Which Nas OS?
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@JaredBusch so JB I picked up a break/fix client from my partner MSP and they had a Synology running (well not running since it was unplugged.....) and the first thing I did honestly after evaluating their environment for 2 servers well past EOL and 1-2bay Synology nas was ordered 3 new servers so 1 can be an app server the other 2 can handle backup properly. I told the client I would feel more comfortable in a modern, stable environment.
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@krisleslie not going to second guess hat you recommended, but on the point of this thread, I do like the simplicity of the Synology NAS for clients. because I know it is easier to hand off to someone else.
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That I can't lie it's pretty simple. Once it's setup. It takes just one evening. If the guys that made TurnKey Linux would change their FileServer to use one of the modern interfaces, I honestly wouldn't need to go anywhere.
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@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
I guess on one hand 10 years later I still see SAM's logic, you are introducing risk and potentially a single point of failure.
That's not what I was talking about. A Synology is a NAS, not an NAS OS. It's NAS OS that I warn against because it's conceptually a bad idea. NASs themselves are fine.
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@JaredBusch said in Which Nas OS?:
@krisleslie not going to second guess hat you recommended, but on the point of this thread, I do like the simplicity of the Synology NAS for clients. because I know it is easier to hand off to someone else.
Yup, we use real Synology (hardware appliances) all the time. Easy to price, easy to acquire, easy to support, and easy to hand off. They are great.
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@Dashrender said in Which Nas OS?:
I could have sworn that @scottalanmiller has been against at least FreeNAS - just use a Linux OS and manage the shares. What value does FreeNAS/ReadyNAS, etc add on top of Fedora/Ubuntu/CentOS, etc?
I haven't actually used FreeNAS yet but from what I can tell it has a nice GUI aimed at using the system as a NAS, similar to something like Synology with its DiskStation Manager. I feel like if you use something like FreeBSD then its going to be more manual management with no easy way to do what you want to do - unless you're really good with Linux.
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@dave247 said in Which Nas OS?:
@Dashrender said in Which Nas OS?:
I could have sworn that @scottalanmiller has been against at least FreeNAS - just use a Linux OS and manage the shares. What value does FreeNAS/ReadyNAS, etc add on top of Fedora/Ubuntu/CentOS, etc?
I haven't actually used FreeNAS yet but from what I can tell it has a nice GUI aimed at using the system as a NAS, similar to something like Synology. I feel like if you use something like FreeBSD then its going to be more manual management with no easy to manage interface so you can do what you want to do - unless you're really good with Linux.
The point is you never run a NAS OS on your own gear. You run a NAS OS only on the NAS vendor’s stack.
Anything else is over complicating the job and introducing huge failure domains.
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@dave247 said in Which Nas OS?:
@Dashrender said in Which Nas OS?:
I could have sworn that @scottalanmiller has been against at least FreeNAS - just use a Linux OS and manage the shares. What value does FreeNAS/ReadyNAS, etc add on top of Fedora/Ubuntu/CentOS, etc?
I haven't actually used FreeNAS yet but from what I can tell it has a nice GUI aimed at using the system as a NAS, similar to something like Synology with its DiskStation Manager. I feel like if you use something like FreeBSD then its going to be more manual management with no easy way to do what you want to do - unless you're really good with Linux.
EXCEPT, it doesn't provide that nice GUI when it matters, only when it doesn't. In order to use FreeNAS you have to know even more BSD than if you'd not used FreeNAS and used BSD directly.
Everything that makes it "feel" like it is easy to use, actually does the opposite. It's LESS easy to use, requires more skill and more knowledge and is harder to get support than regular BSD, which has a fraction of the knowledge and support out there as Linux.
So think orders of magnitude worse.
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@dave247 said in Which Nas OS?:
I feel like if you use something like FreeBSD then its going to be more manual management with no easy way to do what you want to do
That's the false marketing that they want you to think. They prey on people getting sucked in to the pretty pictures and seeing the easy tasks that don't need a GUI having a GUI and hoping that they will ignore that the hard tasks where you'd actually hope that the GUI will save you, don't have a GUI. Plus it takes something really simple and makes it more complex, and more prone to failure (FreeBSD is famous for CAUSING dataloss!) Storage is not a place to be set up to need extra skills, nor a place for instability.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@dave247 said in Which Nas OS?:
I feel like if you use something like FreeBSD then its going to be more manual management with no easy way to do what you want to do
That's the false marketing that they want you to think. They prey on people getting sucked in to the pretty pictures and seeing the easy tasks that don't need a GUI having a GUI and hoping that they will ignore that the hard tasks where you'd actually hope that the GUI will save you, don't have a GUI. Plus it takes something really simple and makes it more complex, and more prone to failure (FreeBSD is famous for CAUSING dataloss!) Storage is not a place to be set up to need extra skills, nor a place for instability.
Yeah to me the easiest things to work with are the tools that give me the most flexibility and options.
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@scottalanmiller So that usually means a cli or just a full OS. BSD is nice to use and does its job well. Wish I could find a solid Solaris fork that was still being developed.
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@scottalanmiller Hey Scotty! Yes, I know you meant the NAS OS (that we can install) vs Vendor + Hardware/Software/Support Stack. Gotcha we on same page!
I honestly wish Synology would make a Linux distro
their stuff is sexy can't lie. But I think what I was referring to is really the "niche" market of people doing Synology OS (the open-source version) that is basically the same thing as loading FreeNAS. I haven't done it but was thinking of tinkering with it at home for sh*ts & giggles. Same with FreeNAS. But at work I started off with Synology, and honestly after all the learning and listening from you Scott over the years, it's like I kinda don't even need Synology I would rather just have another server with a proper virtualization stack. The only thing I'm missing out on is really the remote backup features from XCP-NG. I would probably like to send a feature request for them to maybe consider using like Amazon or Azure as a backup point. But I recall MSP360 can do the heavy lifting. -
@jmoore said in Which Nas OS?:
Wish I could find a solid Solaris fork that was still being developed.
I mean, Illumos has been idle for seven hours now.
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@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
But I think what I was referring to is really the "niche" market of people doing Synology OS (the open-source version) that is basically the same thing as loading FreeNAS.
They'd fall into the same boat. A system that depends on support, whose function is support, layered onto something else. Synology is a great product. Remove the support and it's a nice looking, but worthless GUI layer.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@jmoore said in Which Nas OS?:
Wish I could find a solid Solaris fork that was still being developed.
I mean, Illumos has been idle for seven hours now.
Ok I am going to try it with OmniOS.
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@jmoore said in Which Nas OS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@jmoore said in Which Nas OS?:
Wish I could find a solid Solaris fork that was still being developed.
I mean, Illumos has been idle for seven hours now.
Ok I am going to try it with OmniOS.
But they've been idle THREE DAYS, lol
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@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
The only thing I'm missing out on is really the remote backup features from XCP-NG.
Proxmox has backups built in, too.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
The only thing I'm missing out on is really the remote backup features from XCP-NG.
Proxmox has backups built in, too.
Although its only full backups.
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@black3dynamite said in Which Nas OS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
The only thing I'm missing out on is really the remote backup features from XCP-NG.
Proxmox has backups built in, too.
Although its only full backups.
True. But add compression and dedupe and it's only so bad.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@black3dynamite said in Which Nas OS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Which Nas OS?:
@krisleslie said in Which Nas OS?:
The only thing I'm missing out on is really the remote backup features from XCP-NG.
Proxmox has backups built in, too.
Although its only full backups.
True. But add compression and dedupe and it's only so bad.
So far I'm only using the backup for small containers and VMs.
