FreeNAS releases version 11, so let us put the unpleasantness of failed V.10 behind us

FreeNAS releases version 11 so let's put the unpleasantness of failed V.10 behind us Version 11 of FreeNAS has emerged, hopefully without the bugs that saw the open source project release version 10 and then downgrade it to a mere “tech preview” a month later. That demotion came about because version 10, aka “Corral”, behaved …

[CAPS LOCK]

If you need NAS software do yourself a favour and try...

... Nas4free.

[CAPS LOCK]

"WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

... doesn't mean you should. Incest and Morris dancing come to mind for some reason...

[frank ly]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

I agree, those are two activities you should _never_ combine.

[James O'Shea]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

Too late. Morris dancing is one of the more tragic results of incest. It is also one of the _causes_ of incest, as Morris dancers tend to have a problem getting dates.

[Dinsdale247]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

Then you don't know what you're talking about. Virtualization allow userland processes to be entirely separated from the main kernel. Therefore, you can run Kodi, Samba, or anything else you like without the risk of it crashing the main kernel. Bhyve is a very lightweight hypervisor and is built specifically for the FreeBSD kernel, which makes it particularly efficient.

Maybe that doesn't make sense on an arm board or an old PC, but on the 6-core Xeon with 96GB of ram that I use with FreeNAS 8.3, it's a pretty good idea. I'd upgrade my rig, but it's been running unattended so long, I don't even know if I can find it...

[Mark 65]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?" Quite, just because you can...

Several reasons for running VMs on a NAS:

• The VM is sat on the machine where the data storage it requires resides thereby removing the lag of accessing data over 1Gb/s link in a home environment vs straight off of the RAID array.
• You wish to run software such as Crashplan which doesn't run on your NAS natively but can be run in a Linux Server VM on top accessing a read-only share aggregating the folders that need to be backed up.
• You want to run SabNZBd, Couchpotato, and Sickbeard/Sickrage/Sonnar on your system and it won't run natively, or will run natively but keeps getting fucked up by firmware updates therefore segregating it into a nice Linux Server VM and giving it limited storage access makes a lot of sense.
• You may wish to run a build server, dev environment, Jupyter instance etc etc on a machine that otherwise sits there doing not a lot

There are many reasons, just because none appeal to you does not mean others are wrong to do so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because (option) can be turned on doesn't mean you should

Well - for one I like the option of running VMs at home.

Currently running an ESXi rig with VCSA on top.

Too much hassle (BTW - I configure and maintain VMware from time to time for living so *I like to think I know what I am doing*).

Have my FreeNAS as VM with HW pass-through to LSI SAS.

Was planning to ditch the ESXi and replace it with FreeNAS 10 bare metal installation.

Even have a few containers doing bits and bobs on top of Coral.

This will now have to wait until ... forever?

Boo-hoo.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?"

Depends on your situation. If you are running some big important system it would be very wise to keep the NAS simply serving files, and any VMs running on dedicated servers.

But if you are a typical home / small business it might be your NAS is lightly used and so why have two machines, at roughly double the cost/power/noise, if you can also run a VM for something you need to access from more than one client?

[Bronek Kozicki]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?"

I can imagine a set of scenarios when VM could make sense when running on a NAS (or, more general, a SAN node in an enterprise environment). That is when one needs to share the files on the network using network protocol which, for some reason, cannot be run natively on a node/appliance, for example due to authentication domain isolation (e.g. appliance/node is not a member of a relevant Kerberos realm, but a VM can be). Other reasons for not running network protocol natively on a node/appliance (and in a VM instead) may include support level, separation of configuration management, or plain and old software availability.

Of course the assumption is that there is some protocol allowing a VM to access native filesystem in a controlled manner - I know in kvm I would use p9 but no idea what could be used in bhyve.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "WTF is a NAS doing hosting virtual machines?"

@Bronek

Yep. I run 3 VM's on an OpenMediaVault (OMV) NAS due to certain network traffic and versioning. OMV doesn't run the latest of anything, so unless I want to run an entire seperate peice of hardware for a few things used seldomly, VM's it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you need NAS software do yourself a favour and try...

For example, running a media server directly out of the NAS but in a separate environment so if something goes wrong the whole NAS isn't affected? Running a backup server software?

In some lab scenarios for training? I could go on... but the fact you can doesn't mean you always should - but it's welcome in some scenarios.

[cs94njw]

Quite simply - it allowed Crashplan and Plex to run *perfectly*. I've loved now being able to run Crashplan from my NAS, instead of my PC. Trying to get Crashplan running in a Jail sucked :(

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Will have a shufty at it. Thanks for the article.

[FuzzyWuzzys]

It's a great way to play with NetBackup, Oracle RAC and Windows Failover Clusters for SQL Server 'cos FreeNAS plays nicely inside VirtualBox...well v9 did at any rate! We shall have to wait and see how v11 behaves as to whether it gets a place in my VM lab rig.

[benoliver999]

I get the need for them to keep moving forward but this release just isn't giving any incentive to upgrade at all.

How easy is it to swtich to Nas4Free with a ZFS pool?

[PlinkerTind]

ZFS is portable

ZFS is portable. Just "zpool export nameOfThePool" and change OS to Linux, FreeNAS, Solaris, MacOSX, etc and type "zpool import nameOfThePool". Done.

[Syx]

Serious question

What were the issues with 10? I've not faced any and wondering if I am sitting on top of a pile of potential problems...

[4040club]

Serious question: what does NAS4free have that FreeNAS doesn't? My experience has been that FreeNAS is leagues more capable, stable, and user friendly (FWIW, I never upgraded from 9.10 to 10 aka FreeNAS Corral, so that blip was never a concern for me)

[Androgynous Cow Herd]

Why run VMs on a NAS

If they had a better marketing department they would just call the whole mess "Hyperconverged"