Burned by Eschewing Best Practices
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@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@stacksofplates Read carefully what I said, I said that the IDEA was bad for all of those. Appliances without appliances, it's a bad idea. But FreeNAS is good within the context of the bad idea. Saying that the idea is bad and that people should not use things of that nature is not saying that the product is bad. You can make an excellent product that has no use case.
"FreeNAS makes no sense, IMHO, ever.....But FreeNAS, never, because FreeBSD, at minimum is always better."
So a product that you would rarely use is always better than FreeNAS, but somehow it's a solid product...... That's not saying the idea is bad, that's saying the product is bad.
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@stacksofplates Read carefully what I said, I said that the IDEA was bad for all of those. Appliances without appliances, it's a bad idea. But FreeNAS is good within the context of the bad idea. Saying that the idea is bad and that people should not use things of that nature is not saying that the product is bad. You can make an excellent product that has no use case.
"FreeNAS makes no sense, IMHO, ever.....But FreeNAS, never, because FreeBSD, at minimum is always better."
So a product that you would rarely use is always better than FreeNAS, but somehow it's a solid product...... That's not saying the idea is bad, that's saying the product is bad.
Nope, it really is not. Read the words very carefully and try not to look for something being implied, it's exactly what it says. It's a good implementation of a bad idea. It's well done, but there is no reason to ever use it. The idea is what is bad.
Just like you can have a good SAN but the idea of an IPOD is bad.
FreeBSD is always better than FreeNAS, but one thing being always better doesn't make another thing bad. But it does rule it out from use cases.
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And that FreeBSD is rarely used is not a factor. It's not rarely used because it is bad, it is rarely used because it is poorly known and it's strengths are not broad or extreme enough to overcome those factors. You are reading stuff into the statements that are not there.
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FreeBSD is excellent, but who are you going to find to support it? Most cloud providers don't support it and most hypervisors only marginally support it and some don't even officially. It's super stable and loaded with features, nothing wrong with it at all. But that alone is not enough to cause me to use it commonly. In the context of storage, which is all that those statements are made in, we only use FreeBSD when we need ZFS RAIDZ3 or other very unique features. Otherwise we use the faster storage systems of other products. FreeBSD is not the fastest, but it has unique features. If you don't need those unique features, why would you choose it?
Make sense? Nothing there implies that it is bad. Rarely used and bad are different kinds of concepts. I rarely fly, I drove normally. But that doesn't imply that the Boeing 777 is a bad plane.
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@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@stacksofplates Read carefully what I said, I said that the IDEA was bad for all of those. Appliances without appliances, it's a bad idea. But FreeNAS is good within the context of the bad idea. Saying that the idea is bad and that people should not use things of that nature is not saying that the product is bad. You can make an excellent product that has no use case.
"FreeNAS makes no sense, IMHO, ever.....But FreeNAS, never, because FreeBSD, at minimum is always better."
So a product that you would rarely use is always better than FreeNAS, but somehow it's a solid product...... That's not saying the idea is bad, that's saying the product is bad.
Nope, it really is not. Read the words very carefully and try not to look for something being implied, it's exactly what it says. It's a good implementation of a bad idea. It's well done, but there is no reason to ever use it. The idea is what is bad.
Just like you can have a good SAN but the idea of an IPOD is bad.
FreeBSD is always better than FreeNAS, but one thing being always better doesn't make another thing bad. But it does rule it out from use cases.
No. Let's dissect this word-smithing.
It's a good implementation of a bad idea.
That's not what it says at all. You are now looking for something implied. You literally said makes no sense ever, and you would never use it.
Just like you can have a good SAN but the idea of an IPOD is bad.
It's a nice straw man, but if anything the IPOD argument proves my point. In that argument the IPOD is the same as FreeNAS.
But it does rule it out from use cases.
And according to you, all use cases, which means it's a bad product. You can't have a "solid product" built on a bad idea. If you could, then it's possible to have a "solid" IPOD.
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@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
And that FreeBSD is rarely used is not a factor. It's not rarely used because it is bad, it is rarely used because it is poorly known and it's strengths are not broad or extreme enough to overcome those factors. You are reading stuff into the statements that are not there.
No one said it was rarely used because it was bad. You are implying things that aren't there.
