[FreeNAS] File server, office use

[killbill]

Hello I am new here.

I read all the rules about not posting about freenas. But please guys may I ask your opinion about my problem? I need experienced users like you so I can clarify and judge whats the best "product" for my office dada needs (which is my job of course)

Freenas8.2
Nas4free 9.1
Openmediavault

And I don't know what else? anything else would be good. My server pc will be dual Core E5400 dual core, 4gb RAM, 320gb storage in Raid 1(sofware raid). And I will have 15-20 windows (xp & 7) clients running, with total 50-60gb total data. They will open office files like word excel so it wont move large files.

So I need 1)speed 2)stability. So whats the good pick guys?

I am noob with linux, I know to set permissions change groups owners thats all. I installed nas4free but I didn't test it yet.

Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated

 

[killbill]

Except speed and stability I need to be easy to control/setup of course. I need a web-gui so I will avoid as much as I can commands in linux console. Because I will be the admin, and they need the system in a short time.

 

[wblock@]

The first thing we should get out of the way is that FreeBSD is not Linux. The two are similar in what they can do, but not from the same origins.

I have only tried FreeNAS of the ones you list. It worked fine. Yet when I wanted a NAS, I installed plain FreeBSD. The GUI is great, but it took me more time to figure out how to use it than to just do things from the command line. In a similar way, the bad thing about using one of those packages for a server is that if it breaks, recovery can be more complicated because you have to figure out what it was really doing behind all the pretty graphics.

 

[AlexJ]

Imagine if you will go to a "MacDonald" then "Subways" and finally to a "Burger King" and ask them all the same question, - "Is your food is better then your competitors have?"

NAS4Free - it is the original FreeNAS.
The short story that this project has three primary developer(s):
Olivier Cochard-Labbe - original project developer that created a NAS with web interface that was based on m0n0wall firewall project.
The second primary developer was Volker Theile that on some point decided to switch to linux (debian based) operation system and rewrote Web interface from scratch and name it as Openmediavault.
At this point FreeNAS project was ended because Olivier grant to iXsystem all rights(they immediately officially copyrighted FreeNAS name and original FreeNAS was pushed to switch its name)
iXsystem rewrote completely from scratch original FreeNAS (they used python's django framework instead of PHP) and basically IMHO orient it to modern powerful hardware only.(So there is only a name from its parent and operation system)
The original FreeNAS that have the NAS4Free name now is still actively supported/developed by Daisuke Aoyama and Michael Zoon.

That is a history.

What you get under the hood:
FreeNAS (made by iXsystem) - actively developing by the same commercial organization that take care about PC-BSD.
This product IMHO mostly oriented to a business customers who can afford modern up-to dated hardware and personal who knows what they need to do.
Personally, IMHO it is slow.

OpenMediaVault - pretty logical interface, OS based on debian, one developer (AFAIK). OS and all core components updated over network with official debian repository. OMV can be expanded with plugins (around 10 AFAIK) that will add needed functionality
Pros: since it's Linux it support hardware better.

NAS4Free - IMHO most feature reach out of the box (and actually it should since it is the oldest in this group). Basically, it has all that needed for home/SOHO offices.
It works in two modes - as embedded and full install. With embedded all you need to get running server in less than 10 minutes - it is NAS4Free CD and flash drive (or only flash drive if computer can boot from it)
In full install mode it install itself as normally do FreeBSD on dedicated HDD partition. In this case you can add countless packages to expand server's functionality.(Actually there is a way to add packages on embedded too, but it require some basic unix knowledge)
The only downside(or feature?) - it is m0n0wall framework IMHO, which replace completely standard FreeBSD startup mechanism, so if you familiar with FreeBSD internals you will need to spend some time to jump in its logic, but all standard command that used in FreeBSD will be available for you always.


All three of this projects don't require any Unix knowledge to be able to run server (You only need it if you want to add additional feature(s) to a server)

There is also other open source NAS projects based on Linux, but you named most mature IMHO already here.
The smallest hardware requirements you can get it is only with NAS4Free.

So i need 1)speed 2)stability

All of them the same on this (I have one old NAS4Free that serve small office (8 people) and it has 4 years up-time on it while hardware is Pentium-II/384Mbytes)
Linux is a little bit better on hardware/network drivers, but since network card is cheap nowadays it isn't a problem to get well supported card.

With this kind hardware and office requirements you can easily handle a couple hundreds workstations on a single network card IMHO on NAS4Free
I advise you to run it as embedded. In this case you'll never have a choice to broke something. The hardest repair step in this case - press power button and restart. All you need, it is - keep a copy of single XML-configuration file(just in case if flash drive would out of order).

 

[AlexJ]

the bad thing about using one of those packages for a server is that if it breaks, recovery can be more complicated because you have to figure out what it was really doing behind all the pretty graphics.

