FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System • Hacker News Board

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#21

Post by jzelinskie » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #8

Although I don't think I'd ever DIY another NAS box, I would suggest the following, use a common chipset controller that exposes each drive/device separately with all information, some don't. Also, prefer a system with ECC, Asus supports ECC on most AMD FX supporting motherboards for the less expensive option there. Also, have 2 spare drives on hand. I went back to Synology after my uper-nas crashed and burned (reall…

I wanted to do something like this, but after reading about the failure rates of drives and raid, once one disk fails, it seems like you're fucked. Anybody got some stories or numbers that prove that while repairing my raid for one disk failure I won't just destroy the rest of my drives?

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#22

Post by tobias3 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

benologist wrote: post #17

tobias3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot find the source code of DSM. Are you sure it is Open Source? If it isn't Open Source this is off-topic since there is a large number of other commercial NAS OS e.g. Thecus, SoftNAS, QNAP, Napp-It... Most of them tend to have an "app store" and some people building more or less working apps out of Open Source and free projects.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%... I think it's in there, their account's got a lot of files so it might be elsewhere. Latest version isn't published yet.

This looks just like their GPL source drop location. No build instructions, no readme etc.

This thread seems to confirm this notion: https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=120535

Here is the one for Thecus: http://www.thecus.com/Downloads/GPL/ QNAP: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qosgpl/

And since they haven't published the latest versions they are in violation of the GPL.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#23

Post by goda90 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

vibrolax wrote: post #19

FreeNAS has worked well for me for two years on a dedicated home NAS server I built with a mini-ITX motherboard. I chose DIY NAS over a NAS appliance like Synology's, because I can readily obtain a replacement for any hardware that fails into the indefinite future. I keep a copy of the FreeNAS's storage on a second DIY NAS running NAS4free, which is the original base from which FreeNAS was forked some years ago. One…

Modern virtualization stuff like VT-d means you can pass through your hard drive controllers to a FreeNAS VM and have it work just the same as if it were running natively. In fact, you can just keep a backup of your FreeNAS configuration on a flash drive install, so if your Hypervisor or VM fall apart, then you just boot to the flash drive without a hitch.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#24

Post by usefulcat » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

mawburn wrote: post #20

I never really understood the system requirements for FreeNAS. It would be something that would work great on some small old system, but at 8gb Recommended the system requirements is basically the opposite of a small old system. Can anyone explain the reason for this? What makes the specs so hardcore?

I think the short answer is that ZFS doesn't work well unless it has a decent amount of memory available for caching.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#25

Post by peatmoss » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

mawburn wrote: post #20

I never really understood the system requirements for FreeNAS. It would be something that would work great on some small old system, but at 8gb Recommended the system requirements is basically the opposite of a small old system. Can anyone explain the reason for this? What makes the specs so hardcore?

The website isn't loading for me, but if I remember correctly the default FS is ZFS, which likes its memory.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#26

Post by singlow » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

mawburn wrote: post #20

I never really understood the system requirements for FreeNAS. It would be something that would work great on some small old system, but at 8gb Recommended the system requirements is basically the opposite of a small old system. Can anyone explain the reason for this? What makes the specs so hardcore?

I think the memory is for ZFS which needs a lot of memory to perform well.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#27

Post by zwerdlds » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

vibrolax wrote: post #19

FreeNAS has worked well for me for two years on a dedicated home NAS server I built with a mini-ITX motherboard. I chose DIY NAS over a NAS appliance like Synology's, because I can readily obtain a replacement for any hardware that fails into the indefinite future. I keep a copy of the FreeNAS's storage on a second DIY NAS running NAS4free, which is the original base from which FreeNAS was forked some years ago. One…

Not to mention, the jails system in FreeNAS has been in flux in the past. It never quite worked well for me, so offloading the "app" stuff to a workhorse is what I did.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#28

Post by benologist » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

tobias3 wrote: post #22

benologist wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dsgpl/files/Synology%20NAS%... I think it's in there, their account's got a lot of files so it might be elsewhere. Latest version isn't published yet.

This looks just like their GPL source drop location. No build instructions, no readme etc. This thread seems to confirm this notion: https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=120535 Here is the one for Thecus: http://www.thecus.com/Downloads/GPL/ QNAP: https://sourceforge.net/projects/qosgpl/ And since they haven't published the latest versions they are in violation of the GPL.

Your link is people complaining that the source isn't being released fast enough... and Synology has told them it will be put on SourceForge when they're ready. There seems to be a lot of precedent for that to go how they said it will.

There's also an independent community that facilitate installing and using it on your own hardware including the latest version that's still waiting on the source dump.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#29

Post by andoriyu » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 6:00 PM UTC

mawburn wrote: post #20

I never really understood the system requirements for FreeNAS. It would be something that would work great on some small old system, but at 8gb Recommended the system requirements is basically the opposite of a small old system. Can anyone explain the reason for this? What makes the specs so hardcore?

Simple. ZFS has memory requirements to operate efficiently. If you have less Kind of like when you don't need a full blown CRM to manage two customers.

Re: FreeNAS: Open Source Storage Operating System

#30

Post by goda90 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

ultramancool wrote: post #11

tracker1 wrote: post #8

Although I don't think I'd ever DIY another NAS box, I would suggest the following, use a common chipset controller that exposes each drive/device separately with all information, some don't. Also, prefer a system with ECC, Asus supports ECC on most AMD FX supporting motherboards for the less expensive option there. Also, have 2 spare drives on hand. I went back to Synology after my uper-nas crashed and burned (reall…

Those 3TB Seagate drives are literally the worst in the business. The 2TB and 4TB are pretty good (roughly on par or better than competitors according to the backblaze reports) but those 3TB drives were utter shit for some reason, ~20% year over year failure rates. Some retailers have even started to sell the 3TB Seagate drives at almost the same price as the 2TB ones. Probably the only way to get rid of them.

Well that's reassuring... I just built my home NAS. 3 3TB WD Reds and 3 3TB Seagate NAS drives. Two of the Seagates were DOA so I got them replaced. I ran full hard drive tests on them without problems but now I'm extra paranoid.