I salvaged some parts and pieces from a test/dev hardware refresh and general storage cleaning at work. I bought some used parts off eBay, picked up a Rosewill 4u case (JUNK), and an EVGA G2 power supply to build a NAS for a home lab. I've tried FreeNAS, OmniOS w/ Nappit, Nexentastor, and Windows Server 2012 R2 as my storage backend.
My initial plan was an all-in-one box running FreeNAS with VirtualBox in a jail for my virtualization needs. I scraped that after not getting the networking features I wanted with VB in a jail which was multiple NICs so I can have guests on different networks. That led me to thinking a discreet storage and hypervisor solution was the way to go since I do have some complete servers suitable for use as a virtual host.
After trying all those storage platforms I was all set to move forward with Windows Server 2012 R2 w/ Storage Spaces as my storage and proceed to deciding between Xenserver, ESXi, or Proxmox as my hypervisor until...
Based on a suggestion from someone on another forum I decided to give OMV a try. I am really glad I did! OMV gives me back the AIO goal I started with which saves me on physical space, heat generation, noise, utility bills, and UPS capacity with the network flexibility I need. All with a nice UI since I am a very novice Linux user. It fits all of my needs and I just really like everything about it so far.
I built a server:
- Supermicro X8DT6-F motherboard (onboard LSI 2008 flashed with IT firmware)
- Supermicro LGA1366 heatsinks and fans
- 2 x Intel Xeon X5670 CPU 6c/12t @ 2.933 GHz
- 12 x 8GB (96GB) DDR3-1333 ECC memory
- IBM BR 10i RAID controller (flashed with IT firmware)
- 12 x HGST 2TB 7200RPM SATA2 enterprise NAS drives (I have 32 of them total)
- 2 x Intel 710 100GB SATA2 SSD
- EVGA G2-850 power supply
- Rosewill 4U server case
- 2 x Rosewill 4in3 hotplug SATA cages
- 2 x Cyberpower 1500 UPS
*Items in blue were saved from the ewaste bins at work.
Planned uses:
- MythTV or similar PVR backend and any support services needed
- Streaming recorded and live content to up to 6 set top boxes. Most likely Raspberry Pi's running Kodi or something similar
- Home automation/security camera DVR
- Minecraft server and Mumble/Teamspeak or similar servers for the kids
- Shared storage and backup target for 5 Windows desktops/laptops
- 2 or 3 general purpose Windows/linux guests
The Rosewill case and drive cages will be replaced ASAP. I do not like it at all.
In just a few hours over the past 2 days I have installed and updated OMV with VirtualBox and ZFS plugins, provisioned a RAIDZ2 pool with my 2TB drives, and installed Windows and Linux guests for testing. I've hit a couple bumps along the way but a quick search of the forums provided solutions to almost everything so far.
My initial OMV install is to a Sandisk USB flash drive, but I will probably wipe everything and start over with a new install on the Intel SSDs connected to the onboard Intel SATA2 ports. I'd like to figure out how to mirror them either with the Intel RAID functionality if Debian supports it or software RAID. I will probably also redo the ZFS pools and make a new one with 2 x 6 drive RAIDZ2 vdevs. Or, I may just do a pool of all mirrored vdevs.
I'm really having fun with this!