TrueNAScore vs OMV vs ???

[asheenlevrai]

Hi

 

I own a bunch of Synology NASes (2->8 bays, nothing rack-mounted) both for home and work usage.

Some are file servers and run a few apps, while the remaining units are mostly backups. I have 15-20 concurrent users.

 

I'm currently considering moving away from Synology because I don't really enjoy the hardware limitations (no spare parts) and I feel like running something on my own hardware would be more efficient (I can reuse desktop/workstation parts rather than investing in NAS hardware. Size and noise are not a (major) concern.

 

Now, I'm currently experimenting with XPEnolgy (big thanks to their wonderful community) which is obviously great since I'm used to DSM and I like it a whole lot, but I recently learned that the project may be facing a maintenance problem and I don't understand how this will impact its future.

 

A quick Google search for free alternatives yielded mostly 2 names : TrueNAScore (ex FreeNAS) and OpenMediaVault.

Is there anything else out there that you would recommend?

 

I know that neither of them is going to be just like DSM and that I will need to get accustomed to the new OS. I'm ready to learn and this is not a problem.

 

I would just like to avoid switching multiple times because of a poor decision and thus I am here for recommendations...

 

The alternative would be to build both some TrueNAScore machines and some OMV ones and see how I can juggle with both in my ecosystem. Again, recommendations are appreciated.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help and advice.

 

Best,

-a-

[LIGISTX]

32 minutes ago, asheenlevrai said:

Hi

 

I own a bunch of Synology NASes (2->8 bays, nothing rack-mounted) both for home and work usage.

Some are file servers and run a few apps, while the remaining units are mostly backups. I have 15-20 concurrent users.

 

I'm currently considering moving away from Synology because I don't really enjoy the hardware limitations (no spare parts) and I feel like running something on my own hardware would be more efficient (I can reuse desktop/workstation parts rather than investing in NAS hardware. Size and noise are not a (major) concern.

 

Now, I'm currently experimenting with XPEnolgy (big thanks to their wonderful community) which is obviously great since I'm used to DSM and I like it a whole lot, but I recently learned that the project may be facing a maintenance problem and I don't understand how this will impact its future.

 

A quick Google search for free alternatives yielded mostly 2 names : TrueNAScore (ex FreeNAS) and OpenMediaVault.

Is there anything else out there that you would recommend?

 

I know that neither of them is going to be just like DSM and that I will need to get accustomed to the new OS. I'm ready to learn and this is not a problem.

 

I would just like to avoid switching multiple times because of a poor decision and thus I am here for recommendations...

 

The alternative would be to build both some TrueNAScore machines and some OMV ones and see how I can juggle with both in my ecosystem. Again, recommendations are appreciated.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help and advice.

 

Best,

-a-

Freenas is great, mostly because ZFS is the file system of the decade (facetious, but, also… it is lol) since it will work harder then almost any other system to retain your data. But ZFS isn’t designed for consumers in mind; it’s designed for the enterprise. With that, it can be difficult to add storage since you have to add new storage via adding new vdevs, each vdev requiring its own redundancy, or you can swap one drive at a time on your current vdev until all drives are of a larger size.

 

This is where unraid comes in. Unraid is a very flexible and home user friendly option that may fit the bill. Don’t bother with OMV, just do freenas or unraid. 

[asheenlevrai]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Freenas is great, mostly because ZFS is the file system of the decade (facetious, but, also… it is lol) since it will work harder then almost any other system to retain your data. But ZFS isn’t designed for consumers in mind; it’s designed for the enterprise. With that, it can be difficult to add storage since you have to add new storage via adding new vdevs, each vdev requiring its own redundancy, or you can swap one drive at a time on your current vdev until all drives are of a larger size.

 

This is where unraid comes in. Unraid is a very flexible and home user friendly option that may fit the bill. Don’t bother with OMV, just do freenas or unraid. 

Thanks.

unraid is not free though...

 

Can I use another file system with TrueNAScore? Like Ext4 or btrfs? or is it ZFS only?

 

Tx

-a-

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

Thanks.

unraid is not free though...

 

Can I use another file system with TrueNAScore? Like Ext4 or btrfs? or is it ZFS only?

 

Tx

-a-

TrueNAS is basically ZFS only. 

 

What is your drive config. ZFS works pretty well.

 

Unraid is pretty cheap, and probably cheaper than those synology boxes. I really wouldn't worry about the software price here when your spending much more on the hardware.

[LIGISTX]

9 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

Thanks.

unraid is not free though...

 

Can I use another file system with TrueNAScore? Like Ext4 or btrfs? or is it ZFS only?

 

Tx

-a-

Its pretty cheap in the scheme of it... if it perfectly fits your use case, its well, WELL, worth it.

