What filesystem/OS for my Server/NAS

[RADCOM]

I have an HP microserver N54L, 16GB memory, IBM Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual-Port Nic and HP P410 raid controller with 1GB . I plan to get 4 x 3TB Western digital RED NAS drives. What are your suggestions for a filesystem/OS and why? I was thinking raid 10 on Windows 2012 but I'm open to suggestions. Thanks.

[kiwi]

Do you also intend to run some Windows specific software on that server?
You might wanna check these 2 popular NAS solutions:
FreeNAS
NAS4Free

[RADCOM]

I was going to use it to back up all my important files and snapshots of my other systems. I was toying with the idea of ZFS but that would be a steep learning curve for me as I'm am a windows kid and linux noob

[tiro_uspsss]

I am a windows fellow as well.. having said that NAS4Free is entirely GUI over network :up:

if not, then, yes, I'd recommend WS2012 - I'm using it on many of my machines including my main rig & it is the best MS OS imo! :)

[TuKo]

WS2012 + DriveBender :-)

[josh1980]

Nothing beats ZFS in terms of preventing corruption. I use FreeNAS myself. I got very scared when someone asked the NAS4Free forum for help with their ZFS pool and someone with a significant number of posts said to run fsck on it. fsck isn't for ZFS. That really scared me and made me question the actual knowledge of the forum I'd be relying on later if I had problems.

ZFS, when properly implemented, is a pimp daddy.

Properly implemented to me means ECC RAM and at least 8GB of RAM for system stability. Don't be one of those suckers that didn't use ECC RAM and trashed their pool when a single bit of RAM failed in the system.

[Daveburt714]

FWIW, I built a NAS recently for similar reasons.
I really had no clue what OS to use. Just wanted easy storage to sit on my network so all my WIN7 machines could access it...
For my application it was intended to be a dedicated NAS, so it won't be used for anything else.

I was really surprised how easy it was to set up using NAS4Free (and it's really free :D)! Plus the system requirements are very minimal.
I needed a CD drive to get things installed, but after that, all that's required is a 2Gb USB flash drive to hold the OS, a mobo, mem and drives.
No keyboard, mouse or monitor required! You can access/control it from any of your other machines just by entering it's IP address in a browser on your connected rigs.

I'm a noob when it comes to Linux/BSD, so I was a little concerned when starting out, but in the end things went so smoothly it wasn't a problem! ;)
Because I'm a rookie, I didn't do anything fancy, no ZFS etc... Just went with 4x 1Tb drives in a raid 5 array resulting in 2.8Tb of useable space after formatting.

I could be totally off base here, but I'd be a little nervous about using 3Tb drives for the array, it may not be a problem with NAS4Free, but drives over 2Tb can cause problems on Windows machines. I'll let people more experienced than me comment on that... :p:

Here's a couple links that may help.

My build:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?286729-Thinking-of-building-a-NAS...-Opinions

NAS4Free Forums (lots of help here!):
http://forums.nas4free.org/index.php?sid=8ef4d8ecbb44bdf1e0226811a9ddc236

I'm really happy with my build, and glad I went this route!

Good luck, and have fun,
Dave

[RADCOM]

Hmmmm <in a strokingbeard way> thanks for the great advice chaps. I'm still in two minds. I've been doing some more research and I'm wondering if the P410 with 1GB cache is overkill for raid 10 and whether I should use the onboard raid solution and use the raid card on an alternative system.