Good Bye Freenas Hello Unraid

Just got to say

were the hell has unRaid been all my life .

been using Freenas for a few years and never even heard of unraid .

Got to say ease of install and ease of disk setup etc etc

Welcome!

Out of curiosity, what do you like about unRAID over FreeNAS?  I've been tempted to try FreeNAS, but do not like all drives having to be spun up on access.  I like the P1-P3 parity options, snapshots, self healing, etc., but can't get past having all drives spun up for reads/writes.  With FreeNas/ZFS You lose the capability to read a single drive of the array separately on another PC, but snapshots ease that pain.  Storing a snapshot is a helluva lot easier than a bit-for-bit copy (backup) of an array, cheaper too.

Storing a snapshot is a helluva lot easier than a bit-for-bit copy (backup) of an array, cheaper too.

Apples and Oranges.    A Snapshot is NOT in any way a backup.  It's data that allows the file system to restore a file to a given point ... i.e. "the way it was last Wednesday" ... but is certainly not a backup.  It's still stored in the same file system on the same set of disks.  A disk failure would not be mitigated in any way by having Snapshots ... unless, of course, you've cloned or replicated the data from it [which is a backup  ].

Bottom line:  FreeNAS needs backups too 

Apples and Oranges.    A Snapshot is NOT in any way a backup.  It's data that allows the file system to restore a file to a given point ... i.e. "the way it was last Wednesday" ... but is certainly not a backup.  It's still stored in the same file system on the same set of disks.  A disk failure would not be mitigated in any way by having Snapshots ... unless, of course, you've cloned or replicated the data from it [which is a backup  ].

 

Bottom line:  FreeNAS needs backups too 

Correct, my understanding of snapshots was not complete, still reading up on it.  However, the snapshots can be made as often as one wants and can be stored on a separate system and still be used to restore data to the point the last snapshot was taken.

However, the snapshots can be made as often as one wants and can be stored on a separate system and still be used to restore data to the point the last snapshot was taken.

"... a separate system ..." ==> i.e. a Backup 

Out of curiosity, what do you like about unRAID over FreeNAS?  I've been tempted to try FreeNAS, but do not like all drives having to be spun up on access.

A question I would ask... How important is your data?

You can spin down all the drives when not using the array but they would of course have to all spin up.

Having said that, you could put Movies in zpool and TV Shows in another. That way, you do not have to spin up every single Hard Drive in your system if set up correctly.

Also, is burning 5 - 10 watts per hard drive in a single parity system like unRAID worth it?

Not to mention, there have been COUNTLESS studies on HUGE levels and it's the notion that spinning down your drive extends the life of the drive is proven to be false.

I like the P1-P3 parity options, snapshots, self healing, etc., but can't get past having all drives spun up for reads/writes.  With FreeNas/ZFS You lose the capability to read a single drive of the array separately on another PC, but snapshots ease that pain.  Storing a snapshot is a helluva lot easier than a bit-for-bit copy (backup) of an array, cheaper too.

1. Speed wise ZFS destroys unRAID and it's not even close.

2. ZFS - Single, double or triple parity.

3. Are CoW, Compression, Encryption, Deduplication, snapshot, etc. important to you?

4. Is data integrity from the file all the way up to block device level important to you?

5. You can install any Linux Distro and load ZFS and mount the ZFS pool and not be stuck with FreeNAS or NAS4Free unless you wanted too.

6. Hot / Cold Spares. With a Hot Spare it would automatically start a rebuilding process in the event of a failed disk.

If it common for you to take a hard drive out of unRAID and plug it into another computer to read the data than yeah... ZFS wouldn't be a good choice for you.

I have never had a client (Small / Medium / Fortune 1000 companies) that used unRAID for any sort of storage solution. However, everyone of them had ZFS, NetApp, EMC, etc. I suspect there is a reason for it but maybe they just haven't heard of unRAID before.

All good points Grumpybutfun, thanks.  I especially like the multiple parity options which is one of several reasons I have been looking into ZFS/FreeNAS.  Having an 8-10+ drive array with only one parity drive is definitely grounds for doubling the cost of the unRAID solution (just about mandatory to keep a bit-for-bit backup).  unRAID mitigates the risk to a degree by keeping the individual disks readable outside the array using just about any standard distribution of Linux.