In case of NAS4Free one shouldn't learn anything beside he/she already knows(even if system support SSH access and command line over web). In case of embedded - HDD used separately from a system, as mounted data drives. All you need, it take HDD with data and mount on another computer.
FreeNAS(iXsystem) mostly oriented to ZFS, while NAS4Free more flexible and easely handle windows's NTFS, Linux's EXT, native FreeBSD UFS and of caurse ZFS. It just a dedicated data drives that can be accessable from any OS that can do "mount".

 

[throAU]

If you want my honest opinion - if you've got a bunch of Windows clients, shell out for Windows server and set up a DC / file / print box. Maybe even set up WSUS on it too. Yes, it will cost you a server license, but...

You'll get single-sign on, centralised patch management (you can approve/roll out/force updates to the Windows clients), group policy (central management of Windows client settings) compatibility with commercial backup software, etc.

IMHO, using *nix for user-facing network shares on Windows clients is just more work than it needs to be.

With Windows 2008 R2 vs Linux vs FreeBSD, as far as file serving goes performance will not really be distinguishable. But with Windows server you get the benefit of the single sign on, passwords between local machine and file share always in sync, etc. As far as stability goes, my Windows 2008 R2 file/print box only ever gets rebooted for updates. It has been 100% rock solid since 2009.


I love Unix as much as the next guy, but just because you have a hammer, everything you see isn't a nail. If you were building a storage box to export to NFS or iSCSI or AFP - by all means, go FreeNAS. But as a plain CIFS file/print box for a bunch of Windows clients? It just doesn't make any sense - other than satisfying your inner geek. As far as best thing for the business goes - it probably isn't.

 

[killbill]

@throAU thanks for your honest answer! Plz i understand but i am not ready to start learning another server OS. Except that its not free and it can lock anytime! But i agree, u r right thats the correct way. I will go to this direction if i start having problems with one of the 3 solutions up!!

@Alexj at nas4free, actually there are 3 people on the coding! I did embeded install as u adviced with the usb stick! I will keep the backup system file as u said. Now i am trying to figure how rsync(with my ufs filesystem) works and try to setup it up! i am still a noob

should i install Zfs or i dont need alexj; it will slow my system down? a few users open a thread in nas4free forums and they complained thay they lost the zfs pool. Should i worry? Is zfs slower?

Maybe i will need some help with rsync should i pm you?

wblock@ i am afraid of this too!

 

[throAU]

@throAU thanks for your honest answer! Plz i understand but i am not ready to start learning another server OS. Except that its not free and it can lock anytime! But i agree, u r right thats the correct way. I will go to this direction if i start having problems with one of the 3 solutions up!!

Yet you're willing to take your chances with FreeNAS, NAS4Free, etc (that by your own admission you do not know)?

Windows server is not free, but the days of Windows "locking up at any time" are over, and have been for about 9-10 years now. For DC / file / print it is a well proven and well known solution that you'll be able to get assistance with from a huge number of vendors (if required).

Windows Vista and onwards, and Windows 2003 server and onwards are pretty solid. I've got a fleet of over 50-60 Windows servers on both VMs and physical hardware and have not had random reboots/crashes on any of them in the past 5 years. My central (HQ, we have about 30 smaller sites with other file/print boxes) file/print box (Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine) serves upwards of 160 users, and it has not had a single unscheduled outage in the past 3 years since it was commissioned.

Now this is just my 2c, but...

I'm very much a "correct tool for the job" guy, and from the sounds of it in your situation, the correct tool for the job is a Windows box.

You can have a fully Microsoft supported DC / File / Print box up and running in a couple of hours. WSUS will take maybe half a day to get your head around, and there are plenty of books on group policy.

Now if you were building a firewall, proxy cache (or NAS, to share out NFS or iSCSI block storage) or whatever I'd tell you to avoid Windows like the plague, but you're not...

 

[AlexJ]

should i install Zfs or i dont need alexj; it will slow my system down? a few users open a thread in nas4free forums and they complained thay they lost the zfs pool. Should i worry?

If you need fault tolerant server, then you need to use some kinda RAID.
ZFS is good enough.. if you know what are you doing.

Is zfs slower?

On a decent machine it isn't noticeable but it require a lot of memory.
If you aren't familiar with ZFS I guess it would be easy for you to setup software based RAID1 from NAS4free GUI. It tested over decades and works pretty good, but you need to know that any mirror RAID will be slower on writing (since it need to write to two separate drives) but it wouldn't be relatively noticeable if your primary tasks for this server would be Excel/word files.

Maybe i will need some help with rsync should i pm you?

You better ask here, on the forum. I stack in pretty boring business trip, that why I'm here, but usually I prefer to spend my time with my family, so no guarantee that I can answer your questions on time. Sorry.

