I wanted a way to share my Steam Library between my HTPC (4k TV) and gaming PC (144 Hz monitor). Both systems have similar specs. I decided to use FreeNAS to share my 3x4TB HDDs and 1x3TB HDDs on my LAN using iSCSI. I picked up 4x2.5 Gbps ethernet adapters so LAN speed wouldn't be an issue.
Posted May 22, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC
What type of 2.5gb adapter is supported by freenas?
Bump
I bought it off NewEgg. It is a Rosewill RC-20001 2.5Gbps PCI-Express x1 2.5GBASE-T PCIe Network Adapter. It has a RTL8125B chipset. I followed these instructions to install the precompiled driver: https://forum.odroid.com/viewtopic.php?t=39869
I thought you had a USB adapter 😑 Thanks for responding!
It's actually not in the picture. I bought (4) 2.5 Gbps PCI-E adapters and installed them after I took the picture.
Gross realtek..
It gets the job done with the right driver. No complaints here.
It looks like they'll be including that driver in future versions of TrueNAS too, so it'll be as easy as turning the tunables on to enable it.
What kind of speeds are you getting and what are the specs of your hardware (CPU/RAM) if you don't mind me asking?
My FreeNAS PC has an AMD FX-4300 CPU and 8 GB DDR3 RAM. The hard drives are mixed Seagate/WD 4 TB 5400 RPM drives. I am using 2.5 Gbps adapters so I am able to use the full hard drive speed, about 150 MB/s r/W on each drive.
Thank you for clarifying that :)!
Why 4 crappy Realtek 2.5 NICs when you could of went with 1x Intel X540-2T or X550-2T?
Intel X540-2T
They were on sale for $15/each. I bought all 4 for $60.
So literally the same price as a x540-2t?
Used. Also 2 port. I needed to network 3 PCs.
Used holds no weight and means nothing. Intel NIC > realtek trash. Ah your original description was confusing, it sounded like you installed all 4 NICs in the truenas box but now it sounds like you installed 1 in each PC. I'm guessing your HTPC isn't mini itx so you had free slots.
How are you sharing your Steam library?
iSCSI doesn't work for multiple "clients" to connect to the same disk, unless the OS or application is cluster aware.
It's just me using both PCs, but I don't use them at the same time. I either play games on the 4K TV, or the 144 Hz monitor, but not both. I know NTFS isn't cluster aware.
I use SMB for mine. After creating the share and mapping it as a network disk, go to Settings > Downloads > Steam Libraries and add the drive as a location. It will then appear as an option for downloading and moving games.
SMB tended to be laggy because of the way it shares packets. Iscsi create a more seamless connection
Do games like PUBG that use Battle Eye have any problems with games installed over a network? I also wasn't sure if other game stores like GOG, Blizzard, Epic, Bethesda, etc. would have a problem installing games over a LAN using SMB.
I haven't tested it extensively. Hitman 3 worked fine from the epic store, while Halo MCC, Hitman 2, and Doom 2016 worked from Steam.
I own games on a lot of different stores like the ones mentioned above. I didn't know how well the compatibility would be installing them over a network drive. I went with iSCSI because it lets you use the hard drive as a block device in Windows.