All good points Grumpybutfun, thanks.  I especially like the multiple parity options which is one of several reasons I have been looking into ZFS/FreeNAS.  Having an 8-10+ drive array with only one parity drive is definitely grounds for doubling the cost of the unRAID solution (just about mandatory to keep a bit-for-bit backup).  unRAID mitigates the risk to a degree by keeping the individual disks readable outside the array using just about any standard distribution of Linux.

ZFS / unRAID both have their pluses and minuses. It all boils down to what you are trying to accomplish, what your priorities are, how much redundancy you are comfortable with.

the BEST plus is different size drives [for me]

the BEST plus is different size drives [for me]

+1 Agree.

I don't have to change all drives to larger drives when they become available, and I still get all the full data capacity and full parity protection (although only 1).

not having to run all my drives all the time.. being able to use different size drives.. when it comes time to upgrading one drive bigger... etc many pro's for unraid vs freenas.

not having to run all my drives all the time.. being able to use different size drives.. when it comes time to upgrading one drive bigger... etc many pro's for unraid vs freenas.

From what I understand so far, you can use different size drives with the limitation being the smallest size drive sets the size of all disks.  If I read correctly, it seems a drive can be replaced one at a time to upgrade the size.

not having to run all my drives all the time.. being able to use different size drives.. when it comes time to upgrading one drive bigger... etc many pro's for unraid vs freenas.

From what I understand so far, you can use different size drives with the limitation being the smallest size drive sets the size of all disks.  If I read correctly, it seems a drive can be replaced one at a time to upgrade the size.

No, in unraid  the only limitation is that the biggest drive must be smaller or equal to parity drive. Or put the other way, the parity drive must be equal or greater than the largest data drive.

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk

From what I understand so far, you can use different size drives with the limitation being the smallest size drive sets the size of all disks.  If I read correctly, it seems a drive can be replaced one at a time to upgrade the size.

You are correct. Perhaps he just didn't state it clearly like you did.

From what I understand so far, you can use different size drives with the limitation being the smallest size drive sets the size of all disks.  If I read correctly, it seems a drive can be replaced one at a time to upgrade the size.

 

You are correct. Perhaps he just didn't state it clearly like you did.

This is !!! NOT !!! correct for unRAID.

In unRAID all data the drives' capacity are available even for different size drives as long as the parity drive is equal or bigger than the largest data drive.

For example: if you have data drives of sizes 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 3TB and a parity drive of 3TB (or larger) then the total data capacity available will be 9TB (1+2+3+3).

In standard RAIDs (RAID5 for example) the available capacity will be only 4TB (1+1+1+1).

This is !!! NOT !!! correct for unRAID.

 

In unRAID all data the drives' capacity are available even for different size drives as long as the parity drive is equal or bigger than the largest data drive.

For example: if you have data drives of sizes 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 3TB and a parity drive of 3TB (or larger) then the total data capacity available will be 9TB (1+2+3+3).

 

In standard RAIDs (RAID5 for example) the available capacity will be only 4TB (1+1+1+1).

If you want to be technical... He said you CANNOT use mismatched drives in ZFS... That is simply not true, you can.

As you pointed out, you have to keep in mind that since the parity is striped across all the drives... It depends on the size of your largest disk in the array.

Having said that... You can still upgrade the drives with larger ones. It's not like you are stuck with 1TB drive forever and losing out on all the space forever.

If having 1 parity drive does it for you... Knock yourself out and use unRAID.

not having to run all my drives all the time.. being able to use different size drives.. when it comes time to upgrading one drive bigger... etc many pro's for unraid vs freenas.

From what I understand so far, you can use different size drives with the limitation being the smallest size drive sets the size of all disks.  If I read correctly, it seems a drive can be replaced one at a time to upgrade the size.

No, in unraid  the only limitation is that the biggest drive must be smaller or equal to parity drive. Or put the other way, the parity drive must be equal or greater than the largest data drive.

 

Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk

Was referring to a ZFS array, but you are correct for unRAID.