Design of a new multipurpose server; request for advice.

[rogerh]

I have two N54L AMD powered Microservers. One runs FreeNAS (and MiniDLNA in a jail). The other runs a low bandwidth DNS server, mail server and web server. I am concerned that both machines are getting old and have had occasional glitches on starting, possibly hardware related. It seems sensible to replace both with one machine (though I prefer my router/firewall on separate hardware out of ignorance probably).

Which (and why!) is the best approach? Should I use a FreeNAS server with the other functions virtualised, or a Linux server (presumably with some form of RAID) with virtualised FreeNAS. I expect in the latter case I would use separate disks for FreeNAS, and I might want hardware RAID otherwise the hardware seems to be about the same in either case.

Is either intrinsically more reliable?

Speed is not really a consideration until and unless I get a better Internet connection (currently about 500kb/s both ways).

 

[DrKK]

Roger,

I run all of that shit, and *MORE*, in my FreeNAS, with just a couple jails, using only a G3220 CPU. No need to have two boxes, or virtualize anything. This is a piece of cake. I have the FreeNAS appliance, then I have the following jails:

Jail #1: Runs inadyn-mt, DNS (unbound), ZNC (irc), lighttpd (web server), and various cool scripts.
Jail #2: Runs plex and proftpd
Jail #3: Runs dovecot + getmail for my mailserver.

Piece of cake. Load average <0.5, CPU < 5% most of the time.

 

[rogerh]

Roger,

I run all of that ****, and *MORE*, in my FreeNAS, with just a couple jails, using only a G3220 CPU. No need to have two boxes, or virtualize anything. This is a piece of cake. I have the FreeNAS appliance, then I have the following jails:

Jail #1: Runs inadyn-mt, DNS (unbound), ZNC (irc), lighttpd (web server), and various cool scripts.
Jail #2: Runs plex and proftpd
Jail #3: Runs dovecot + getmail for my mailserver.

Piece of cake. Load average <0.5, CPU < 5% most of the time.

Thanks. Looking ahead to 10, do you think jails will still be the best solution?

 

[DrKK]

Hard to say. The future of jails, vis-a-vis FreeNAS, seems a bit cloudy. Also, I am not knowledgable enough about bhyve, at this point, to be considered to have a cogent opinion on its possibilities as a replacement to jails.

 

[rogerh]

Hard to say. The future of jails, vis-a-vis FreeNAS, seems a bit cloudy. Also, I am not knowledgable enough about bhyve, at this point, to be considered to have a cogent opinion on its possibilities as a replacement to jails.

Probably I should wait a bit before deciding. So you see no advantage in having FreeNAS virtualised on top of another system?

 

[anodos]

Probably I should wait a bit before deciding. So you see no advantage in having FreeNAS virtualised on top of another system?

There are advantages and caveats. I prefer to not virtualize FreeNAS because in my situation the benefits don't outweigh the risks.

You should read the following threads:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ative-for-those-seeking-virtualization.26095/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...duction-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/#post58364

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.12714/

 

[rogerh]

There are advantages and caveats. I prefer to not virtualize FreeNAS because in my situation the benefits don't outweigh the risks.

You should read the following threads:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ative-for-those-seeking-virtualization.26095/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...duction-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/#post58364

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.12714/

Yes I have read these threads and similar. I could never see any advantage in virtualising FreeNAS for a home system, which worried me, because I thought I must be missing something. Or maybe it only makes sense when one has massive hypervisors with dozens of servers virtualised?