Linus Tech Tips deploying TrueNAS for their production server

[horizonbrave]

I was just watching the latest episode of LTT from Linus Media Group and guess what? Special guest was TrueNAS being deployed as a possible candidate for their production/storage server!

Check it out here:

We Finally Did it Properly - "Linux" Whonnock Upgrade

Get Current and learn more here!: https://www.current.com/linustechtipsPersonalize your PC with Cablemod at https://lmg.gg/FWai3 After months of performance ...

youtu.be

 

[Samuel Tai]

I cringed when they created their pool as RAIDZ1. For their workload (video editing), a wide stripe of mirrors would have much better IOPS.

 

[danb35]

If I were iX, I'd probably pay him to use something else. Someone who'll drill a hole in a motherboard to make it fit the case? That's not the kind of advertising I'd want for my brand.

 

[jgreco]

Yeesh. I guess it could be worse, it could be a bunch of USB HDD's ...

 

[horizonbrave]

I cringed when they created their pool as RAIDZ1. For their workload (video editing), a wide stripe of mirrors would have much better IOPS.

Please someone tell 'em

 

[jgreco]

Please someone tell 'em

Or, better yet, maybe don't. The amount of bad press that FreeNAS could receive is pretty high; LTT has a long proud history of "hold my beer."

 

[Ericloewe]

Yeesh. I guess it could be worse, it could be a bunch of USB HDD's ...

Or USB flash drives.

 

[imsocold]

I was just watching the latest episode of LTT from Linus Media Group and guess what? Special guest was TrueNAS being deployed as a possible candidate for their production/storage server!

Check it out here:

We Finally Did it Properly - "Linux" Whonnock Upgrade

Get Current and learn more here!: https://www.current.com/linustechtipsPersonalize your PC with Cablemod at https://lmg.gg/FWai3 After months of performance ...

youtu.be

As I understand is this isn’t their first time using freeNas/ Truenas iirc, they previously destroyed a large pool of active data by virtualizing disks.

 

[jgreco]

they previously destroyed a large pool of active data by virtualizing disks.

I believe you're correct. It's always dismaying when these things happen, because so much time and effort has been put into warning people against the dangerous options.

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

Of course, it's possible to run your NAS virtualized in a fairly safe manner, but just like picking out bare metal hardware for your NAS, there are some good choices but lots more wrong choices that can be made. The words "virtualizing disks" give me the heebie-jeebies, because they've so often been followed by "and then" ${some-bad-thing-happened}

 

[imsocold]

I believe you're correct. It's always dismaying when these things happen, because so much time and effort has been put into warning people against the dangerous options.

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

Of course, it's possible to run your NAS virtualized in a fairly safe manner, but just like picking out bare metal hardware for your NAS, there are some good choices but lots more wrong choices that can be made. The words "virtualizing disks" give me the heebie-jeebies, because they've so often been followed by "and then" ${some-bad-thing-happened}

The problem is have with Linus is that when he failed to read the warnings all over the internet he still managed to blame freenas at the time.
ix systems should definitely keep an eye on this build so he doesn’t spread more misinformation than he usually does.

 

[imsocold]

This reminds me of an old Patrice O’neal joke. apparently he asked another comedian, ”how much do have to pay you to just stop”

 

[jgreco]

The problem is have with Linus is that when he failed to read the warnings all over the internet he still managed to blame freenas at the time.
ix systems should definitely keep an eye on this build so he doesn’t spread more misinformation than he usually does.

And there it is, that's definitely my concern. We occasionally see these waves of new users flooding in with their old desktops, having heard on some recent social media or YouTube post that they can turn their janky old PC into their own personal cloud. That sort of advertising, along with bad publicity from channels like LTT, have made support a bit painful at times.

