ok cool that works very well for me, nice the know
you guys need to stop toying with my emotions...
I changed my build 2 times because I thought I couldn't virtualize my NAS.
damnit, this changes everything. lol
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first time building a Nas.
- Thread starter WOLFofIT
- Start date
I changed my build 2 times because I thought I couldn't virtualize my NAS.
damnit, this changes everything. lol
jgreco
Resident Grinch
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- May 29, 2011
- Messages
- 18,680
It's just a matter of how dangerously you're willing to live.
Honestly, virtualization problems were kind of severe back in the Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy, and Ivy Bridge days. It was clear that many platforms just didn't have the proper support, and things would go wrong. This is why there are such strenuous warnings to test, not just for minutes, but weeks or even months.
I've tried to provide levelheaded resources on this topic for about a decade now, with the hope that things get better with time. But they are only marginally better. Please be sure you've read and reviewed the warnings posted in places like
Please do not run FreeNAS in production as a Virtual Machine!
[---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file sharing (small office, documents, scratch space). THIS post is aimed somewhat more at people wanting to use FreeNAS to manage lots of storage space. ----] [---- 2022/11/19: It's...
www.truenas.com
Virtualization inherently poses certain challenges. Ever reinstalled a hypervisor and inadvertently overwritten one of your FreeNAS data disks with ESXi? Yes, because the ESXi installer doesn't "see" the previous passthru configuration, this can happen. Watch those automatic installation kickstart scripts destroy one of your data disks. Forgot to set the proper boot order in the BIOS? "This is a FreeNAS data disk. System halted." when rebooting your hypervisor. Yay! Virtualization setups introduce new sharp edges and new risks to administration. More challenges for performance tuning. Don't expect it to be easy to get "full 10 gigabit", etc.
That said, yes, you can -- carefully -- virtualize TrueNAS, especially on many modern platforms, particularly if you use ESXi.
If you remember that we're interested in your successful deployment of TrueNAS, there's a lot of knowledge and expertise that's been shared here on these forums over the years. Some of the "expert" virtualization gurus have moved on, some of us are still here. I suspect most of what you might ever need to know may be buried deep in existing threads, which is frustrating, but do feel free to ask questions, especially if you have searched and not found your answers.
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@Samuel Tai has a "nice" writing on his profile: Never underestimate your own stupidity
At the end of the day it comes down to how paranoid you are. In my case, in 1991 I lost about 1.5 MB of data that I had hand-entered into a database (anyone remember Paradox 3 from Borland?) over countless weeks because of a faulty Seagate HDD (an ST 251-1 MFM drive with a wopping 42 MB capacity and a maximum transfer rate of 280 kB/s on my system). Since then I have not lost a single file (at least I am not aware of it - big difference). But I have spent a 5-digit amount of money on my backups over the decades.
In terms of efficiency, it would make a ton of sense for me to virtualize. My TrueNAS (on bare metal) is idle 99% of the time and when the price guarantee for my electricity contract expires in March 2023, this will really hurt financially. But I am willing, although with gritted teeth, to pay that premium for the safety of my data.
Coming back to my opening statement: Virtualization introduces, as described by @jgreco, a number of additional factors. I look at it as an increase in complexity. Not only in terms of initial setup, in fact this is more or less negligible in my view. But much more importantly when we are looking at disaster recovery and business continuity. This is high-stress situation and errors are much more likely to be made compared to a "daily life".
Therefore I like to take my own stupidity out of the equation as much as possible. But I also know that there are other factors in life, and money is not an insignificant once. So good luck, whatever path you choose!
At the end of the day it comes down to how paranoid you are. In my case, in 1991 I lost about 1.5 MB of data that I had hand-entered into a database (anyone remember Paradox 3 from Borland?) over countless weeks because of a faulty Seagate HDD (an ST 251-1 MFM drive with a wopping 42 MB capacity and a maximum transfer rate of 280 kB/s on my system). Since then I have not lost a single file (at least I am not aware of it - big difference). But I have spent a 5-digit amount of money on my backups over the decades.
In terms of efficiency, it would make a ton of sense for me to virtualize. My TrueNAS (on bare metal) is idle 99% of the time and when the price guarantee for my electricity contract expires in March 2023, this will really hurt financially. But I am willing, although with gritted teeth, to pay that premium for the safety of my data.
Coming back to my opening statement: Virtualization introduces, as described by @jgreco, a number of additional factors. I look at it as an increase in complexity. Not only in terms of initial setup, in fact this is more or less negligible in my view. But much more importantly when we are looking at disaster recovery and business continuity. This is high-stress situation and errors are much more likely to be made compared to a "daily life".
Therefore I like to take my own stupidity out of the equation as much as possible. But I also know that there are other factors in life, and money is not an insignificant once. So good luck, whatever path you choose!
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