jgreco
Resident Grinch
- Joined
- May 29, 2011
- Messages
- 18,680
I'm all for learning. The request is to not run FreeNAS in production as a VM. In the N00bs forum, on top of it. So it is a limited warning in some ways.
If Xen is allowing the use of random Linux variants as the dom0/service console, then, yes, you might be able to go that route.
But let me just say something here. You can run ZFS on Linux. Yes. But part of what makes FreeNAS and some of the other NAS appliances special is that they're designed to be fully baked storage systems. You are presumably wanting to use ZFS for its data protection capabilities. I'm guessing this is because you love and value your data and don't want it to vanish.
FreeNAS, properly done, assists in that by providing facilities to configure ZFS, monitor ZFS, run periodic scrubs, set up SMART reporting, snapshot itself, replicate itself, and let you know when something's gone wrong.
Linux, or FreeBSD, or Solaris, they don't necessarily do those things out of the box. Sure, you /can/ configure most of that, but it can be kind of a pain. Without a structure around you, it may be difficult to know what to do!
A major reason the senior people sit here and advise n00bs not to do this and not to do that, it's basically because we don't want you to lose your data. We've seen too many people lose data. WITH FreeNAS. FreeNAS isn't a guarantee of no data loss. It is just an appliance, and can still be inadvertently sabotaged. We're not trying to be discouraging. We're just trying to be responsible with the advice that we hand out.
So, I've explained all that so that I can make the following statement without being taken the wrong way: I would be skeptical of taking some random Linux distro and running it as a Xen dom0 to "provide ZFS facilities," because that is unlikely to be as polished and reliable a solution as FreeNAS, and your desire to use ZFS suggests that you are seeking reliability instead of ease. Your suggestion seems contradictory to me.
If Xen is allowing the use of random Linux variants as the dom0/service console, then, yes, you might be able to go that route.
But let me just say something here. You can run ZFS on Linux. Yes. But part of what makes FreeNAS and some of the other NAS appliances special is that they're designed to be fully baked storage systems. You are presumably wanting to use ZFS for its data protection capabilities. I'm guessing this is because you love and value your data and don't want it to vanish.
FreeNAS, properly done, assists in that by providing facilities to configure ZFS, monitor ZFS, run periodic scrubs, set up SMART reporting, snapshot itself, replicate itself, and let you know when something's gone wrong.
Linux, or FreeBSD, or Solaris, they don't necessarily do those things out of the box. Sure, you /can/ configure most of that, but it can be kind of a pain. Without a structure around you, it may be difficult to know what to do!
A major reason the senior people sit here and advise n00bs not to do this and not to do that, it's basically because we don't want you to lose your data. We've seen too many people lose data. WITH FreeNAS. FreeNAS isn't a guarantee of no data loss. It is just an appliance, and can still be inadvertently sabotaged. We're not trying to be discouraging. We're just trying to be responsible with the advice that we hand out.
So, I've explained all that so that I can make the following statement without being taken the wrong way: I would be skeptical of taking some random Linux distro and running it as a Xen dom0 to "provide ZFS facilities," because that is unlikely to be as polished and reliable a solution as FreeNAS, and your desire to use ZFS suggests that you are seeking reliability instead of ease. Your suggestion seems contradictory to me.