Consider Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD for your multimedia/nas server needs.
Consider Linux, macOS, or FreeBSD for your multimedia/nas server needs.
I'm setting up a new multimedia/NAS system at home and need help choosing the operating system. Let's look at the components first: a Xeon E3-1226v3 CPU, Asus C226 motherboard, 16GB ECC DDR3 RAM, with room to expand to 32GB if needed. An LSI 8-port HBA 12-bay rackmount case running 450W Gold power supply. Possible drives include various NAS and storage options. For the drives, you have a mix of HDDs and SSDs—several 3TB and 4TB units, plus a few smaller ones. Your plans involve using FreeNAS for NAS and Plex media, possibly with a Linux distribution as an alternative.
Your original idea was to run FreeNAS with ZFS, creating two pools: one for the NAS (mirrored 2x3TB) and another for Plex media (3x3TB HGST RAIDZ1). You'd use one SSD as the Plex jail. The pros are that FreeNAS eliminates the need for HDDs for the OS and simplifies setup. However, you mentioned challenges with backing up the NAS pool to a large external drive with history features—it sounds tricky and not straightforward. Also, FreeNAS struggles with single drives, so you'd need to split tasks across multiple drives, which isn't ideal for redundancy or performance.
You're leaning toward using a Linux distro instead. You want something that supports ZFS installation and lets you use standard drives without ZFS. A Linux option would give you more flexibility in managing backups, storage configurations, and system customization. Since you're new to CLI, a GUI-based distro like Ubuntu MATE could be easier to manage. It would let you set up ZFS, configure multiple pools for different purposes, and handle backups more intuitively.
If you decide to go Linux, consider distributions such as Ubuntu Server or Fedora Server, which are well-suited for NAS and media servers. They offer robust support for RAID configurations, easy-to-use interfaces, and strong backup solutions. This approach would let you keep your setup simple while still achieving the performance and reliability you need.
I understand you're challenging my previous points, but you could create a unified pool and divide sections like partitions—more adaptable than anything else. Regarding freenas and ZFS, the snapshots provide versioning capabilities similar to what ZFS offers on FreeBSD. Mirrored vdevs simplify management and future expansion, letting you swap out drives with larger ones of equal size. When ready, you can grow partitions and expand vdevs. For a user-friendly interface on solid storage, freenas plus ZFS is the recommended choice. While Windows storage options seem appealing, I don’t have direct experience comparing them to ZFS.
I would install CentOS, it's among the most reliable and ideal for servers. It also offers the greatest support duration since it's based on Red Hat.
I assume you can use a graphical interface version of CentOS for server operations. Which GUI option would suit you best? Does CentOS enable the creation of several ZFS pools while also supporting alternatives for the operating system and individual drives? Is there a reliable backup solution that handles incremental or differential backups, or is it straightforward to add one yourself? If you decide to install, which version do you prefer? I believe CentOS can run Plex server, Handbrake, and MakeMKV. Can it integrate with Active Directory authentication so your Windows domain server can redirect user home drives to the NAS and forward client backups? Does it support NIC bonding to combine multiple Intel network cards? Yes, your switch already allows this.
For the GUI, GNOME is the standard choice. Bonding functions properly. You're free to use adobe products. You can install ZFS as an optional package. For non-parity RAID and single drives, I recommend Btrfs—it handles all the same checksum features and compression options as ZFS.