware requirements I'm looking for? Can I get by with an embedded combo or something last gen?
2. If I ran a Raid 5 and started with 3 drives, could I just keep plugging in more drives over time as I got them? That could help budget.


Now regarding using the desktop I have and the alternate software solution of using a VPN, I like that idea but just like FreeNAS I know very little. I do know in my work environment what the VPN gains me - if I was able to have that for my home use that'd be great.

Is the concept that I have a VM running in my Windows 7 on the desktop, and within that VM I have my FreeNAS, and within that FreeNAS I have OpenVPN? Then once back in Windows on the Desktop, I'm joining the VPN and mounting the drive created through FreeNAS, even though they are physically connected to that hardware already? Then the laptop is just joining the VPN and mounting the FreeNAS drive, just like I do for work? The purpose of the additional NIC is because the VM will need it's own dedicated NIC since it's in a different environment than the desktop's NIC?
I'm not necessarily asking how to do it, I'll google the details later once I've solidified my hardware approach, I'm just checking to make sure my conceptual understanding is correct.
 

kapone

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2015
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I'm confused...It l0oks like:

- You need centralized storage at home.
- You want to be able to access that storage when you're out of your home.

How did we go from those two requirements to Freenas/OwnCloud/OpenVPN ??
 

fl0w3n

New Member
Nov 26, 2018
5
0
1
I'm confused...It l0oks like:

- You need centralized storage at home.
- You want to be able to access that storage when you're out of your home.

How did we go from those two requirements to Freenas/OwnCloud/OpenVPN ??

Assumptions. Lots of assumptions:p

Sounds like you have some other thoughts on a solution? Hence my thread title, I’m all ears!
 

kapone

Well-Known Member
May 23, 2015
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Let's solve one of the problems first.

Do you want to use that existing desktop hardware you have, for anything other than this "centralized storage", or is that it?
 

fl0w3n

New Member
Nov 26, 2018
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It is my old gaming rig, and eventually I would like to have it setup again as my gaming rig/general use computer when living arrangements permit. So despite it sitting idle and unused now, it would not be a dedicated box for a storage solution long term.
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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artofserver.com
i'l just start with "no"... in hopes of saving you from going down the rabbit hole here at STH... we all have problems here, feel free to hang with us, don't become one of us. :)

if you're traveling a lot, I think there's no point in having a system running 24/7 if all you want to do is access about 1.5TB worth of files, and probably not all of it. wouldn't you be better off with some sort of cloud drive service? sync your data from your desktop to some cloud storage space, then sync it back to your thinkpad. if you make changes, it should automatically sync to the cloud and when you're back home, it'll sync back to your desktop. let someone else run that server so you don't have to power a 100W appliance all day long.

if you have concerns about privacy/security, just make sure to pick a cloud storage service that encrypts your data at rest and in transit using a secret key that "you" provide *locally* so the key is never transmitted to the company.