freenas...

[atomiser]

hi there.

i am interested in creating a network attached storage device from old bits of hardware i've got kicking around and utilising freenas as the operating system of choice.

i have a few questions that i would like to pose toward those with more experience of actually using the software.

how have you found it's reliability?

any limitations that are easily pointed out?

have you utilised and do you trust the software raid function?

i'm thinking i would like to go down the route of raid 5 utilising 500gb disks, starting the array with 3 disks. can i dynamically grow the array with the addition of extra disks?

what sort of performance can i expect from the software raid function?

how is the support for wifi network adaptors?

many thanks.

 

[ring.of.steel]

1. dont use wireless for file servers, it = slow
2. software raid 5 isnt really fast at all, but the reads are ok.
3. Freenas is pretty reliable, just like most linux distros.
4. I wouldnt trust linux software raid, only solaris raidz.
5.You cannot grow a raid 5 array in freenas as far as im aware of

sorry about the wrong order

 

[abudhu]

hi there.

Hi. Note to you: Been using Freenas for about 6 months now. So hopefully my answers help you out.

how have you found it's reliability?

Its as reliable as the parts that make up the system. Use bad drives and you can expect bad reliability. I know this because when I first started fooling around with it I put in a spare (known to have bad sectors) HD and as a result, got some corrupt data. Obviously this isn't the OS's fault, but illustrates my point that the Hardware has to be reliable on its own. That being said, it *was* running for 4 months straight, until I updated and had to restart. Since then its been on 24/7.

any limitations that are easily pointed out?

Hm, personally I can't comment, as it has more features than I thought I would be getting so I was darn pleased.

have you utilised and do you trust the software raid function?

Yes. And it works well. You can always check the status and health of the array and building/rebuilding works pretty fast.

i'm thinking i would like to go down the route of raid 5 utilising 500gb disks, starting the array with 3 disks. can i dynamically grow the array with the addition of extra disks?

Yes. Its as easy as formatting the new drive into the RAID format, then adding the Newly Formatted drive into the Array. All this is done via the WebGUI -- which by the way is very nice. @ Ring.Of.Steel: I think you can. I'll go check Though, I think you'd end up having to rebuild the array. So I guess you can't dynamically grow it...

what sort of performance can i expect from the software raid function?

Works fast and reliable enough for me? What were *you* expecting?

how is the support for wifi network adaptors?

Can't say, mine is wired.

many thanks.

Welcome.

--
One last thing I'll point out is: I choose to go with the Embedded Install as the Full Install now requires you to burn a CD and update that way. The Embedded allows you to just upgrade via the Web Interface. Since I hate wasting CD's the embedded was an easier solution.

 

[ring.of.steel]

Yes. Its as easy as formatting the new drive into the RAID format, then adding the Newly Formatted drive into the Array. All this is done via the WebGUI -- which by the way is very nice. @ Ring.Of.Steel: I think you can. I'll go check Though, I think you'd end up having to rebuild the array. So I guess you can't dynamically grow it...

They must have added this since i last looked, before it was on the waiting list.

 

[munkle]

I used freenas for a bit, it never went down on me. Can't comment on raid since I didn't use it. I don't think it supports any kind of wireless, and I personally wouldn't even want to use wireless (I'm not to fond of wireless for anything except internet access). One limitation is that you should use the unix file system and not NTFS. You can use ntfs but it does cause problems sometimes and isn't really supported all that much.

 

[ring.of.steel]

On a unix based system never use ntfs, it is unstable and not needed, especially on a server.

 

[kaidomac]

I have a FreeNAS box running four 750gb drives in Software RAID 5. It has been extremely stable on my Gigabit network. So far my uptime is 90 days+, basically since I installed it (be sure to slap a UPS battery backup on it!). Read this guide for more info:

http://www.orionmods.com/blog/?p=5

 

[P3N1X0R]

ive been tinkering with freenas, but i dont like the fact i cant access the base BSD os, and ports system to addon my own stuff

that said, im just using freebsd as my nas, its pretty simple, gmirror, graid5, samba, and webmin...cant be much simpler

 

[xphil3]

5.You cannot grow a raid 5 array in freenas as far as im aware of

sorry about the wrong order

OFT. With its current filesystem(UFS,EXT3, etc) you cannot have a dynamic raid 5 set. That said, I would hold off on freeNAS until they start using freeBSD 7 which they should start using once it goes stable. ZFS will be native to this release and as far as I know the only filesystem that is *being* built for dynamic additions to your R5 array without having to rebuild and format your current array.

