Take the 2-minute tour ×

This question related to NexentaStor vs FreeNAS and Is FreeNAS reliable?

I have been using OpenIndiana / Illumos as the OS for my self build NAS.

There is nothing much to it:

  1. Created ZFS on the FiberChannel devices
  2. Setup the local network
  3. Enabled NFS

I aslo wrote a few Bash scripts that are cronned minutly to write-down zfs get all to the shared Filesystem so that I can monitor things like disk usage, compression ratio, and dedup ratio on the client side.

I don't need any other features.

How will FreeNAS compare to OpenSolaris in terms of speed, driver availability, and robustness?

share|improve this question
I think the answer to your question is: It depends! It depends on the hardware you are using, what load you want to put on it, what your SLA requirements are, yadda yadda yadda. It's like you are asking about two kinds of apples (fruit!) and why people prefer the taste of one over the other. The answer will always vary with the individual you ask. –  Reality Extractor May 4 '11 at 8:58
In that case you can safely assume that he is asking for all tasters to relate their varied preferences and experiences such that all comers can come to appreciate the subtle variations in said fruit. –  Amit Naidu May 15 '13 at 7:01
add comment

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

I use both, but all my important data resides on NexentaStor. FreeNAS is not nearly as robust as NexentaStor. FreeNAS is pretty reliable but it's just not designed for production environments the way NexentaStor is.

share|improve this answer
I'd adjust that to say that... FreeNAS is not designed to be supported (contractually) by the people who develop it (though 3rd parties do offer support). NexentaStor is designed for Supported Environments; FreeNAS is designed to be free as in speech; different approaches. –  Chris S May 10 '11 at 15:20
add comment

Your Answer


