[jspiros]

By "something like this", do you mean ZFS? I am a HUGE fan of ZFS, and I do think that it's worth using in any situation where data integrity is a high priority.

As far as ZFS on Linux, it still has its wrinkles. I use it because, like you, I'm comfortable with Debian, and I didn't want to maintain a foreign system just for my data storage, and I still wanted to use the machine for other things too. (I actually started with zfs-fuse, before ZFS on Linux was an option.)

So, I don't know. If you just want a box to store stuff on, you might want to just look into FreeNAS, which is a FreeBSD distribution that makes it very easy to set up a storage appliance based on ZFS. FreeBSD's ZFS implementation is generally considered production-ready, so you avoid some ZFS on Linux wrinkles, too.

So, I'd recommend checking out the FreeNAS website, and maybe also http://www.reddit.com/r/datahoarder/ for ideas/other opinions. I do a lot of things in weird idiosyncratic ways, so I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone do it exactly how I have. :)

[laumars]

If you're comfortable with Debian then you shouldn't have too many issues with FreeBSD as there is a lot of transferable knowledge between the two (FreeBSD even supports a lot of GNU flags which most other UNIXes don't).

Plus FreeBSD has a lot of good documentation (and the forums have proven a good resource in the past too) - so you're never going it alone (and obviously you have the usual mailing groups and IRC channels on Freenode).

While I do run quite a few Debian (amongst other Linux) I honestly find my FreeBSD server to be the most enjoyable / least painful platform to administrate. Obviously that's just personal preference, but I would definitely recommend trying FreeBSD to anyone considering ZFS.

[jspiros]

As far as I'm concerned, the most identifiable characteristic of Debian is the packaging system, dpkg/apt. I've used FreeBSD occasionally, and that's what I always end up missing about Debian. I did consider going with Nexenta or Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, but whatever, ZoL works well enough. :)

[laumars]

FreeBSD 10 has switched to a new package manager, so it might be worth giving it another look next time you're bored and fancy trying something new.

I can understand your preference though. I'm not a fan of apt much personally, but pacman is one of the reasons I've stuck with ArchLinux over the years - despite it's faults :)

[jspiros]

I'll keep that in mind; I do sometimes find myself with some time to play with things. :)

[flexd]

By 'something like this' I meant pretty much what you just said: Would you do it the same way (your own everything) if you needed a much smaller system, or would you go with something like FreeNAS, like you suggested? I am confident I c an get it working good either way, but I would rather not spend half my days having to tweak and worry about stuff working correctly. I understand that it will need maintenance and monitoring of course, but I would much rather be more of a end-user having a working system than being the sysadmin that has to fix it all the time. :-)

Thanks for the link, I will take a look there.

[jspiros]

Well, if you don't get a kick out of "tweaking and worrying", yes, I definitely recommend FreeNAS. Although I'm confident in my system now, it took a long time to get this way, and I could've saved hundreds of hours by just going with something like FreeNAS (had it existed); I stuck with it because I kinda enjoy doing things the hard way.

[flexd]

I do kind of get a kick out of that, but at the same time I also just want a safe system for storing data. If I end up building something like this I will take a look at FreeNAS! Thanks!