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@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
Nothing there implies that it is bad. Rarely used and bad are different kinds of concepts.
Again, I never said that. But they aren't really. I rarely use my truck, because it's bad. They can be different, but not always.
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
That's not what it says at all. You are now looking for something implied. You literally said makes no sense ever, and you would never use it.
Correct, because the idea was bad and it was not as good as FreeBSD for the same purposes. Second best doesn't make it bad, but does mean you'd never use it. It's that simple.
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
Just like you can have a good SAN but the idea of an IPOD is bad.
It's a nice straw man, but if anything the IPOD argument proves my point. In that argument the IPOD is the same as FreeNAS.
No, in my example a software appliance without support is the IPOD, FreeNAS is the SAN. If you want to make a new example go ahead, but you misunderstood my example.
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
And according to you, all use cases, which means it's a bad product. You can't have a "solid product" built on a bad idea. If you could, then it's possible to have a "solid" IPOD.
That's a decent argument, but it's an argument on its own. My argument is that the idea of an IPOD is bad, but you can have a good SAN that someone uses in an IPOD poorly. FreeNAS IS a bad idea - layering extra stuff on FreeBSD that isn't needed that weakens it, but it is solid on its own, just no use case for it. If FreeBSD didn't exist, it would be an excellent product. That's where it is different than your examples, it is surpassed, just slightly, by another product in every way (or equal.) Being second without a redeeming feature doesn't make you bad, but does rule you out from consideration.
I can accept that, but it was not my intent to say that a bad idea conceptually makes a product bad, just makes it something you wouldn't buy or choose. Especially in a case where good ideas are available.
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@stacksofplates Read carefully what I said, I said that the IDEA was bad for all of those. Appliances without appliances, it's a bad idea. But FreeNAS is good within the context of the bad idea. Saying that the idea is bad and that people should not use things of that nature is not saying that the product is bad. You can make an excellent product that has no use case.
"FreeNAS makes no sense, IMHO, ever.....But FreeNAS, never, because FreeBSD, at minimum is always better."
So a product that you would rarely use is always better than FreeNAS, but somehow it's a solid product...... That's not saying the idea is bad, that's saying the product is bad.
So what did you mean here by your statement if not to say that FreeBSD was bad because of rare use? If that is not what you meant, what did you mean? By what logic is FreeNAS bad by nature of being less used than FreeBSD unless that rare use is what you think makes it bad? And why mention that FreeBSD is rarely used and using that as the foundation of FreeNAS being bad if that was not the intention?
I read it the only way I could figure out to read it. What did you mean caused FreeNAS to be bad and what was the function of mentioning it in the context of FreeBSD being rarely used if you didn't mean that?
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@stacksofplates said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
@scottalanmiller said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
Nothing there implies that it is bad. Rarely used and bad are different kinds of concepts.
Again, I never said that. But they aren't really. I rarely use my truck, because it's bad. They can be different, but not always.
They absolutely are different. That you can find a situation where one leads to the other does not imply that they are connected. Any example where they are not connected proves that. That's how connection works. Like being old makes you a woman. Sure many old people are women, but it's not being a woman that makes you old.
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FreeNAS is a little like RAID 5 for Winchester disks. There are times when it is a disaster, there are other times that it is the "second best choice." The sad reality for RAID 5 on Winchester drives today is that it is never the best choice - this means that no matter how good it is, it's never the first choice and therefore we would never consider it at all. Even as the second choice, once we know it is never above a second choice, we simply rule it out from the beginning and take a critical view of anyone who chooses it because it means that they left it in the decision pool for no reason.
FreeNAS would be a good choice if there was no FreeBSD. Of course, if there wasn't FreeBSD, FreeNAS would not exist, but imagine that it did. A BSD OS with ZFS and amazing stability, it would be pretty awesome and basically totally replace FreeBSD in the storage pool options if only FreeBSD wasn't there.
But it is the nature of the bad idea of trying to make it as an appliance that takes it to a place always behind FreeBSD or TrueOS so that it never "bubbles to the top." No need to entertain it, it never is choice number one. But if number one didn't exist, it would be basically every time that FreeBSD or TrueOS is today.
