Comment by zwerdlds | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zwerdlds | Hacker News Reader

Programmer's opinion here: I'm not a sysadmin, just like to do light HomeLab style hobby work at home.

I can't provide a counterpoint for why you might consider a proprietary NAS, but I can tell you that I'm 90% sold on FreeNAS. I've built two servers running them from commodity hardware and never once had a problem with it.

I use rsync to backup to my older NAS no functioning specifically for that purpose. It's a ReadyNAS x86. I moved away from that because I wanted more functionality and redundancy.

I've had 2 drive failures on 5-disk setup. Live rebuild in degraded status worked as well as it should have. I also use the SSD caching feature which sped things up a bit for frequently used files.

My only qualm about the product is that whole versioning fiasco. I actually almost got bit by it while building a server for my parents, but the install wouldn't take so we used the older version. But by the grace of luck we didn't use the bad version.

I use separate hardware for my service host which talks over NAS. I just use the FreeNAS boxen for storage. Learned that lesson!

Thanks for the comment. I'm a sysadmin albeit only recently changed into this role. FreeNAS was my first choice when I thought about building this solution, however, instinctively, it feels over engineered for my needs. Sure, if I want a NAS with GUI, Jails and running VMs etc, I'll run to FreeNAS. But, I'd like a minimal core (FreeBSD + ZFS + NFS + rsync) which lowers the failure surface. I will write a few scripts to keep an eye on the health of the server, and that'll be it.

Good to know that your NAS survived a 2/5 disk failure.

2 things:

- IMO, having owned a couple readynas(es) in the past, FreeNAS is a good compromise between ease of setup and functionality. To me, it does not feel over-engineered. In fact, it feels like it gives you enough to do everyday stuff easily through the UI, and drop into ssh if necessary. I've only had to do this a few times. To wit: I would take a stock FreeNAS over manual setup anyday.

- The 2 disk failures I've experienced were independent of each other. I have not experienced a simultaneous failure of 2 drives. I have preventative measures in place, namely in the form of a hot-spare for the pool and an aggressive resilver schedule that runs weekly.

Why would you use NFS when you can use rsync and for files something like MinioFS?

When NFS goes down, its a huge PITA. I’d rather have something that deals with disconnects better.

While I would personally prefer FreeNAS (or just to roll my own), remember that you're supposed to be planning for the next person in your position. Sometimes a commercial appliance really is the best way to go. If you do roll your own or set up FreeNAS you need to build lots of docs and make sure they're stored somewhere the next guy will find them.

Ultimately it depends on the company, it's just a compromise I have had to make before so I thought it worth mentioning.

Good point. I'm thinking of this custom solution only because of the simplicity of this requirement(NFS backup). I'm planning to prepare a thorough documentation of what I did to build this solution and how to maintain it.

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