In the mean time, solaris 10 w/ ZFS + samba. Thats as easy as it gets. Like the others said, do NOT use wireless.

 

[kaidomac]

OFT. With its current filesystem(UFS,EXT3, etc) you cannot have a dynamic raid 5 set. That said, I would hold off on freeNAS until they start using freeBSD 7 which they should start using once it goes stable. ZFS will be native to this release and as far as I know the only filesystem that is *being* built for dynamic additions to your R5 array without having to rebuild and format your current array.

In the mean time, solaris 10 w/ ZFS + samba. Thats as easy as it gets. Like the others said, do NOT use wireless.

FreeNAS with ZFS would be absolutely sick. I'm looking forward to it I just hope Apple implements it soon too...

 

[abudhu]

OFT. With its current filesystem(UFS,EXT3, etc) you cannot have a dynamic raid 5 set.

QFT. I just checked with my install (threw some old drives in there) and you can 100% ignore my original comment.

 

[drgnCabe]

While I haven't tried freenas (though I might, just to see how it does), I'm currently using openfiler. I can't remember but I think when I was looking freenas didn't support iscsi which was a requirement for me, my vmware esx 3 server is using my iscsi san since I wanted more space using cheap hardware than buy a bunch of expensive scsi drives a year or so ago. It seems SAS/SCSI has dropped in price a little since, when I was looking into it, it was around $500 or so for a 146GB drive and iscsi was my only option aside from some hacking for an lsi megaraid using sata which I didn't wanna deal with.

I have heard of corruption with Raid 5 arrays on openfiler when I first built it (about a year or so ago) but I used 0+1 for my array anyways.

I know of at least two freenas servers friends are running in 250+ user environments, still going strong from what I understand.

 

[xphil3]

While I haven't tried freenas (though I might, just to see how it does), I'm currently using openfiler. I can't remember but I think when I was looking freenas didn't support iscsi which was a requirement for me, my vmware esx 3 server is using my iscsi san since I wanted more space using cheap hardware than buy a bunch of expensive scsi drives a year or so ago. It seems SAS/SCSI has dropped in price a little since, when I was looking into it, it was around $500 or so for a 146GB drive and iscsi was my only option aside from some hacking for an lsi megaraid using sata which I didn't wanna deal with.

I have heard of corruption with Raid 5 arrays on openfiler when I first built it (about a year or so ago) but I used 0+1 for my array anyways.

I know of at least two freenas servers friends are running in 250+ user environments, still going strong from what I understand.

FreeNAS has supported iSCSI since early 06, well before ESX 3.

Out of curiosity, how do you like iSCSI with your VMFS? Have you tested NFS Vs. iSCSI? I would presume that iSCSI would perfom much better since its benefits are mostly transactional.

my only option aside from some hacking for an lsi megaraid using sata which I didn't wanna deal with.

No hacking, pop card in, lets ESX load the megaraid SCSI driver, done. This is still your cheapest and fastest solution, unless your etherchanneling your iSCSI target(I have done this with NFS and seen great results, 8 trunked gigabit interfaces for a 200+ user enviornment).

 

[drgnCabe]

FreeNAS has supported iSCSI since early 06, well before ESX 3.

For some reason I missed that, though when I was first looking into it I was running ESX 2.5 at work, 3 wasn't out yet and iscsi was a possibility in the spec sheets so that might be why I didn't notice freenas.

Out of curiosity, how do you like iSCSI with your VMFS? Have you tested NFS Vs. iSCSI? I would presume that iSCSI would perfom much better since its benefits are mostly transactional.

iSCSI has been smooth but the environment is no where near production as its my home setup. I got a license of ESX starter from my CDW rep as a gift when I worked at my last company (he was extremely happy when I purchased 3 full BL25p chassis, EMC 300 and 24 licenses of ESX w/Vmotion, HA & Virtual Center for a 3000+ user environment), I was surprised my boss approved of it, usually they balked at any gifts over a $250 value.

