Ubuntu VS FreeNAS

[Rehmat]

Hi there. I have been running a samba server on a custom low power server (i3 2120t, ubuntu 16.04.2LTS) for about a year now. After tuning samba i get about 115Mb/second which is the max you can get over gigabit ethernet in real life. At the time it was the only server i had. However since i have purchased a dell r710 for my virtulisation needs and so was wondering if it would be worth installing freeNAS on the custom server. In the future i want to be able to use zfs, 10gbe, iscsi, and nfs, all of which can be configured in ubuntu. Is there any performance  increase with FreeNAS as opposed to ubuntu. Ubuntu would also allow me to run libreNMS and other software at the same time. Does @LinusTech use freenas or centOS on his servers [vault maybe] ? Also if somebody could tell me what their average samba performance is on freeNAS that would be great. If linus uses samba is it possible for him or somebody else to let us know what they did to optimise samba for 10gbe as samba tuning appears to be a can of worms. 

 

Thanks in advance.

[Mikensan]

FreeNAS offers a pretty GUI to manage everything with graphs and what not.

 

OpenZFS has been mostly ported to linux but is more at-home with FreeBSD. You're likely to get faster updates etc.. running FreeBSD.

 

I've been running FreeNAS w/ 10GB (SFP+ DAC) and vmware datastores via iSCSI for roughly 2 years now, works great. Didn't even have to enable jumbo frames and I'm getting around 9gbit/s.

 

Linux will offer you a lot more flexibility however. If you want to say run Plex / Docker / whatever - it would be easier imo via linux. You could even run Proxmox + OpenZFS and really cut loose.

 

I'm lazy so I've opted for FreeNAS - to setup email alerts I simply filled in some mail info, to look at performance I just look at netdata, smart status / whatever, I can just look at it at a glance. Replace a drive? 1 button and swap.

[Rehmat]

@Mikensan Did you have to do any samba tuning and was 10gbe  plug n play? Also what cards and dac cables are you using?

[v0nN3umann]

5 hours ago, Mikensan said:

'm lazy so I've opted for FreeNAS - to setup email alerts I simply filled in some mail info, to look at performance I just look at netdata, smart status / whatever, I can just look at it at a glance. Replace a drive? 1 button and swap.

Yes, FreeNAS makes it a lot easier.

For storage solutions it's easy to use and fast to configure everything. However if you want to have full control over all settings, it can take a little bit longer to configure.

[Rehmat]

@v0nN3umann Would it be possible for you to give me a parts list of your FreeNAS solution  so that I could compare it to the type of hardware that I am using right now? Also how have you configured [software] yours?

[v0nN3umann]

On 5/10/2019 at 8:50 PM, Rehmat said:

@v0nN3umann Would it be possible for you to give me a parts list of your FreeNAS solution  so that I could compare it to the type of hardware that I am using right now? Also how have you configured [software] yours?

Right now I don't have a NAS server.

[Mikensan]

On 5/10/2019 at 2:45 PM, Rehmat said:

@Mikensan Did you have to do any samba tuning and was 10gbe  plug n play? Also what cards and dac cables are you using?

Plug and play. FreeNAS mobo is a supermicro (god bless IPMI), my two ESXi hosts using the 10gb cards: 1x Dell R610 and 1x IBM 3650 m2. FreeNAS and ESXi both just worked. I just ordered a 2 port mellanox card and 2x 1 port mellanox cards that came with DAC cables off ebay. The 2port was $25 and the 2x 1 ports were also about $25 each.

 

 

*** Should be noted I do not use the 10gb for Samba, only for iSCSI. I only need/want 10gb for storage operations, for file operations 1gb is suffecient for me at home. My VMs all use vmxnet3 and are 10gb - they can transfer at 10gb to one another over SMB however (so long as the VMs are on my SSD array).

**** Also noticed you said 10GBe - I'm not running 10GBe, I'm running SFP+ cards + DAC.

[Rehmat]

@Mikensan  What 10G Cards are you running? What model?  ConnectX-2 or ConnectX-3? I am looking at getting some myself soon.

 

Thanks

[Mikensan]

1 hour ago, Rehmat said:

@Mikensan  What 10G Cards are you running? What model?  ConnectX-2 or ConnectX-3? I am looking at getting some myself soon.

 

Thanks

connectx-2's, think the 3s were more expensive

[Rehmat]

@Mikensan Was it the MNPA19-XTR by any chance. Also what DAC cables are you using. I have heard that in general SFP compatibility can be pretty annoying.

[Mikensan]

On 5/13/2019 at 8:52 AM, Mikensan said:

I just ordered a 2 port mellanox card and 2x 1 port mellanox cards that came with DAC cables off ebay. The 2port was $25 and the 2x 1 ports were also about $25 each.