Linux based FreeNAS alternatives

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nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
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Well, the idea isn't panning out, but here it is.

Install ZoL
Idea was to get Debian Stretch + Napp-it working
Install PVE 5 manually via aptitude

The biggest issue was getting PVE to install from source. I can only assume this is because its not yet fully baked.
The second issue was getting ZoL working on Debian Stretch. Right now there is no official version and using the Jessie Backports was suboptimal.
Lastly, getting Napp-it to recognize my disks, but I am assuming I have issues mainly due to the fact that I was on a VM. FYI @gea the Menu->Disk_>Initialize menu is completely missing when installing on Debian.

Will re-attempt when PVE & Stretch are fully released.
 

mstrzyze

Member
Nov 9, 2015
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has anyone tried ESOS yet ?
I used that as fc/FCoE target some time ago (now I got hp msa and netapp but it's just powered off ). It's enterprise so..works..tui is a bit hard at first time but after a while it's logic ;)

I use that with Hw raid on cisco ucs..

If you need free fc target it's one of the best. Probably other alternative is solaris with nappit for example but I didn't try that. ( I didn't even try windows)

And In My opinion this is where freenas should go ( fiber Channel drivers, HA cluster etc "business features")
 

nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
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Spent a few hours with RockStor this morning

Pros
  • Great UI
  • Easy to setup pools, Shares, services
  • Docker appears to support being joined to a swarm, (I didn't attempt)
  • Flexibility in configuring pools is incredible. e.g. Reduce a Raid5 pool by going from 4 disk to 3 (use case: replacing with larger drives 5tb-->10TB).
  • Raid level migration is very flexible - I tested R5->R6->R10->R5->R0
  • Re-Striping operations (add disk, remove disk, change raid) only occur for existing data on the pool, so the operations are super quick. I added 10GB of data to a 200GB 5 disk pool and the resize was done in about 10 minutes.
  • Low CPU utilization, even during a disk addition and Raid level migration from Raid 5 -> Raid6
  • Balanced Memory usage. Stayed pretty consistent at 50% (2gb of 4gb) no matter what I really did.
  • CentOS Based - my preferred Linux distro
  • There s a level of it just works feel to it.

Cons
  • Raid5/6 are still listed as not production ready
  • Degraded pool alerting seems to be non-existent. I removed a disk and nothing happened, which I thought was odd.
  • Replacing a failed drive on a Raid5/6 pool seems to be a 2-step process. Add the new disk, then remove the failed disk. Or vice-versa, but requires two rebalancing operations.
  • Rock-ons (docker) is somewhat limited from a UI perspective. They only list certain (approved) containers in the UI. Not really sure I understand why they are doing this, since the ones listed are pulled directly from the docker registry.
  • Caching Disks options seem to be non-existent in the UI and the internet has mixed reviews regarding Bcache w/ BTRFS.

Overall for a smaller setup 2-4 disks, I could see myself using this, but for me Raid5 and Caching are critical requirements. I am bullish about the platform overall and it seems to have an active community. Will try again when 4.0 is released.

Will leave my environment up for now if someone wants me to try anything. The environment is not built for performance testing (its all virtualized running on my existing Syno).
 

Blade Runner

New Member
Dec 29, 2016
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Spent a few hours with RockStor this morning

Pros
  • Great UI
  • Easy to setup pools, Shares, services
  • Docker appears to support being joined to a swarm, (I didn't attempt)
  • Flexibility in configuring pools is incredible. e.g. Reduce a Raid5 pool by going from 4 disk to 3 (use case: replacing with larger drives 5tb-->10TB).
  • Raid level migration is very flexible - I tested R5->R6->R10->R5->R0
  • Re-Striping operations (add disk, remove disk, change raid) only occur for existing data on the pool, so the operations are super quick. I added 10GB of data to a 200GB 5 disk pool and the resize was done in about 10 minutes.
  • Low CPU utilization, even during a disk addition and Raid level migration from Raid 5 -> Raid6
  • Balanced Memory usage. Stayed pretty consistent at 50% (2gb of 4gb) no matter what I really did.
  • CentOS Based - my preferred Linux distro
  • There s a level of it just works feel to it.

Cons
  • Raid5/6 are still listed as not production ready
  • Degraded pool alerting seems to be non-existent. I removed a disk and nothing happened, which I thought was odd.
  • Replacing a failed drive on a Raid5/6 pool seems to be a 2-step process. Add the new disk, then remove the failed disk. Or vice-versa, but requires two rebalancing operations.
  • Rock-ons (docker) is somewhat limited from a UI perspective. They only list certain (approved) containers in the UI. Not really sure I understand why they are doing this, since the ones listed are pulled directly from the docker registry.
  • Caching Disks options seem to be non-existent in the UI and the internet has mixed reviews regarding Bcache w/ BTRFS.

Overall for a smaller setup 2-4 disks, I could see myself using this, but for me Raid5 and Caching are critical requirements. I am bullish about the platform overall and it seems to have an active community. Will try again when 4.0 is released.

Will leave my environment up for now if someone wants me to try anything. The environment is not built for performance testing (its all virtualized running on my existing Syno).
RockStor has plenty of features in beta however it is another option.
 
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nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
1,087
131
63
TX
RockStor has plenty of features in beta however it is another option.
I didn't see a good place to figure out what's exactly in beta, a release schedule or a place to download the beta bits. Closest I found on github were the milestones with associated bugs/enhancements. Unclear to me how those translated into versioning.


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