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So in the same vein as RAID 5 (on Winchesters on new arrays) the issue is not that FreeNAS can't be "good enough" on its own, but we know ahead of time with essentially no effort that it will never be the best choice. So no matter how close it gets to second place in some crazy situations, the issue is not the final choice but rather the decision making process that would lead someone to consider it in the first place. It's a failure of quality decision making - why even entertain something that is known to not be the best choice? Good decision making would rule it out before you begin so that confusion does not arise as humans tend to be thrown off by a surplus of options. And the idea of "good enough" often confuses people.
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Wow this thread blew up from last night.
Anyways I agree with @stacksofplates, you have repeatedly come across as saying that FreeNAS is a bad product (regardless if you meant idea).
Because of the lack of support, the community preaching and the other reasons.
So what makes OF worse (or a never use appliance) in comparison to FreeNAS, since that was the original question. What makes OF worse than FreeNAS?
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@DustinB3403 said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
Wow this thread blew up from last night.
Anyways I agree with @stacksofplates, you have repeatedly come across as saying that FreeNAS is a bad product (regardless if you meant idea).
Because of the lack of support, the community preaching and the other reasons.
So what makes OF worse (or a never use appliance) in comparison to FreeNAS, since that was the original question. What makes OF worse than FreeNAS?
What makes OpenFiler worse is that it's broken - or at least that's what I recall hearing. It has a flaw that can just outright lose your data.
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@DustinB3403 said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
Anyways I agree with @stacksofplates, you have repeatedly come across as saying that FreeNAS is a bad product (regardless if you meant idea).
Because of the lack of support, the community preaching and the other reasons.
Can you find where I have said that? This has been repeated by other people over and over again (putting words in my mouth) but I've never been shown where I supposedly said it. I've been super clear that the idea is bad and that FreeNAS is among the best examples of this bad idea (the best of the options, I mean.) The community is an example of why the idea is bad, because storage experts would never use something in this ilk. But the community is not the product nor the vendor.
Please provide a reference. You personally say that I say this all the time, whether you are joking or mean to, and I correct you constantly. If I've actually said that FreeNAS itself is bad instead of FreeNAS' community being bad, it's users being confused or the idea being bad, I need that reference.
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@scottalanmiller Read what I said scott.
I said you come across as saying FreeNAS is a bad product, and in the never use category when there are other options such as CentOS or RHEL.
The reference was already provided by @stacksofplates in the screenshots. The wording is very easy to interpret as "OMG FreeNAS is satan!"
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@DustinB3403 said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
So what makes OF worse (or a never use appliance) in comparison to FreeNAS, since that was the original question. What makes OF worse than FreeNAS?
It's not even related.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/373443-why-we-recommend-against-openfiler
The issues with OpenFiler are unrelated to the idea of them both being bad.
- OpenFiler is a dead product, no work on it in ~6 years. FreeNAS is alive and well.
- OpenFiler was only ever a one man basement project. FreeNAS has a large hardware vendor behind it.
- OpenFiler is built on a dead OS and hasn't been patched in eons. FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD which is very much alive.
- OpenFiler was fundamentally unstable and would die at random. FreeNAS is stable.
- OpenFiler threatens people who expose them. FreeNAS has nothing to expose.
- OpenFiler has a web interface with no function as it doesn't work. FreeNAS has a working web interface.
- OpenFiler is officially listed as unusable by VMware. FreeNAS is fine with VMware.
- OpenFiler has a known broken iSCSI stack. FreeNAS has a working iSCSI stack.
- OpenFiler made their money selling fixes to their intentionally broken system. FreeNAS has nothing to sell except support.
- OpenFiler support is questionable if it even exists (we tried.) FreeNAS has a large, known support team.
- Both products suffer from being in the Jurassic Park Effect of being a product category that doesn't make sense as you can use their underlying OS better than you can use the packaged product.
That's a lot of differences.
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@Dashrender said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:
What makes OpenFiler worse is that it's broken - or at least that's what I recall hearing. It has a flaw that can just outright lose your data.
Multiple flaws like that, and that's only part of the issue. And what is even worse is that the flaws are known, there is a fix and you only get the fix if you buy it. Paying to have an intentionally included flaw fixed is similar to extortion. It's not just paying for patches, it's paying for patches when the bugs are intentional.
