Corral vs. 9.10? Where should I start?

[Nomar1245]

A co-worker of mine has been encouraging me to switch to FreeNAS for a while now(at least a year), and today he helped me pick appropriate hardware to get started.

I picked up and R710 w/ 48GB of RAM & an M1050. I've begun reading the manual/user guide and the slideshow thread. I intend to use it as my media server(primarily plex) and to setup OwnCloud or NextCloud.

My question, though, is since I'm starting fresh and have never used FreeNAS before, should I begin by learning Corral as it is as new as I am, or should I begin with 9.10. As I don't know how different they are aside from knowing Jails aren't as prevalent in Corral.

My Pro's and Cons:

Learning the Corral prevents me from having to re-learn it down the line when it's time to make the switch whether it be support dropping for 9.10 or Corral having a feature set not available on 9.10. However, there must be more documentation and information available for 9.10 as it has been around longer than Corral.

I'm going to head back to the slideshow and manual, and hope what I learn paired with any information the community can share with me will help me prepare for the arrival of my hardware.

Thanks

 

[m0nkey_]

Corral is very new, only released 24 hours ago.

Personally, I'm remaining on 9.10 for now until the first SU for Corral is released before upgrading.

 

[Jeremy]

A co-worker of mine has been encouraging me to switch to FreeNAS for a while now(at least a year), and today he helped me pick appropriate hardware to get started.

I picked up and R710 w/ 48GB of RAM & an M1050. I've begun reading the manual/user guide and the slideshow thread. I intend to use it as my media server(primarily plex) and to setup OwnCloud or NextCloud.

My question, though, is since I'm starting fresh and have never used FreeNAS before, should I begin by learning Corral as it is as new as I am, or should I begin with 9.10. As I don't know how different they are aside from knowing Jails aren't as prevalent in Corral.

My Pro's and Cons:

Learning the Corral prevents me from having to re-learn it down the line when it's time to make the switch whether it be support dropping for 9.10 or Corral having a feature set not available on 9.10. However, there must be more documentation and information available for 9.10 as it has been around longer than Corral.

I'm going to head back to the slideshow and manual, and hope what I learn paired with any information the community can share with me will help me prepare for the arrival of my hardware.

Thanks

Here's a couple more videos we just went live with, more to come soon.

 

[nojohnny101]

@Nomar1245 Great question.

I can see why you asked though, you are coming in right in the middle of a major transition. All the points you made are valid. Here is my 2 cents.

If I were in your shoes, I would ask myself a couple of questions:
1) What is my skill level with figuring things out and past experiences with steep learning curves? If you feel like you are good at figuring things out, aren't afraid to ask questions, and are understanding conceptually what you have read so far, then this would point me towards FreeNAS Corral. Learning FreeNAS Corral might take a bit longer and you might run into a little more headaches (no doubt you have a good chance of getting stuck even setting up FN 9.10, it is a steep learning curve no matter which direction you go), but as you mentioned you wouldn't have to relearn when you move to FN Corral, which you eventually will do.
2) How much time do I want to put into it right now to get it up and running? The feeling I'm getting on the forums is there are certainly bugs to be worked out and odd behaviors here and there with FreeNAS Corral. But from most of what I have seen, not many bugs (there are a few exceptions) can't be worked out by doing it through the CLI or doing a bit more troubleshooting. So if you aren't in a big hurry to get things up and running, it would make sense to me investing time in FreeNAS Corral so then you don't have to relearn the whole new GUI (things are vastly different in at least that regard, not to mention the undermining of how FreeNAS works) later.

Tough call and you could go either way. Best of luck to you, regardless you'll be happy with what FreeNAS can do!

 

[Jailer]

If you are just starting out I see no reason to go with anything but Corral. You're new and will likely need support and that's where you'll be best served when that time comes.

 

[Dice]

I've clicked through all of Corral's GUI, leading me to give you the following advice:

Get on the train on Corral. It is dodgy as fuck as of now. A transition from 9.10 to Corral is likely to give you more troubles than benefits.
I'd say tho, that you could start reading the user manual scanning for "lingo" and concepts, which are in broader terms very similar on most areas. The most reworked aspects concerns jails. I'd not dig into that directly.
Other stuff, generic as it may seem, with burin-in proceedures, share/users setups and schedules for SMART,scrubs and what not ...which were the main "blurred" things yet <important> to get a hold of. Start reading those.

 

[Nomar1245]

Thanks, everyone. Right now, I feel like I have to decide whether or not I want to ride my bike with training wheels(or stabilizers). Not to imply 9.10 is going to be easier to learn, but because I can take comfort in knowing more information may be available to help me.

With that said, I think I will go the route of Corral. Everyone seems to agree that it makes more sense for me as a beginner to learn on the latest, but Dice's point about transitioning from old to new pushed the right button for me.

I am going to continue to read, read, and read, as well as play with my VMs and decide where to go from there, but more than likely I believe I will be going with Corral.

My M1015 is going to take a couple of weeks to get to me, which will give me time to make my final decision.

I appreciate everyones assistance and can't wait to get started on this project. Thanks everyone.

 

[Dice]

thing is - the 9.10 is unfathomably unfriendly to the user compared to Corral.
No need to get you through all of that.

 

[WJCarpenter]

I am in almost exactly the same place as @Normar1245, but I am coming to the opposite conclusion: I think I will stay away from Corral for now.

