Synology/DSM + ZFS?

T

tcs2tx

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Sep 29, 2009
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A post on another site led me to the XPEnology site and from there to sources for installing DSM in ESXi. All in all, very cool.

I am currently running an OpenIndiana-based NAS (with a napp-it front end) in ESXi in order to take advantage of the ZFS file system. The one, and only, limitation I see for the Synology is the lack of the ZFS file system.

As I was playing with Synology, it allows me to mount my CIFS shares from the OpenIndiana NAS. Surprisingly, to me at least, the mounted shares can be accessed on my network as if they are physically attached to the Synology.

So, what are the downsides (other than complexity, perhaps) of running Synology as a "front end" for a ZFS-based backend?
 
danswartz said:
Increased latency from the extra network hop?
Click to expand...

How much of a risk is there for increased latency when (1) both the ZFS-VM and Synology-VM are on the same ESXI host, (2) both VMs are using a VMXNET3 NIC, and (3) both VMs are enabled for VMCI?

Can you recommend a tool/utility that I can use to measure and compare the latency?

PS - I appreciate the answers you've provided to my questions on this and other boards. Thanks again.
 
I guess I'm confused. I thought the synology was a hardware NAS, didn't know you could run it as a VM. If #1 and #2 are true, probably not a real issue. Not sure how meaningful #3 is?
 
danswartz said:
I guess I'm confused. I thought the synology was a hardware NAS, didn't know you could run it as a VM. If #1 and #2 are true, probably not a real issue. Not sure how meaningful #3 is?
Click to expand...

Synology is a hardware NAS, but apparently they use GPL code for the OS, so they have to release certain sources to the community. So, a community of developed/ported a 'clone' of the Synology OS that will run on standard x86 (if limited) hardware. The project is being developed at:

http://xpenology.com/

Part of the project allows the OS to be installed in ESXi.
 
I use a Windows FlexRAID array as my storage array. But I also run Synology DSM in a VM (VirtualBox) and use it as a front end for my data.

I just mount my CIFS shares into the DSM. I absolutely love FileStation and AudioStation for accessing my files and music from a web browser/smartphone/tablet.

It's a great idea to set this up.
 
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