FreeNAS

FreeNAS is one of those things where people aren't being jerks when they tell you to RTFM. The documentation is highly detailed, and lists almost everything you'll need to get up and running, or reference in need of a fix.

At the time of writing, the latest version is 11.2-U6

On top of the SMB setup, what a lot of users have found useful is this pair of guides from a user on the FreeNAS forums. This guide goes over basic setup, and also advances changes you can make when you introduce multiple groups or members into the mix.

When you buy your new hard drives to put into a ZFS array, you'll want to check the drives first for any defects before writing a metric ton of data to it. Here's a great writeup on how to accomplish this inside of FreeNAS

Use smartctl -a /dev/(name of disk drive) to list the SMART attributes for the drive in question. Use smartctl -t short /dev/(name of disk drive) to do a basic test.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/replacing-a-failed-failing-disk.75 https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/Analyzing_a_Faulty_Hard_Disk_using_Smartctl

After new drive is installed, before resilvering the drive, break in the drive with the following:

smartctl -t short smartctl -t conveyance smartctl -t long use tmux or a dedicated terminal and run badblocks -b 4096 -ws /dev/(name of disk drive) smartctl -t long

This will put the drive through its paces and if it survives, it should be in great shape for use. If it fails, RMA the drive if it is under warranty.

https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hard-drive-burn-in-testing.92/

https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/928p15/migrate_pool_to_new_disks/

Revolves around using setfacl