Scale or Core for iSCSI Block Storage only

[fabioteixei]

Hi there.

I'm building my NAS server and the use case it's only iSCSI Block Storage for an Hyper-V cluster, to store the VHDs.

I'm wondering which one to use for this, Scale or Core?

I'm normally chose core but I have find out that I have an Marvell controller that's not supported by Core because it doesn't have BSD drivers but it's supported on Scale since Debian has the drivers and the controller works fine. I known that I can always purchase an HBA (I have one already) but been able to use all the hardware I have it's a good thing.

I kinda like the way the things are presented and organized in Core better than in Scale (UI wise) but it's possible that Core in the future will become more like Scale in that aspect. I really hate the random eth interface names that Debian gives.

But these complaints are only nit picking.

So the question remains, Wich one it's better to do Block Storage only?

 

[jgreco]

For any production use, Core is going to be the way to go for a long time, unless you actually need features that only exist in Scale.

Be aware that a lot of the time, when Linux ""supports"" a SATA controller that FreeBSD doesn't, the difference seems to be that there's a SATA port multiplier involved. FreeBSD basically doesn't like them. Linux hackers have put more work into making them work, but they are a TERRIBLE TRAGIC AWFUL BAD ZFS-HOSTILE YOU DON'T WANT THEM type of thing.

See

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

 

[fabioteixei]

In my case it's not an SATA multiplier. It's an old on board Marvell 88SE6480 controller.

There's a lot of discussion why it's not supported on BDS because the drivers and etc.

But Linux has native drives and the way it's configured on the bios it's seems that I can bypass te native RAID of the controller and let Linux manage the disks for itself (SMART commands works) but I'm not 100% sure about that.