Chris Weir
Cadet
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2014
- Messages
- 6
Hello,
I've been reading through a few of the stickies and a few other things. Right now, I'm only really "experimenting" with FreeNAS, ultimately with the idea of using it in a production environment - a small office.
Reading through the form so far, virtualised FreeNAS appears to be a bad idea. Right now, and initially in production, I would really like to have this running in a virtual machine.
For testing purposes, the machine I'm currently messing about with is a Sun Ultra 20 M2 with the following specs:
Dual Core AMD Opteron 2.3GHz,
8GB DDR2 ECC Memory,
HP P400 Hardware Raid controller with 512MB cache and battery backup, currently running in Raid 5 with 3x 200GB Hard Drives,
SUN Workstation/low end server motherboard, with Dual Gigabit networking, all based on nVidia 3600 series pro chipset (If memory serves),
Running Windows 2012 Server. Full license.
This machine has been running two virtual machines, headless. One is a dedicated in use MySQL server, and the other a LAMP server for testing purposes. Both of these are CentOS 6.5 VM's that at their very peak uses 512MB of RAM (I'm using Dynamic memory allocation for these, which CentOS 6.5 supports). I know I could run these services directly on Windows - but I find dealing with VM's and future upgrades will be far easier using VM's. It's easier to administer them too, without having to worry about affecting the other machines.
In addition the machine has power conditioning and protection in the shape of an APC 1400VA UPS. This is another reason why I like the Virtual Machine setup - Windows Server automatically saves the state of the machines and shuts down the system safely during a blackout. The price and time needed to configure another box is currently prohibitive.
This whole setup is rock solid and has, touch wood, never crashed or missed a heartbeat once in the last 3 months of being online.
This is all used in a tiny two PC office, with the MySQL server being used with custom written software that I have written, and is used purely to manage inventory, customers, eBay listings, and orders. It's under fairly low load, which is a good thing considering the age of the hardware - all decent high quality kit, it's just not going to break any speed records.
This is a family business, and the LAMP is essentially just being used to test and create the online store. Once it's up and running, the LAMP will be unused and the website dumped onto dedicated hosting. We are unsure whether to do this with the MySQL database, considering the offices internet connection is not the best. This would, however, allow us to have the store website hook right into our main database, and the redundancy that comes with professional hosting could save a future headache. Anyway, that's another question for another time.
So, I hope you get the just of the situation. Sorry for the story - I get a bit carried away here.
Right, back to FreeNAS. The main reason I want to use it is for a) a file repository for both the networked PC's and any future additions - I don't like individual file shares on these client PCs, it's just messy and not very elegant. b) I would like to avoid using Windows Server for this - I purely want to use that to manage and host the VM's, nothing else. c) From looking around, the dedication of people (and, I use this in the most complimentary way possible, there are some seriously anal people here who like things done right - my sort of people!) make this an attractive platform to use with decent support. d) I want to avoid Active Directory - it's not needed, and I'm really not familiar enough with it. However, due to real life constraints and the fact I have to prove this before proper implementation, there are some limits on how I would like to have this "done right".
Currently I have it up and running, serving a 200GB share. All fine and dandy. CPU load is low, and the RAM usage is low. Currently it is using only UFS as the hardware limitations prevent the use of ZFS.
Once funds are available, the machine will be replaced with concurrent technology, preferably using a hardware RAID 6 array with battery backup cache and the same UPS, and Dual (redundant) PSU's. I would, however, like to be running only a single machine and use VM's. I have been eyeing up a HP DL380, but I can't spend right now until the business grows.
So, now for the questions:
Reading from other forms, direct access to the hardware is required in order to safely and reliably run ZFS volumes. I understand it's for SMART access and that it is designed to have raw access to the hardware as it does all the RAID implementation, as opposed to how I currently have it done via hardware. I appreciate this. But I would like to know: a) What is the major advantages of ZFS over my current hardware RAID 5 setup with Battery Backup Cache? b) Are there any other issues with using FreeNAS in a VM that I should be aware of? and c) Would a UFS volume, backed by RAID 6, be a reliable enough alternative to a ZFS volume?
I have read http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...nas-in-production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/ and still not entirely sure of the bottom line.
The NAS will be used primarily to store the Windows volume images of the 2 PC's for backup purposes and used as a central repository for work files. The said PC's also have volumes that are currently used by Windows Server 2012 for full system image backups (including the VM's and their data disks). Think of it as distributed redundant backup.
I have two, 320GB, and one, 1TB, external hard drives that can be used for additional backup.
Anyway, sorry for such a long post, I have just read other posts asking similar questions, and I wanted all the information out on the table so there's no room for misinterpretation, and that my limits can be seen.
