Home Lab: FreeNAS or QNAP/Synology?

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peanuthead

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Long and short I am trying to complete my home lab for my VCP 5 cert and I was wondering if a QNAP/Synology NAS would be more "real world" like than a FreeNAS setup. All thoughts are welcome.
 
Not really. Features and management aside, neither is really more real world when it comes to a NFS server.
 
You could go with an EMC Uber VSA which "acts" like an enterprise NAS device, at least on the interface side..they're pretty feature packed, replication, etc. Of course it's geared towards' EMC storage, the older supports Block and File, and the newer only supports File right now.

You could also go with an HP Lefthand VSA which is Block iSCSI only. This is also pretty feature rich, snaps, replication..etc.
 
Don't you still need some type of network storage for the VSAs? I thought they just served as a front end?
 
Don't you still need some type of network storage for the VSAs? I thought they just served as a front end?
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No..it's a fully functioning "storage appliance." It's just leveraging the .vmdks you assign. In my Lab, I use local storage at both the "PROD" site and simulated "DR" site. Each has an UBERVSA built off of the local storage and replicated between the two.
 
Thank you all for the input. I believe I will stick with FreeNAS for the moment so I may get my feet wet with everything first. From there I will explore out.

Jason, I have read your Blog several times over and I'm curious as to why you chose a QNAP device over something like FreeNAS?
 
It's supported, for one thing :p, IIRC.

FreeNAS is getting a little out of date too it seems, imho.
 
peanuthead said:
Lol! Being supported is good a thing. Would you mind elaborating on FreeNAS being "out of date"?
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The BSD NFS client isn't getting (in my experience or limited testing) as many updates / changes as the linux one. It's just not keeping up with some of the new things coming down the pipe :)
 
Thank you for the clarification. I just need to get started somewhere so FreeNAS seems to be the best option currently for the hardware that I have. (I have enough for a dedicated NAS.)
 
Freenas is broken in many places.

Stick with QNAP, I have had lots of experience with both. Qnap hands down.
 
If it were just for exam studying I would keep things free and use a virtual appliance like the P4000 or the OnTap 8.1 Simulator.
 
I'll play with the free ones mentioned and go from there. My budget does not currently allow me to acquire a new 4 disk QNAP or Synology. Thank you very much to all who applied.
 
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