Best NFS System

[nerdalertdk]

Hi Guys

I'm looking for the best OS for an NFS san/nas.

My requirements is
- UEFI Boot
- Support for PCI Nvme
- Filesystem Snapshot
- Filesystem Deduplication
- USB Stick Boot optimised
- Web Gui (I wanna think of this box like an San Appliance)

System is an HPE DL20 Gen9 with 16Gb ram
Boot disk: HPE Dual 8gb usb
VM: Store nvme disk (to come)
Storage: 6 x SATA SSD

Tried OmniOs with Napp-it, but OmniOS can't boot on my server and don't like the UEFI boot.
Anything Debian would be an plus but not an requirement.

 

[vudu]

Does the HPE DL20 Gen9 support 6 x SATA? Thought it was 4 x SSF bays. FreeNAS would fulfil most of the other requirements.

 

[nerdalertdk]

Well for 6 Sata my plan is to buy 2 x https://www.amazon.com/ICY-DOCK-ToughArmor-MB993SK-B-Mobile/dp/B01BI0XDTK

Should work, the measurements says it fits in an 3.5” bay and I have 6 Sata ports


I thought about FreeNAS but it’s seams bloated??

Have not tried installing it yet

 

[herby]

FreeNAS doesn't really seem bloated to me but I don't really use any plugins or Jails. What could be a issue is it doesn't really lend itself to a lot of low level tweeking. Messing around too agressively at the CLI can cause issues as it's built with the expectation you'll be managing it through the web-GUI. If you want the features it offers by design it can be a great stable choice.

Anything running ZFS as the file system will be RAM hungry so be prepared for that.

 

[vudu]

Interesting solution. Would like to see how it works out. As herby said FreeNAS like RAM. Consider 16GB a likely minimum. See no reason why it wouldn't work as a NAS with web interface for NFS. Typically how I use it. I do at times use the cli, often to fine tune permissions.

 

[nerdalertdk]

I’m hoping the 16gb is enough given current ram prices

An dl20 is about the same price as an current nuc/micro pc (used) so was an no brained to go with server hardware and I’m an hpe fanboy and they are under 50cm in length and is low power given the E3 v5/6

Well post how it turns out I’m still missing some parts

 

[tomaash]

I don't see how those IcyDock enclosures would fit into the DL20, since the LFF drive bays are not standard... That would require some modification indeed. How do you plan to power them, too?

 

[nerdalertdk]

They should fit, for cables I bought an sata fan out and i'm going to make my own power cable, bought a new molex plug for the motherboard.
My DL20 is the NONE hot swap so can easily see the what cable does what.

HP tray
LFF:
4.0″ W x 1.0″ H x 5.75″ D
(101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm)

IcyDock
101.2 x 25.4mm x 133 mm

 

[nerdalertdk]

Hmm FreeNas was not my cup of tea, anyone have tried Btrfs on debian/centos ?

 

[mbosma]

I'm using Proxmox to share my zfs pool over nfs/smb, basicly Debian.
You could use a turnkey-fileserver container to share the data but in my opinion using cli is easier for nfs.

 

[nerdalertdk]

Sounds like over complication an storage server

running an hypervisor for running an container for shareing storage to two other hypervisors >D

 

[mbosma]

It kinda is when you're running just a file server, though I use my hypervisor for a lot virtualization too.
Maybe openmediavault on bare metal would be sufficient for you.

 

[nerdalertdk]

Ye I already have two hypervisors
Just need my poor man “San”

 

[gea]

You mainly want NFS and data security with checksums and Snaps = ZFS.
Basically my best bet is Oracle Solaris (commercial) or a free Solaris fork like OmniOS (this is where NFS and ZFS were originally developped) with my napp-it as a GUI

My next best bet is Free-BSD where ZFS is there for a longer time. FreeNAS or XigmaNAS are the options with a GUI.

Maybe you can rethink USB and UEFI as mandatory. I would always prefer an Sata or M.2 boot device (much faster, more reliable, enough space for bootenvironments, updates and swap or dump functionality)

 

[nerdalertdk]

Sadly both OmniOS and Illumos don’t like my server hardware how dl20 gen9

It won’t even start the installer
Sadly my Sata and pci is taken up by storage so I only have usb left

 

[dswartz]

I feel your pain. I find it annoying that Mellanox has given up on solaris-based distros. I have 2 50gb mellanox ethernet nics I use for a PtP link from my esxi 6.7 hypervisor to a CentOS 7.5 NFS server. I'd love to you something illumos-based, but that seems to be a pipe dream...

 

[nerdalertdk]

Any one tried Rockstor | Linux & BTRFS powered Opensource NAS solution ?

 

[nerdalertdk]

HI guys

Ended up with the following solution

• Debian 9
• Openfilevault

Pros:

• Works with HPE agents
• Can control kernel, needed since I have an Fusion-IO card and have to compile drivers that match the kernel
• OFV have an usb pen plugin (folder2ram)
• Light weight only need NFS
• Web GUI which is an bonus

 

[sth]

Any one tried Rockstor | Linux & BTRFS powered Opensource NAS solution ?

I understood it was fine with mirrored volumes, but had some issues with striped arrays that could lead to data loss. This may be a deal breaker but you should have backups so you might be ok taking the chance and helping developers mature the platform.
One specific advantage I recall was Rockstor was able to extend arrays one drive at a time. ZFS wasn't capable of this but I hear this capability is coming to OpenZFS sometime too.
Unless you have a good reason to not use ZFS, I'd just use ZFS as its very well tested and reliable.

 

[nerdalertdk]

Wanted to do ZFS but could not install any Solaris os on my server so Debian it was