I am able to troubleshoot and figure things out and so on, I just don't want to. If I had been using FN for a while, I might take Corral for a spin just to help out the community effort. But being completely new to FN, I think that would be a very frustrating exercise. Just for example, I only just heard in the question that started this thread that "jails aren't as prevalent". Huh? I guess that is why I can't find any reference to jails or plugins in the web UI. But ... now what?

The web UI for Corral is pretty and all, but all current documentation, 3rd party articles, and most forum posting reference older releases. When they say "go here, do this", the "here" might not be there.

 

[Jailer]

thing is - the 9.10 is unfathomably unfriendly to the user compared to Corral.

I don't agree with that statement. It's a learning curve, but once you figure out where things are it's not difficult at all to navigate and get what you want done.

 

[Nomar1245]

My server arrived today, even though it wasn't expected until Wednesday, I've decided Corral is the play for me. I'm going to use some spare 500 GB drives until my M1015 arrives and run it next to my current media server in a sandbox capacity. This way I can get a better feel for it on my actual hardware rather than in a VM and I won't have to worry about losing any data while I work through some growing pains.

I've come to terms with the fact that there will be a learning curve either way. I'm choosing to be positive and avoid comparing its difficulty to anything else to try and avoid overwhelming myself. I haven't had a personal project, that I've been as excited for as this in years, and I'm really looking forward to it.

As for WJCarpenter's reply to my original statement of jails not being as prevalent, I'm confident that I'll be able to find what I need anyway. I don't think FN could be as popular as it is, or have made it to its 10 stable release without providing adequate solutions in each revision.

 

[Jailer]

I think that's a good plan moving forward. A sandbox to learn in is a great way to start and get your feet wet. Good luck and I think you will be just fine with your positive learning attitude.

 

[Nomar1245]

After a few days of testing, I wanted to report back.

Although there isn't a ton of information, documentation, or forum posts regarding Corral compared to 9.10, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that it is fairly intuitive. For me this was definitely the right route, and I'd encourage anyone that is in the same position I was to do the same.

 

[nojohnny101]

Thank for reporting back, glad you have had a positive experience so far!

 

[Nomar1245]

And.....I've hit my first wall.

I have 2x Xeon E5507 and when I try to setup my Plex Docker Host, I receive the following error:

Description
Cannot start VM Plex - only BHYVELOAD is supported for VT-x without unrestricted guest feature.

Task Name
docker.host.create

State
FAILED



I've confirmed Virtualization is enabled in the BIOS, but can't find anywhere else to look.

Upon reading the following thread, I've discovered that I will need new processors:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...nas-10-vms-and-incompatible-processors.48138/



Since I have an R710 Gen I, I need to track down a set of quad core 1366 that supports Unrestricted Guest Feature.

The saga continues....

 

[Nomar1245]

Final update:

After receiving all the correct equipment, I can say definitively that FreeNAS is amazing, and Corral is right for me.

In total it took me about a week of sporadic work on it to setup:

-The FreeNAS server environment
-Windows 10 VM w/ working VirtIO drivers (this was a big deal for me)
-A Docker for Plex
-Docker for PiHole
-Setup Alerting & email reporting


I do have some advice and experience for anyone still on the fence, that is in a similar position as I was.

1. Go to this thread and read CyberJock's incredible slideshow: https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

2. Read that slideshow again. Although it primarily applies to pre-Corral FreeNAS, he makes it very clear what is important and what is really important to ensure a stable, secure, and safe environment for your data. In all honesty, it is written as though he cares as much about your data as you do.

3. Checkout the hardware recommendations. You don't have to check it and only buy what is listed, but at least cross-check the hardware you want to use against the forums. There is a good chance that someone has already tried to use the hardware you're planning to implement, and as they say knowledge is power. I assumed what I bought would work, and it ended up costing me an extra $60. Not bad in the grand scheme of things, but it could be worse.

4. Don't be afraid to test. If you're reading this thread, then you must be at a place where you want to use FreeNAS, but don't currently have it implemented. If that's the case then take your time, create a test environment, either on bare metal or a VM, and copy some data over to play with. Copy, don't move. That would be silly.

5. Use the forums. Every wall I hit (except for one*) had an answer for me in the forums. Because Corral is so new, there are other people who want the same answers you do. More than once I found a thread asking a question less than 20 minutes before I began to look for it, and all of those already had answers. Might as well take advantage of the free help.

6. Enjoy it. FreeNAS seems as though it can be as simple or complex as you'd like it to be. The flexibility of it is great. I've been able to accomplish everything I wanted in a short period of time, without any previous FreeNAS experience.


I hope this is helpful, and not overkill. I just thought it might be useful given my perspective.


*For those wondering what I have not yet been able to do: I can't figure out how to add channel plug-ins or bundles to Plex. I use a plug-in called Trakt that syncs my media library play states between environments. I use Plex and sometimes Emby, so when I watch a show on one it will sync to another and mark the same show as watched. This is especially useful for migrating or rebuilding servers.

 

[Jailer]

Thanks for reporting back with an update!

 

[danb35]

Hopefully you've seen this: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/important-announcement-regarding-freenas-corral.53502/
tl;dr: Corral is dead.

 

[Nomar1245]

I did see that and it is a bit discouraging, but I'm happy enough for FreeNAS to want to stick to it even though I'll need to rebuild. I'm hoping I'll be able to migrate my windows 10 bhyve vm from corral to 9.10.3