Should I upgrade/convert from NexentaCore to OpenIndiana?

[nle]

Hi all, I’ve been wondering if I should upgrade our server to OpenIndiana since NexentaCore has been abandoned (and/or migrated to Illumian). And especially since OpenIndiana now is the recommended OS for Napp-it (which I love. Thanks @gea!).

- First of all, is this a good idea (why break it if it’s working etc.)?
- Are there any special steps I need to take?
- What could go wrong?
- Does it take a long time to import a pool with 3 TB data?

Below is info about the current setup

ABOUT:
The server/NAS is a little over a year old, and is used daily in a production environment with six iMacs (netatalk clients), and some external clients (VPN [via router] and sFTP).

Software:

• NexentaCore 134f (latest version)
• Napp-it 0.8h nightly
• CrashPlan (modified solaris version)

Hardware:

• Supermicro X8ST3-F, Single Intel Core i7 / Xeon 55xx, 8 x SAS [Motherboard]
• INTEL CORE I7 960 3.2GHZ 8MB S-1366 [CPU]
• 6 x 4GB CORSAIR DDR3 XMS3 INTEL I7 1333MHZ [24GB RAM/Memory]
• 2 x HITACHI DESKSTAR 7K1000.C 500GB 7200RPM SATA/300 16MB [OS, Mirrored]
• 6 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB SATA3 64MB cache, 7200RPM, 6GB/S [Storage/datapool, RaidZ2]
• 1 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB SATA3 64MB cache, 7200RPM, 6GB/S [Spare]
• 1 x OCZ 120 GB SSD 2,5" Vertex 3 SATA III, Read/Write 550/500MB/sec [Cache]
• HP V1810-24G Switch [All local clients is on gbit, and the server has 2 x Gbit (aggregated)]

P.S:
I am currently playing around with a virtual installation of OpenIndiana, and everything seems fine. I imported my previous test virtual-hdd pool (from Illumian) with out a problem.

 

[gea]

Hi all, I’ve been wondering if I should upgrade our server to OpenIndiana since NexentaCore has been abandoned (and/or migrated to Illumian).

Beside Solaris 11, all options are based on Illumos (Illumian, OI, OmniOS, SmartOS). They share nearly the same Core-OS with some differences in packaging and repositories and prepared to different use cases. If you stay at ZFS V.28 it is also easy to move from Solaris 11 to Illumos based systems and vice versa.

If you are currently using NexentaCore, Nexenta-Illumian may be the successor. But for me its unclear if Nexenta intends to have a really free option available that is updated regularly like OI or the other options. Nexenta seems to force all users to NexentaStor CE while not allowing commercial use. So if you like to stay with Nexenta (at home only), you should consider NexentaStor CE. If you like to go a more independant and free way, OI is currently the best option - maybee this may change with Omnis-OS in future. But currently OI is feature complete, is used in most installations with a large user base and napp-it is working on it. (I try to support Omni in future but currently even common Perl CPAN modules like Expect are not working with the result that major parts of napp-it are not working on current OmniOS)

 

[nle]

Thank you for your answer, gea!

Do I need to prepare anything special, before upgrading? Or is it as simple as wipe the NexentaCore OS, and install OI, set up mirroring, network, install napp-it, and then reimport the zfs pool from napp-it?

 

[gea]

Thank you for your answer, gea!

Do I need to prepare anything special, before upgrading? Or is it as simple as wipe the NexentaCore OS, and install OI, set up mirroring, network, install napp-it, and then reimport the zfs pool from napp-it?

Basically: yes it is that simple
only mirrorring rpool is not supported during install; if you like you must do manually
see http://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/2.1+Post-installation

 

[nle]

Yes. I was aware of that.

Thank you for your answers, you are a life saver!

 

[nle]

I'm bumping this again, since I have not upgraded since I started it.

@Gea: Do I understand you correctly that you now recommend OmniOS instead of Open Solaris? Anything else I need to worry about?

EDIT:
And can I run VMWare ESXi with this hardware?

Thank you!

 

[gea]

Your hardware is quite old but should work without problem.
I now prefer Omni because it is maintained much better than OI

You should use ESXi 5.1 with newest patches for ESXi to enable vmware tools
see http://napp-it.org/doc/ESXi-OmniOS_Installation_HOWTO_en.pdf

 

[nle]

Thank you!