Design questions

[Majo]

Hi there,

i'm evaluating FreeNAS but i'm unsure if it is the right choice for me. So i ask you...

As for my background: I started using FreeBSD around 1988 at version 1.1.5.2. Later at university i ported a large (commercial) software project from Solaris to FreeBSD which i even got into the demo section of the official 2.6 CDs. Much later i abandoned FreeBSD for Linux, but often used NanoBSD for embedded purposes (ALIX boards) and still do. So i think i have a solid technical BSD background.

My home storage/server solution is now 7 years old and i'm about to replace it. On the metal it runs a Debian Linux with several encrypted disks. No LVM, no RAID, don't ask why. ;). The only services are Samba and VirtualBox. On top of that instance run several virtual machines that mount the underlying filesystems via NFS or CIFS. The system partitions of the virtual boxes are files on the native machine's filesystem.

I backup all the native machine's filesystems (with the virtual machines suspended) on a regular basis.

Pro: very flexible data handling, virtual machines interchangeable, generic encryption without drivers in the virtual machines, etc...

Con: kind of slow, needs lots of resources.

That was state of the art 7 years ago. In the meantime there are a lot more choices for system architectures. I still like my setup, but i also always followed ZFS development with a vague idea of using it as a base filesystem. I REALLY like the ZFS features (snapshots, replication, cloning, data safety,...).

In the last 7 years i got several other computers: Macbook (--> FreeNAS Time Machine support), Samsung SmartView TV set (--> FreeNAS DLNA Plugin), Linux desktop system and a few more.

So basically i want my previous setup (native base machine with all filesystems) with virtual machines on top, but with the flexibility and safety of ZFS RAIDZ2 and the FreeNAS goodies. I'd like to play with iSCSI for example. I explicitely don't want a dedicated NAS that doesn't provide other services because i can't afford decent server hardware for NAS AND servers.

Is that possble with FreeNAS? After putting quite a lot of thought into it, i'm starting to doubt it. FreeNAS doesn't have a virtualization plugin and it's not recommended to run FreeNAS itself virtualized.

I had a (very) quick look at SmartOS. It's Solaris based, that means ZFS v31 and it has a Solaris zones and a KVM hypervisor. Sounds good, except for the fact that i loathe Solaris...

Of course i could run plain FreeBSD with a ZFS pool. But afaik FreeBSDs only hypervisor apart from jails is OSE VirtualBox and that means no support for the Oracle extensions.

Tough decisions. Any ideas would be welcome. Prefably FreeNAS based, of course.

I'm starting to think that i should simply clone my current setup on up-to-date hardware, this time using Linux LVM RAID (which i actually don't like very much for various reasons), plain samba (ugh) and KVM. ;)

 

[jgreco]

Basically it comes down to whether or not you could do what you need to within a BSD jail. If all the services you want to provide can be done from FreeBSD, then you can run a jail and probably be pretty good. If you're intent on running other operating systems, then running FreeNAS on bare metal isn't going to do that well for you. Some of us run FreeNAS as a VM inside ESXi. This works, but it is very much a matter of going about it in the correct way, and the fact is, we see people do it the wrong way (they think they're special and Murphy doesn't have it out for them?) all the time, and there are tears. But if you manage to do it the right way, then you're in a kind of server nirvana, with the best of several worlds.

 

[Majo]

jgreco, thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. You're an exception to most replying users in any forum: You read the actual question, understand it and normally post a really meaningful reply. *thumbsup*

In my case however you didn't tell me much new, but just confirm me in my thoughts. Really helpful was your hint about data recovery on virtualized systems over here in the hardware suggestions thread, so i think i won't go virtual with my NAS, even if i'm confident that i'll get it up and running. Every layer adds factors that are difficult to control.

Unfortunately jails are no alternative. Being self employed i have to run OpenBSD (base for genugate, one of the most secure and advanced firewalls on the market. I'm a certified partner and have a quite sensible genugate customer list, e.g. lottery companies - that's one of the reasons that all my disks are encrypted), several Linux flavors and even *gasp* Windows.

I have to think about it a bit more, but i think FreeNAS won't work for me.

I like to use ZFS and i like the SmartOS approach and even if i wrote that i loathe Solaris, how bad can it be? After all Solaris still supports "ps aux" along with "ps elf" ;)

Maybe it's time to get my hands wet and just buy some small general purpose server hardware with a few disks like you recommend in the hardware thread and evaluate a few setups while still using my current setup and hardware for production. Just talking will get me nowhere...

EDIT: read a bit more about SmartOS. I didn't understand that down to the point it's ONLY a supervisor using ZFS as a basis for virtual machine images. It's not a NAS by any means. So any NAS services have to be provided by a virtual machine. Now i'm really close to the point where i give up, take some serious money and build a FreeNAS and a server for my virtual machines on seperate hardware. Would be easy but expensive. I wanted to avoid that.