Hi there,
i'm evaluating FreeNAS but i'm unsure if it is the right choice for me. So i ask you...
As for my background: I started using FreeBSD around 1988 at version 1.1.5.2. Later at university i ported a large (commercial) software project from Solaris to FreeBSD which i even got into the demo section of the official 2.6 CDs. Much later i abandoned FreeBSD for Linux, but often used NanoBSD for embedded purposes (ALIX boards) and still do. So i think i have a solid technical BSD background.
My home storage/server solution is now 7 years old and i'm about to replace it. On the metal it runs a Debian Linux with several encrypted disks. No LVM, no RAID, don't ask why. ;). The only services are Samba and VirtualBox. On top of that instance run several virtual machines that mount the underlying filesystems via NFS or CIFS. The system partitions of the virtual boxes are files on the native machine's filesystem.
I backup all the native machine's filesystems (with the virtual machines suspended) on a regular basis.
Pro: very flexible data handling, virtual machines interchangeable, generic encryption without drivers in the virtual machines, etc...
Con: kind of slow, needs lots of resources.
That was state of the art 7 years ago. In the meantime there are a lot more choices for system architectures. I still like my setup, but i also always followed ZFS development with a vague idea of using it as a base filesystem. I REALLY like the ZFS features (snapshots, replication, cloning, data safety,...).
In the last 7 years i got several other computers: Macbook (--> FreeNAS Time Machine support), Samsung SmartView TV set (--> FreeNAS DLNA Plugin), Linux desktop system and a few more.
So basically i want my previous setup (native base machine with all filesystems) with virtual machines on top, but with the flexibility and safety of ZFS RAIDZ2 and the FreeNAS goodies. I'd like to play with iSCSI for example. I explicitely don't want a dedicated NAS that doesn't provide other services because i can't afford decent server hardware for NAS AND servers.
Is that possble with FreeNAS? After putting quite a lot of thought into it, i'm starting to doubt it. FreeNAS doesn't have a virtualization plugin and it's not recommended to run FreeNAS itself virtualized.
I had a (very) quick look at SmartOS. It's Solaris based, that means ZFS v31 and it has a Solaris zones and a KVM hypervisor. Sounds good, except for the fact that i loathe Solaris...
Of course i could run plain FreeBSD with a ZFS pool. But afaik FreeBSDs only hypervisor apart from jails is OSE VirtualBox and that means no support for the Oracle extensions.
Tough decisions. Any ideas would be welcome. Prefably FreeNAS based, of course.
I'm starting to think that i should simply clone my current setup on up-to-date hardware, this time using Linux LVM RAID (which i actually don't like very much for various reasons), plain samba (ugh) and KVM. ;)
i'm evaluating FreeNAS but i'm unsure if it is the right choice for me. So i ask you...
As for my background: I started using FreeBSD around 1988 at version 1.1.5.2. Later at university i ported a large (commercial) software project from Solaris to FreeBSD which i even got into the demo section of the official 2.6 CDs. Much later i abandoned FreeBSD for Linux, but often used NanoBSD for embedded purposes (ALIX boards) and still do. So i think i have a solid technical BSD background.
My home storage/server solution is now 7 years old and i'm about to replace it. On the metal it runs a Debian Linux with several encrypted disks. No LVM, no RAID, don't ask why. ;). The only services are Samba and VirtualBox. On top of that instance run several virtual machines that mount the underlying filesystems via NFS or CIFS. The system partitions of the virtual boxes are files on the native machine's filesystem.
I backup all the native machine's filesystems (with the virtual machines suspended) on a regular basis.
Pro: very flexible data handling, virtual machines interchangeable, generic encryption without drivers in the virtual machines, etc...
Con: kind of slow, needs lots of resources.
That was state of the art 7 years ago. In the meantime there are a lot more choices for system architectures. I still like my setup, but i also always followed ZFS development with a vague idea of using it as a base filesystem. I REALLY like the ZFS features (snapshots, replication, cloning, data safety,...).
In the last 7 years i got several other computers: Macbook (--> FreeNAS Time Machine support), Samsung SmartView TV set (--> FreeNAS DLNA Plugin), Linux desktop system and a few more.
So basically i want my previous setup (native base machine with all filesystems) with virtual machines on top, but with the flexibility and safety of ZFS RAIDZ2 and the FreeNAS goodies. I'd like to play with iSCSI for example. I explicitely don't want a dedicated NAS that doesn't provide other services because i can't afford decent server hardware for NAS AND servers.
Is that possble with FreeNAS? After putting quite a lot of thought into it, i'm starting to doubt it. FreeNAS doesn't have a virtualization plugin and it's not recommended to run FreeNAS itself virtualized.
I had a (very) quick look at SmartOS. It's Solaris based, that means ZFS v31 and it has a Solaris zones and a KVM hypervisor. Sounds good, except for the fact that i loathe Solaris...
Of course i could run plain FreeBSD with a ZFS pool. But afaik FreeBSDs only hypervisor apart from jails is OSE VirtualBox and that means no support for the Oracle extensions.
Tough decisions. Any ideas would be welcome. Prefably FreeNAS based, of course.
I'm starting to think that i should simply clone my current setup on up-to-date hardware, this time using Linux LVM RAID (which i actually don't like very much for various reasons), plain samba (ugh) and KVM. ;)