[olug] Home file server - FreeNAS or Openfiler or ???

[Christopher Cashell]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 10:47 PM, Dan Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote:
> I want to setup an expandable home server, the main requirement will be to
> be able to add capacity to it without having to backup and reload after
> building the new RAID. (like a Drobo)

I've used OpenFiler before, and had good experiences with it.  It is
possible to expand capacity without data loss (or backup/reload).
Some operations may need the disks offline (or it may be a faster to
do it offline), but it has a good bit of flexibility.

> I see FreeNAS supports ZFS (
> http://wiki.mattrude.com/index.php/Freenas/ZFS_and_FreeNAS_expansion), but I
> can't find if OpenFiler does.

Since OpenFiler is built on Linux, there isn't (and won't be any time
soon) any production ready ZFS support.  I expect Btfs will be the
equivalent solution when it's ready.

> Or should I look at one of the FreeBSD systems that support ZFS natively and
> just setup my own server?

That, or a standard Linux box could also do the trick.

> Anyone have a solution they've used that they can recommend?

If you're looking to treat this as a pure storage system, OpenFiler
works great.  I haven't used FreeNAS (OpenFiler fit my needs better
back when I was investigating them, and worked well enough that I
never had need to look at alternatives after it was setup).

If you want to use the box as a more general purpose server that also
provides file server functionality (be it via NFS/SMB/iSCSI/AoE/etc),
then you might be better off using a standard Linux build (or FreeBSD,
if that's your kick).  Linux's LVM is powerful juju, and it can handle
most things you might want done.  Additionally, mdraid is pretty
solid, depending on your configuration, and increases your options.

> Dan

-- 
Christopher