OpenMediaVault - First Impressions

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sboesch

Active Member
Aug 3, 2012
467
95
28
Columbus, OH
I installed OpenMediaVault late last night.
It is based off of Debian, which I am a long time user of.
My first impressions are that it is useful, albeit at a pretty basic level, and lacking in a enterprise/advanced level.

Pros:
  • Debian based, which means that it has a strong user community and is regularly maintained.
  • Easy to use web management interface. Mostly logical and was easy enough to figure out with out much effort.
  • Installation is easy, has live media and installable iso images available.
  • Built in iSCSI Target.
  • Built in iTunes DAAP media server.
  • Rsync support, I have several Synology RS and DS models that I use for backups.


Cons:
  • Older Linux kernel, 2.6.32-5.
  • No LDAP or Active Directory support.
  • Illogical method in web management interface for setting security for shared resources such as FTP, CIFS.
  • Small user base.
 

Mike

Member
May 29, 2012
482
16
18
EU
Can't really blame the older kernel as it still ships with Squeeze at the moment and the majority wouldnt want unstable modules for a NAS. There's a backport available if you like to be on the edge though (no not Debian Edge, although i still have one running haha). I believe there is also a community within Openmediavault running ZFS on Linux which is quite cool for those not wanting to experiment with nix.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
I do have a VM with ZFS on Linux installed. Really wish that option was easier on the Linux storage WebGUI platforms.
 

sboesch

Active Member
Aug 3, 2012
467
95
28
Columbus, OH
I have tested all sorts of open source nas-san distros. I have yet found one that I like.
I have a little nas that I built, wolfdale celeron, 4gigs of ram, mini itx board, 3ware 9650se controller and 4x western digital RE3s. So far the only reasonable and quasi working solution I have liked was openfiler. Right now the computer is sitting in pieces.
 

km0201

New Member
Dec 14, 2013
3
3
3
This is kinda old, so I thought I'd give a current opinion. I was a happy FreeNas user since around .6. Then iX took over and screwed that project up. After bouncing around w/ Ubuntu Server, OpenFiler, etc. I switched to OMV in Nov '11. Having used Debian and Ubuntu on my home machines for about 3-4yrs at that point, I was way more comfortable w/ Debian Linux than BSD.

It has been more or less painless. Had a few issues w/ running a Raid1, but I think my issues w/ that were related to my motherboard than OMV. I ended up just switching to JBOD anyway, and just use some automatic rsync jobs to back up my data. It's still based on Squeeze, but I believe .6 is going to be based on Wheezy and will probably be released around May. Lot of folks are using the backport kernel though when needed. The plugin system is expanding constantly, and is truly one of the awesome aspects of the OS.

If you're on the hunt for a Linux based NAS solution, I'd highly recommend giving it a try.
 
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