So…..

It’s been two weeks since I started learning FreeBSD and the FreeNAS application. I have certainly burned a few brain cells through the process, but have also learned so much I think I’m in over load a bit. Thanks to the community forums at FreeNAS. Without the research vessel the forums and the individuals there provide I would still be bumbling around trying to figure things out to install the system and avoiding the inevitable pitfalls.

I spent a lot of time reading and following the threads to understand more of what not to do so I wouldn’t jump in and build my system with the wrong parts. Avoiding pitfalls was what I was after. I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel and I was looking to build a ‘know quantity’ system that had been proven. The forums are filled with people who try and fail at putting together the wrong parts and lose things rather than taking the advice of others.

So I had a few benefits. One was building a test environment in VirtualBox that was similar to the system I had planned in reality. Trust me, I blew it up a couple times making mistakes but I didn’t lose anything and that was my intention. The other was creating my production system correctly.

In the beginning my intention was to use all surplus parts from all the pieces I had. I did. However I also purchased a couple of the system parts that were key to building a system that would last and be secure. A server level motherboard, ECC RAM and decent power supply started me with a package that would be reliable.

TBC….