Solved New file server advice

fred974

fred974

Hi,

We are in need of the new file server and I was wondering if anyone could advise.

We are thinking of building on FreeBSD/Samba4 ZFS vs FreeNAS. We are not sure in term of performance and scalability which is best?

Thank you in advance
 
Considering that FreeNas consists of the same underlying components but provides you with a (possibly) easier to use interface I'd say it depends on your own expertise.

Personally I'd be in favor for the FreeBSD approach because this gives you full control over how you want to set things up. Resulting in an environment which can be tailor made to your requirements. You're now talking about fileservers, but why stop there? It'll be easy to add other functionality to this box as well, and that might be interesting budget wise.

On the other hand I also think it's safe to argue that FreeNAS could be easier to set up and maintain. The classic issue of "working with an admin panel" vs. "working on the commandline".
 
ShelLuser said:
On the other hand I also think it's safe to argue that FreeNAS could be easier to set up and maintain. The classic issue of "working with an admin panel" vs. "working on the commandline".
Click to expand...

That rather depends on your age and experience. Some of us have been running Unix servers since physical 80x25 9600 baud (or slower, e.g. 300 baud V.21 for remote access) ttys were the standard interface. I generally find the command line to be vastly easier, and considerably more powerful.

Each to their own, of course, so it's whatever is going to work best for the person / people who will have to deal with it on a daily basis.
 
If there are other admins, with less or no FreeBSD/UNIX knowledge, I'd probably go with FreeNAS as it would make it easier for them to maintain and administer.
 
SirDice said:
If there are other admins, with less or no FreeBSD/UNIX knowledge, I'd probably go with FreeNAS as it would make it easier for them to maintain and administer.
Click to expand...
Good point, never tough of that..
At the moment its me and only me.
I like the easyness of FreeNAS but like ShelLuser user said, it mighth be cool to later have DHCP/DNS running on that.
I am not a CLI guru by miles but again I'll learn ehat I need to learn.
I guess the really question is how hard it it to setup a FreeBDS NAS from scratch?
I have very little experience but a really willing to learn FreeBSD.
In term of speed, will i gain on FreeNAS over FreeBSD?

AS it stand at the moment, all we will be using the server for to share files to a team of web developper... and the admin staff.
Web dev must have no access to Admin files ect..

Another tough that I had was to use Samba as active directory to controle permission ect... Again, I have no experience but something I wanted to learn for a while..
ANy link to how to and tutorial are welcome
 
I forgot to mention something important...
All user access the file server via openVPN...
Can this be achieve on FreeNAS as file system is read only?
 
It does use Samba, openVPN and you can restrict user's access to the server with read, write or execute permissions.

If FreeNAS does not have features you want, you can always use the pkg or ports to install something so you're not missing anything.

FreeNAS is just extra GUI on top of FreeBSD. So, everything under the hood is exactly FreeBSD so you're not missing anything.

With your limited knowledge of UNIX and CLI, I would recommend you to use FreeNAS until you're comfortable using CLI then you can completely switch over to FreeBSD.
 
fred974 said:
Hi,

We are in need of the new file server and I was wondering if anyone could advise.

We are thinking of building on FreeBSD/Samba4 ZFS vs FreeNAS. We are not sure in term of performance and scalability which is best?

Thank you in advance
Click to expand...
Don't overlook Nas4free, the original FreeBSD NAS. I've used it for years with no issues.
 
Why not use FreeNAS for the NAS bit and pfSense for firewalling/vpn/proxy/dhcp/dns? Both are excellent products in their own rights, both built upon FreeBSD and both have a nice web GUI.
 
Remington said:
f FreeNAS does not have features you want, you can always use the pkg or ports to install something so you're not missing anything
Click to expand...
How do you make it survive a reboot or upgrade?
SirDice said:
Why not use FreeNAS for the NAS bit and pfSense for firewalling/vpn/proxy/dhcp/dns?
Click to expand...
Can pfSense be installed on the FreeBSD or does it need its own hardware?

Thank you all you your input..
 
PfSense needs its own hardware, preferably bare metal and not virtualized although it does work virtualized but it's never the optimal way to use it.
 
You fully install FreeNAS and it can setup Jail for you if you ever need to install FreeBSD packages or ports that is not offered by FreeNAS. Each Jail works exactly like FreeBSD but its in contained space. FreeNAS won't be able to touch it and FreeNAS base system will be left intact. If you break something in Jail and it won't break FreeNAS. All you have to do is delete Jail and spin up a new one. If you break something in FreeNAS, you will have to re-install and do the setup all over again, and that's something you want to avoid. So Jail is your best solution for any packages that is not offered by FreeNAS.

Here is one good example, installing VPN service in Jail in FreeNAS.

https://thealarmclocksixam.com/2014/09/21/how-to-setup-a-vpn-server-in-a-freenas-jail/
 
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