Use also nas4free forum, there is a bunch people who knew it and willing to help.

 

[AlexJ]

Windows server is not free, but the days of Windows "locking up at any time" are over, and have been for about 9-10 years now. For DC / file / print it is a well proven and well known solution that you'll be able to get assistance with from a huge number of vendors (if required).

It pretty interesting tendency, last 5 years businesses actively switching from Windows base solutions to Unix based while home users going to use payable servers for home needs...

I glad for you that you have companies that really understand security and pay not only attention for that but a salary for IT who can do that.
In my experience it pretty rarely that small businesses with up to 50 employee are willing to have any security/centralized managing and they obviously will avoid any payment for support of such systems.
Even if we attempt to setup at least some kinda protection base on group/user managing with appropriate permissions for FREE, all we has been granted, it is: "Please, switch it back, we need just one single folder where everybody can read/write/delete". That is it!
Does they need centralized managing? Who really care about security until something bad is happened? What reason to have Windows centralized server if its workstations can be hacked in less than 5 minutes?

Home windows server?
Do you really enjoy to manage it(user/groups/permissions) on a home network?
Ok, even if you have to do that, compare required resources for NAS4free that can happily will serve pretty fast on gigabit network on a hardware like pentium-II-500Mgz with 128 Mb RAM (which is mean you can pick it for a few bucks or for free) and requirement for W2K8

Windows Vista and onwards, and Windows 2003 server and onwards are pretty solid.

Do you run fault tolerant hard drives arrays?
I guess you do. If so, it is should be dynamic drives.
Did you have a try to get start Windows server that loose one HDD because of it die(!!! not just pulled out) from mirrored HDD?

"pretty solid" according to official M$ documentation will advise you to boot computer from "fault tolerant emergency floppy drive" (!!!) Good luck to run it on modern hardware.
Well, let assume you are a happy admin that have a floppy drive on a server, but you have SCSI/AHCI HDD on a server, so booting from this floppy will not grant you access to HDD and as result to boot.ini that you need to edit manually by guessing which string should be restored to be able to start "healthy" mirror drive.
Does one got success on that?! Good, now have a fun to see a black screen on attempt to boot, because mirrored drive doesn't have MBR on it...
BTW, how about ability to increase system partition on dynamic drives or simply move system and data partition to a bigger HDD without reinstalling everything/or employ undocumented moves...?

Well, I won't to fall down in windows vs unix holy-war.

I'm very much a "correct tool for the job" guy,

Me too Im far-far away from a guys who fanatically stuck on something particular.
For me, operation systems are the tools. And I completely agree with you that you need to use right tool for a job. If one can employ/afford certified IT guy, then Windows server may be a solutions, but running it by guessing guys it is much worse then NAS4free IMHO.
Windows server is much more complicated then it looks at first glance and it require knowledge to manage it.

I have a statistics, companies up to 10-50 employees - they need as cheaper as possible server solutions and zero maintenance cost. (This is a place for GUI/WEB based unix solutions)
A companies with 50-500 employees - that is a primary market for windows servers where managers know only one OS - Windows and want "payable/supported" OS only
Companies with more then 500 employees when they stuck on impossibilities to handle high loading, follow up to up to dated RFC rules, handle custom tasks when MS doesn't provide access to low level adjustments - that company finally calculated cost of having Windows based servers solutions it is time for employing Unix again

DC/file/print can be done with Samba+LDAP too
Sure, it require a knowledgeable IT that can do something beside "intuitively clicking".
Windows server isn't a simple solution and require sometimes much more time and knowledge to setup/fix/implement some feature. Either Windows or Unix admin should be a professional to handle such tasks. Windows server isn't self adjustable universal solution.
Installing Windows server - isn't a simple job for those who knows nothing about DNS/DHCP/SPF/DKIM/POP/IMAP/RAID/QUOTING/SHADOW...etc

You can have a fully Microsoft supported DC / File / Print box up and running in a couple of hours.

Well, NAS4free + pkg_add -r openldap23-server + /dev/head = the same

WSUS will take maybe half a day to get your head around, and there are plenty of books on group policy.

It would be needed ONLY if there is more than 50 employee or a company physically located in multiple geographical spaces, otherwise mv /dev/butt ... will be faster and cheaper

Ok, it sounds like I am a Windows hater, but I can tell the same stories when Unix used improperly that cause a lot of trouble too, it's all depend on tasks. If a company has a lot of server base software solutions for Windows, then the only way for them - Windows, until they start counting expenses.

Now if you were building a firewall, proxy cache (or NAS, ... or whatever I'd tell you to avoid Windows like the plague

Wait, the topic is about NAS, why do you offer him a Windows then