FreeNas/TrueNas RDMA Support (FR for voting)

[tsteine]

@BoredSysadmin This is very interesting.

I've personally abandoned Truenas Scale in the homelab in favor of running openzfs on my linux distro of choice, there is no reason why I can't simply test this, and see whether iSER has tangible benefits for iSCSI, or nfs over rdma.

 

[Rand__]

Lol, nah I am trying to understand and not to go pointing fingers

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Lets be honest - in a homelab its probably not really relevant with RDMA - but we are all nerds and want the best performance, so that is why we want this

 

[i386]

in a homelab its probably not really relevant with RDMA

When I copy files via robocopy from my workstation to my windows file server the server cpu stays at ~2.4GHz (it's a 1620v3 with 3.5GHz clock), so it probably saves some watts here and there

 

[Rand__]

A TrueNAS and iXsystems Questions & Answers Interview [with elaboration request on RDMA answer]

Hey guys, I just found this https://nascompares.com/news/truenas-ixsystems-nas-qa-answering-your-questions-in-2022/ There are some good answers for new users who are looking into NAS systems and are considering TrueNas as option, I like it I actually stumbled over this while searching for news...

www.truenas.com

If anyone has positive (or negative ) experience or expectations regarding RDMA then now might be a good time to chime in ...

He explicitly asked for it, even on non TN systems, so ...

 

[tsteine]

@Rand__

Judging from the the two posts you've gotten out of them, it seems to me like they haven't actually bothered testing RDMA themselves.

 

[Rand__]

Well I am not sure they didnt test it, it sounds rather like they did test with a certain setup and it did not yield significant improvement (which is o/c exactly what they say).
Now whether that was a best or worst case scenario test (or if its was even relevant to the potential improvements RDMA could bring) i don't know .

 

[efschu3]

Couldn't let it go

A TrueNAS and iXsystems Questions & Answers Interview [with elaboration request on RDMA answer]

Hey guys, I just found this https://nascompares.com/news/truenas-ixsystems-nas-qa-answering-your-questions-in-2022/ There are some good answers for new users who are looking into NAS systems and are considering TrueNas as option, I like it I actually stumbled over this while searching for news...

www.truenas.com

I could Not let it Go too. Especialy when they Switched to Debian, the "extra" Work to be done would only be a few minutes. But I dont have the testlab for doing this by myself right now.

But I told them and pointed them on how less Work IT would be.

Hope they finally understand the benefit of RDMA.

 

[efschu3]

Well, it seems we must write them a step by step guide for dummies how to Install rdma-core package and enable iser Portal on target.

I dunno why they are so lazy to "activate" an already existing and already integrated Feature.

When I get back my testlab I will write them a "Patch"

 

[i386]

I dunno why they are so lazy to "activate" an already existing and already integrated Feature.

Probably because of their customers? I think ix customers are the same people that would use qnap or synology stuff, but want (or need) it to be "free" (like freedom, not like free beer ). And these people don't need/know about rdma

But maybe I'm wrong...

 

[PigLover]

@i386 the lack of demand may be part of it (though I'd argue most of IX main customer base is much more savvy than you suggest).

That said, the biggest reason is likely related to testing, tools and delivery practices. Once IX lists RDMA as 'supported' they have a responsibility to make sure it works. While turning on the existing upstream code may be easy the effort to integrate testing and validation into their CICD tool chains is non trivial. And actually testing RDMA right requires quite a bit of investment in test target equipment and tools.

Lastly, RDMA is of limited value to the masses - but almost limitless value to the small set of customers that really need it (need, not want...). This is exactly the kind of feature a vendor may want to hold back for a paid feature with later upsell opportunities.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Probably because of their customers? I think ix customers are the same people that would use qnap or synology stuff, but want (or need) it to be "free" (like freedom, not like free beer ). And these people don't need/know about rdma

But maybe I'm wrong...

I disagree, my company went with two iX X20-HA systems for secondary storage due to a combination of support for HA, cost, and support. Qnap and Synology STILL don't have 24/7 support and without it, I'd personally NOT consider ANY storage system in an enterprise.

 

[BoredSysadmin]

Lastly, RDMA is of limited value to the masses - but almost limitless value to the small set of customers that really need it (need, not want...).

I am curious to learn more about these cases, I know that the NEED for RDMA is likely to be driven by the need to have ultra-low latency, but what are specific use cases?

 

[i386]

I am curious to learn more about these cases, I know that the NEED for RDMA is likely to be driven by the need to have ultra-low latency, but what are specific use cases?

No matter what uses cases I think of it always ends at persisting data -> my answer would be "fast" storage (low latency, high throughput) for databases, message brokers and stuff like that