It's important to remember that most of us here are not iX employees. We're just community members trying to help out other community members. Unless there's an "iXsystems" badge under someone's avatar, people here are unpaid community members. A very real problem over the years has been that there's usually a shortage of experienced forum members compared to the flood of posts that appear here daily. iXsystems does not actually provide support for their free product, although you can sometimes get answers through Jira. At one point, there were just about half a dozen of us who were carrying the load, and I began writing lengthy tomes, because it gets so repetitive and soul crushing to keep pounding out the same answers over and over... Granted, if I have time, I still tend to write bespoke responses to people, as do many of the other posters.

Unfortunately, iXsystems has generally taken a hands-off attitude towards this kind of stuff, and when they do take an interest, the attitude has kinda felt like "any exposure is good exposure", while sorta forgetting that it is mostly us over here in the forums that end up with the tech support workload. I do hope that the LTT thing works out well for everyone, of course.

 

[imsocold]

And there it is, that's definitely my concern. We occasionally see these waves of new users flooding in with their old desktops, having heard on some recent social media or YouTube post that they can turn their janky old PC into their own personal cloud. That sort of advertising, along with bad publicity from channels like LTT, have made support a bit painful at times.

It's important to remember that most of us here are not iX employees. We're just community members trying to help out other community members. Unless there's an "iXsystems" badge under someone's avatar, people here are unpaid community members. A very real problem over the years has been that there's usually a shortage of experienced forum members compared to the flood of posts that appear here daily. iXsystems does not actually provide support for their free product, although you can sometimes get answers through Jira. At one point, there were just about half a dozen of us who were carrying the load, and I began writing lengthy tomes, because it gets so repetitive and soul crushing to keep pounding out the same answers over and over... Granted, if I have time, I still tend to write bespoke responses to people, as do many of the other posters.

Unfortunately, iXsystems has generally taken a hands-off attitude towards this kind of stuff, and when they do take an interest, the attitude has kinda felt like "any exposure is good exposure", while sorta forgetting that it is mostly us over here in the forums that end up with the tech support workload. I do hope that the LTT thing works out well for everyone, of course.

I do understand that, and I appreciate the amount of work and knowledge that goes into what you guys do. Most tech guys tend to be a bit …. Grumpy… but just keep in mind that the plebs such as myself don’t mean any harm. one of the primary issues with the internet these days is all the shit you have to dig through to get a nugget of gold, and for some topics to get a true understanding of some topics it would take a decade of knowledge and experience to truly understand. Hell is the same with everything on the internet. its like we are drowning in a mountain of bullshit.

 

[danb35]

The problem is have with Linus is that when he failed to read the warnings all over the internet he still managed to blame freenas at the time.

Hence my previous recommendation to iX: the only course of action that makes any sense with respect to Linus is to loudly disavow any association with him. But as I observed in the thread Josh posted, iX seems to instead be excited that this moron* is using their product, ignoring the very real likelihood that he'll F it up (again), lose his data (again), and blame iX (again).

* He may not actually be a moron, but he certainly plays one on YouTube--and does it very well.

 

[Arwen]

Here is a bit of nostalgia:

The probability of vdev failure with RAIDZ2 is tiny on a properly-administered
server. Most contributions to that probability would take any other pools along.

We're talking catastrophic PSU failure, massive undetected RAM failure,
physical destruction, alien high-intensity degaussing beams, extreme heat or
the presence of Linus from LinusTechTips in the same room as the server.

Ericloewe, Jan 6, 2016

 

[Samuel Tai]

I think Linus of LTT has much the same schtick as ElectroBoom, only Linus blows up his own tech for slapstick comedy, rather than ElectroBoom injuring himself for laughs.

 

[imsocold]

I

I think Linus of LTT has much the same schtick as ElectroBoom, only Linus blows up his own tech for slapstick comedy, rather than ElectroBoom injuring himself for laughs.

I dont think its an act. That array he destroyed contained his production data.

 

[imsocold]

I also recall one episode where tried to use an nvidia machine learning card for gaming on the premise that since the damn thing cost a ton of money it must be better for gaming.
It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand that computers can be used for anything other than gaming.

 

[Samuel Tai]

It's partially an act. Otherwise, how would he have recovered to post video afterwards?

 

[imsocold]

Backups iirc