 

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

TrueNAS is basically ZFS only. 

 

What is your drive config. ZFS works pretty well.

 

Unraid is pretty cheap, and probably cheaper than those synology boxes. I really wouldn't worry about the software price here when your spending much more on the hardware.

Exactly.

 

ZFS is fantastic, but its not for the faint of heart... 

[aBattleBorn]

21 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

Hi

 

I own a bunch of Synology NASes (2->8 bays, nothing rack-mounted) both for home and work usage.

Some are file servers and run a few apps, while the remaining units are mostly backups. I have 15-20 concurrent users.

 

I'm currently considering moving away from Synology because I don't really enjoy the hardware limitations (no spare parts) and I feel like running something on my own hardware would be more efficient (I can reuse desktop/workstation parts rather than investing in NAS hardware. Size and noise are not a (major) concern.

 

Now, I'm currently experimenting with XPEnolgy (big thanks to their wonderful community) which is obviously great since I'm used to DSM and I like it a whole lot, but I recently learned that the project may be facing a maintenance problem and I don't understand how this will impact its future.

 

A quick Google search for free alternatives yielded mostly 2 names : TrueNAScore (ex FreeNAS) and OpenMediaVault.

Is there anything else out there that you would recommend?

 

I know that neither of them is going to be just like DSM and that I will need to get accustomed to the new OS. I'm ready to learn and this is not a problem.

 

I would just like to avoid switching multiple times because of a poor decision and thus I am here for recommendations...

 

The alternative would be to build both some TrueNAScore machines and some OMV ones and see how I can juggle with both in my ecosystem. Again, recommendations are appreciated.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help and advice.

 

Best,

-a-

hi.

i recommend you to use open media vault, i am actually using freenas/truenas right now so take this advice with a grain of salt.

let me explain: freenas is freebsd based software so you have some limitation on the drivers the system have, furthermore i guess you didn't worked with free bsd so far which will make it harder to troubleshoot in the future, open media vault is linux base(debian) so way more hardware support and easier to trouble shoot.

 

i have a home server and i used windows server 2016 but it didn't played well with my gpu so i switched to truenas and it wasn't smooth sealing, i get limited transfer speed since (apparently)  you need to use intel nics to get the best performance, furthermore vm's causing my server to crash as soon as they connect to the nic.

 

[asheenlevrai]

2 hours ago, aBattleBorn said:

hi.

i recommend you to use open media vault, i am actually using freenas/truenas right now so take this advice with a grain of salt.

let me explain: freenas is freebsd based software so you have some limitation on the drivers the system have, furthermore i guess you didn't worked with free bsd so far which will make it harder to troubleshoot in the future, open media vault is linux base(debian) so way more hardware support and easier to trouble shoot.

 

i have a home server and i used windows server 2016 but it didn't played well with my gpu so i switched to truenas and it wasn't smooth sealing, i get limited transfer speed since (apparently)  you need to use intel nics to get the best performance, furthermore vm's causing my server to crash as soon as they connect to the nic.

 

Thanks :)

 

Actually, I value this kind of feedback quite a lot. Everyone tends to say "the choice I made is the best" and it is actually difficult to verify such claims. Ideally, I would like to hear from someone who tried different options and thus as some kind of an unbiased opinion. However, your post sort of confirms doubts I had from reading the previous replies.

No firm decision made yet, though...

 

Best,

-a-

[aBattleBorn]

4 hours ago, asheenlevrai said:

Thanks

 

Actually, I value this kind of feedback quite a lot. Everyone tends to say "the choice I made is the best" and it is actually difficult to verify such claims. Ideally, I would like to hear from someone who tried different options and thus as some kind of an unbiased opinion. However, your post sort of confirms doubts I had from reading the previous replies.

No firm decision made yet, though...

 

Best,

-a-

if you ask me i made the wrong choice,but i already got used to the gui of truenas so ill stick to it,lol.

why don't you give them both a try and install them both on vm's?

you can watch this video just to get the hang of truenas.

good luck.

 

[P B Thomas]

I started using FreeNas, and had an issue while trying to upgrade. So I installed OMV 5.x. It is a low powered 2GhZ Celeron with 2GB memory. I have 30GB SSD disk to boot it, and 3 4TB RaidZ OpenZFS drives. I was able to use the drives originally formatted by FreeNas with OMV (there is a special plugin). I have NFS and SMB shares and it works great. I recently upgraded to OMV 6 Beta, and the user interface has had a huge face-lift. Here is a screenshot of my system dashboard. It is a modern interface. I must say I had no issues with OMV 5 before upgrading either. Rock solid with ZFS.