The environment serves as my testing and 'play with new things' environment before I commit anything to production at work. Current specs are nothing major, 4x Intel Xeon Dual-Core 2.2GHz processors, 16GB RAM and 2x73GB Raptors running via the onboard RAID controller (like I said, no where near a prod environment). Its running with around 16-odd virtual machines though only about 5 or 6 are running at any given time anymore. Right now I'm testing exchange 2007, MSSQL and mySQL on my test.corp domain before I pull it into production at work and the others are domain/service/media servers I use at home for media, active directory and a couple of other things. The iSCSI san is running 2x320gb and 6x500gb.

No hacking, pop card in, lets ESX load the megaraid SCSI driver, done. This is still your cheapest and fastest solution, unless your etherchanneling your iSCSI target(I have done this with NFS and seen great results, 8 trunked gigabit interfaces for a 200+ user enviornment).

Nice, I thought there was some stuff you had to do with the megaraid driver to trick it into working with SATA and I wanted as close to 'stock' as I could get. Right now the iSCSI is on its own gigabit network using Intel server NICs with Jumbo Frames enabled attached only to the vmware server. I've ran into a few bottlenecks while running some intensive db operations with MSSQL 2005 and a few other things running on other machines but from what I understand, unless you have your vm environment configured just right, databases are not a good idea with VMFS anyways though direct attached RAW would probably work but then you loose vmotion in a production environment.

Yikes, sorry for the long post. Its been a while since I've been able to talk technical with someone who understands these types of environments, I get carried away quite easily.

 

[atomiser]

hmmm, i think i might just try and pick up rocketraid off ebay and stick with a windows installation - at least that way i'm familiar with the o/s if the cack hits the fan! many thanks for all your responses though!

 

[archivalbackup]

For some reason I missed that, though when I was first looking into it I was running ESX 2.5 at work, 3 wasn't out yet and iscsi was a possibility in the spec sheets so that might be why I didn't notice freenas.

With the new version 3.5, even 'foundation' supports iSCSI, previously only on the higher end versions. [/quote]

I've ran into a few bottlenecks while running some intensive db operations with MSSQL 2005 and a few other things running on other machines but from what I understand, unless you have your vm environment configured just right, databases are not a good idea with VMFS anyways though direct attached RAW would probably work but then you loose vmotion in a production environment.

Purchase Qlogic HBA iSCSI cards, multipath, and offload the iSCSI transactions. VMFS shouldn't be your bottleneck.

 

[drgnCabe]

With the new version 3.5, even 'foundation' supports iSCSI, previously only on the higher end versions.

Damn, I need to update. I think I'm still at 3.0.

Purchase Qlogic HBA iSCSI cards, multipath, and offload the iSCSI transactions. VMFS shouldn't be your bottleneck.

Yea, like I said, my configuration isn't near production. If I was just using dedicated HBAs (without highend hard drives/raid controller on my san) I probably would have never reached the bottleneck I had. I'm pretty confident my current setup wouldn't hold up in a large production environment for vary long without I/O issues.

 

[axan]

freenas is great but right now there is no way to resize raid5 array, there is no utility to resize gpt partitions under freebsd. As others said soon freenas will start using freebsd 7 as base os which will bring zfs support so resizing won't be an issue.

 

[archivalbackup]

Damn, I need to update. I think I'm still at 3.0.

There are some good changes; I just finished reading all 1200 pages of documentation again, but here is a really good resource to get you up to speed with the changes from 3.0
http://www.rtfm-ed.eu/docs/vmwdocs/Appendix_C_What's_New_and_Different_in_Vi3-5.pdf

 

[xphil3]

There are some good changes; I just finished reading all 1200 pages of documentation again, but here is a really good resource to get you up to speed with the changes from 3.0
http://www.rtfm-ed.eu/docs/vmwdocs/Appendix_C_What's_New_and_Different_in_Vi3-5.pdf

The ISO was just downloaded a few hrs ago I will be working on my upgrade(ugh!) when my 4 gigs of new ram come in. 8 gigs aint too shabby for my sandbox at home, eh?