Cheers,
CW.
I've been reading through a few of the stickies and a few other things. Right now, I'm only really "experimenting" with FreeNAS, ultimately with the idea of using it in a production environment - a small office.
Reading through the form so far, virtualised FreeNAS appears to be a bad idea. Right now, and initially in production, I would really like to have this running in a virtual machine.
For testing purposes, the machine I'm currently messing about with is a Sun Ultra 20 M2 with the following specs:
Dual Core AMD Opteron 2.3GHz,
8GB DDR2 ECC Memory,
HP P400 Hardware Raid controller with 512MB cache and battery backup, currently running in Raid 5 with 3x 200GB Hard Drives,
SUN Workstation/low end server motherboard, with Dual Gigabit networking, all based on nVidia 3600 series pro chipset (If memory serves),
Running Windows 2012 Server. Full license.
This machine has been running two virtual machines, headless. One is a dedicated in use MySQL server, and the other a LAMP server for testing purposes. Both of these are CentOS 6.5 VM's that at their very peak uses 512MB of RAM (I'm using Dynamic memory allocation for these, which CentOS 6.5 supports). I know I could run these services directly on Windows - but I find dealing with VM's and future upgrades will be far easier using VM's. It's easier to administer them too, without having to worry about affecting the other machines.
In addition the machine has power conditioning and protection in the shape of an APC 1400VA UPS. This is another reason why I like the Virtual Machine setup - Windows Server automatically saves the state of the machines and shuts down the system safely during a blackout. The price and time needed to configure another box is currently prohibitive.
This whole setup is rock solid and has, touch wood, never crashed or missed a heartbeat once in the last 3 months of being online.
This is all used in a tiny two PC office, with the MySQL server being used with custom written software that I have written, and is used purely to manage inventory, customers, eBay listings, and orders. It's under fairly low load, which is a good thing considering the age of the hardware - all decent high quality kit, it's just not going to break any speed records.
This is a family business, and the LAMP is essentially just being used to test and create the online store. Once it's up and running, the LAMP will be unused and the website dumped onto dedicated hosting. We are unsure whether to do this with the MySQL database, considering the offices internet connection is not the best. This would, however, allow us to have the store website hook right into our main database, and the redundancy that comes with professional hosting could save a future headache. Anyway, that's another question for another time.
So, I hope you get the just of the situation. Sorry for the story - I get a bit carried away here.
Right, back to FreeNAS. The main reason I want to use it is for a) a file repository for both the networked PC's and any future additions - I don't like individual file shares on these client PCs, it's just messy and not very elegant. b) I would like to avoid using Windows Server for this - I purely want to use that to manage and host the VM's, nothing else. c) From looking around, the dedication of people (and, I use this in the most complimentary way possible, there are some seriously anal people here who like things done right - my sort of people!) make this an attractive platform to use with decent support. d) I want to avoid Active Directory - it's not needed, and I'm really not familiar enough with it. However, due to real life constraints and the fact I have to prove this before proper implementation, there are some limits on how I would like to have this "done right".
Currently I have it up and running, serving a 200GB share. All fine and dandy. CPU load is low, and the RAM usage is low. Currently it is using only UFS as the hardware limitations prevent the use of ZFS.
Once funds are available, the machine will be replaced with concurrent technology, preferably using a hardware RAID 6 array with battery backup cache and the same UPS, and Dual (redundant) PSU's. I would, however, like to be running only a single machine and use VM's. I have been eyeing up a HP DL380, but I can't spend right now until the business grows.
So, now for the questions:
Reading from other forms, direct access to the hardware is required in order to safely and reliably run ZFS volumes. I understand it's for SMART access and that it is designed to have raw access to the hardware as it does all the RAID implementation, as opposed to how I currently have it done via hardware. I appreciate this. But I would like to know: a) What is the major advantages of ZFS over my current hardware RAID 5 setup with Battery Backup Cache? b) Are there any other issues with using FreeNAS in a VM that I should be aware of? and c) Would a UFS volume, backed by RAID 6, be a reliable enough alternative to a ZFS volume?
I have read http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...nas-in-production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/ and still not entirely sure of the bottom line.
The NAS will be used primarily to store the Windows volume images of the 2 PC's for backup purposes and used as a central repository for work files. The said PC's also have volumes that are currently used by Windows Server 2012 for full system image backups (including the VM's and their data disks). Think of it as distributed redundant backup.
I have two, 320GB, and one, 1TB, external hard drives that can be used for additional backup.
Anyway, sorry for such a long post, I have just read other posts asking similar questions, and I wanted all the information out on the table so there's no room for misinterpretation, and that my limits can be seen.
Cheers,
CW.