[TriLUG] FreeNAS vs DIY

[Igor Partola]

TriLUG,

I am about to start converting an old desktop (2006 or so AMD Athlon X2, 4GB RAM) into a home server. It will need to serve the following functions:

- A file storage server. It will get two 2TB drives for a RAID array to store important files like family photos and documents.
- A NAS. It will need to seamlessly share files with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X boxes.
- A backup server for my remote machines. As in, it should be able to run rsnapshot to ssh to my remote machines, do database dumps, etc.
- A VPN server. I think I will use OpenVPN for this.
- A bind9 server for the LAN.
- Run a couple of more custom daemons such as the eyefiserver (which can grab pictures from the Eye Fi SD Wi-Fi cards). Also a Flickr uploading script.

My first question is whether FreeNAS can handle all these daemons without having to resort to compiling code specifically for it and hacking around where it will let you install things?

My second question is: if FreeNAS is not the way to go (I will likely set up an Ubuntu machine then), what filesystem/RAID setup should I use to provide strong guarantees about data integrity? I want to ensure that there is as little bitrot as possible, that backups are easy, and that it is fairly fast.

What do y'all recommend?

Thanks,
Igor