FreeNAS as a VM using UFS?

[Raident]

I've seen the posts warning against virtualizing FreeNAS but they seem to have a ZFS-specific focus, so I wanted to ask: What is the level of risk involved in using a FreeNAS VM with UFS as a file server, compared to a openSUSE/CentOS/Ubuntu Server VM doing the same?

For me personally, I see FreeNAS's appliance-like nature and user-friendly web interface and as its biggest strength over the aforementioned Linux OSes, so I'm perfectly fine with giving up ZFS if that's the only price I have to pay to virtualize.

 

[dlavigne]

The recommendations against virtualization are not ZFS-specific.

 

[jgreco]

Well, not really ZFS specific. With UFS there is slightly less chance of people creating frankenstein configs of virtual disks trying to "use all the space" .... a lot of the trouble revolved around not being able to figure out what happened when $(somethingUnknown) broke. If all you need is a single virtual disk on a RAID-protected ESXi datastore to share some files with client PC's, your FreeNAS instance will be approximately as reliable as your ESXi datastore.

Making complicated VM's becomes fraught with peril especially if you try to use RDM hacks, etc.