NASLite Network Attached Storage

Ok... so I still don't see a bench mark of FreeNAS vs NASlite.

I understand the the G's are about as fast as the + version.
I can extrapolate that since the + is around 4 or 5 times faster
than the free downloadable Naslite, that freenas is about the
twice as fast as the free SMB (M-bit) version of NASlite.

Am I reading something wrong here?

Ok...off to find out why norton ghost 10 loses the connection
to the naslite server and stops the backup.

Kevlaur

I downloaded freenas.... made the ISO cd with Nero...
and...

It won't boot on my CD drive. The FDU nas boots so I figure
I know how to make the ISO img cd correct....

This also leads me to believe that NASlite+ will boot just fine
(when I d-load it and burn it).



Kevlaur

Last night I read an article about naslite on servers.linux.com and the first discussion post was "Other NAS Os". What do ya knaw , it’s freenas!

Why would anyone even consider freenas as an alternative to naslite. Naslite is an established os with a proven track record. Freenas is someone’s toy experiment at best. After spending couple of hours playing with it and another hour reading the entertaining posts on the freenas forum, I’m convinced that freenas has serious issues that will continue to cause problems no matter what features are added. IMHO, taking a firewall and trying to build a NAS out of it may sound like a good idea, but thats like taking a screwdriver and trying to make a hammer out if it. You can, but you’ll have a shitty hammer. You can dump all kinds of features onto your hammer including racing stripes, but it’s still a shitty hammer.

Here is a question: Who in their right mind would suggest to their client or boss that the department files should be hosted on a freenas box? After all, it does have RAID, iSCSI, browser based admin, user management and a host of other features.

Anyone?

I can’t talk for anyone else, but based on my limited research it appears that most “features” in freenas are ill implemented and are a potential time bomb. No means to properly rebuild RAID, shell required for proper user management, lock-ups, lost drives on reboot, I go on.

Then there are the basics, such as speed. Freenas takes its sweet’ol time to boot then it struggles to keep up with client transfers. I didnt verify the numbers from Ralphs post above, but if they are true, that’s a pretty crappy performance from a NAS of the specs Ralph used.

Sorry for my rant but it really chesses me off when people talk up something just because it’s free. On the freenas forum there is a topic comparing freenas to naslite. I don’t know if its stupidity of pure ignorance, but the discussion never mentioned reliability, but kept talking up the free. Yet all aroud it there are topics about this dont work and that din't work, including "crap i lost my files cause raid is broke". What about your time people? Is that worth anything? How much time are you willing to spend with freenas to run your NAS? Is it really worth saving the $20?

At least, if I buy naslite, I have someone to go to and demand a bugfix if I find one. With freenas it seems that often the developer doesn’t quite know what’s up. I’m paraphrasing here, but “I should get a freebsd tuning guide” and “I have to post on the raid or samba or whatever boards for an answer” sure dont make me feel to good about hopping on the freenas wagon.

OK, I’ll get off the rant now. Freenas simply is not an operating system I would trust with files of any value.

I hope server elements dont take this the wrong way but it is a compliment. Thanks for letting me vent.

I can only second that. Who cares if NASLite would cost even 50$ or 150$?

My server running NASLite for many, many months has thus far proven invaluable, foolproof, failsafe, well-performing, troublefree and rocksteady in my experience. It is hosting thousands of large image files, centrally accessible files, and rotating backups in my case.

The general concept of NASLite to me is brilliant, economical, ecological and plain works. The support is very timely, friendly, competent, to the point, patient and honest.

So there are a few desirable features missing in the first release (after all, how much software is going to fit on a floppy...). But meanwhile Tony is listening, programming and TESTING.

I'd rather be patient for a few more weeks or even months, and install a well tested shiny new NASLite 2 that is running as rock-steady as the first release.

So please people stop whining about free or not, and rather count your savings and consider the benefits of a stable running server that does exactly what it promises.
Kind Regards,
Thorsten Indra

This thread just doesn't seem to die...

Again I agree with dimension here...what we currently have is REALLY good piece of software and if I ahve to donate some funds for that software to continue then ther is no question for me.

In ANY software development project it doesn't just hinge on what you can code, it's the support and cllaboration you receive from the Vendor. In this case, Tony/Ralph outdo themselves in appeasing the requirments of the software. As a user of the software nearly all of my need are met, with a vision to meet the others.

If you choose to us a different software (FreeNAS) then you get what you download. Whenever anything says 'beta' in it's latest build I naturally get worried. For now, NASLite meets my very simple requirments and I see no need to change...

T.

t_indra & timmay,

Thanks for not flaming me on this and supporting my point guys. For sure, I thought it was coming. I was so frustrated with freenas and all the hoopla when I wrote that. Just had to say it out loud.

Delighted that I’m not alone.

The only reason I am testing FreeNAS is it has AFP, no other nas software that I can find has this. With a OSX network, SMB limitations and bugs is a pain, and NFS is very slow via the finder (great speed via terminal like the way Diskwriggler tests speed).
The FreeNAS developer is happy to add options to FreeNAS if possible (like AFP).
I do like NASLite but if FreeNAS does over come current problems (which is time) I would swap as I can't see NASLite adding AFP ever.
Cost is not a factor (I have 2 NASLite servers atm).

hello all readers,

wow, I don't have a clue that my original question take so much place in the thoughts of all you guys, but it shows how important a Nas OS to many users have. If you read the other postings of me you can see that i also tested Freenas and also Openfiler. If I have something missed please tell me so that can I test an d compare. But I don't think that there is anything out there that is in THAT Pakage so failsave, performant, etc. as naslite is.
My Terabyteserver is about 2 years (in words: two years) up and running. No fixing, no Software to upgrade, and then going on and on of fixing, Service packs installing or Kernel compilations or other Libcap Stauff or whatever to take care about. IT JUST WORKS!
Wich piece of Software could say ths about themself?

For the Version 2 whenever it comes out I have some wishes and hints:
1.) Also if there is no One-Disk version anymore (what is ok) dont forget the Free-version. it was also good to have a VMX Image for testing as in Freenas. This shows many things.
2.) Dont put TO much in it I read a lot of wishes and beta testing for only some preveliged people going on, so we, the community, the people who had made this so big could not take place to the development and the only place to give some hints are here, anyway. I think Tony and Ralph postet solong a bit of screenshot and let some hints out what we would expect, but guys, nasLite IS a good product and I really think TO much features would be the overdose and made it cost to many time and money.
3.) Dont forget the other nas OS in mind. Naslite has as you can see established as THE Nas OS in front of all others. I can read dayly mails from users who asked me tipps about it and I can see that this concept is good and proven in the OpenSource Community. But the run ist still going on! Hardware Manufactures build Hardware SoHo NAS Systems cheaper and Cheaper. Allready there are no Systems wich can handle more then 3 Disks such as Naslite, but its only a matter of time. Other NAS OS are coming. All with trouble, but there are coming
4.) Tony, you wrote the point of ease-of-use and stability. I think THAT is the great point in front of all others. I have several Events (Linux Days, Workshops, CCC Events in germany and others) and to have a really working NAS in a few minuts where a great thing and i could teach it to many people.

So, I hardly could wait for V2 to test (hopefully I get a mail from Tony or Ralph), to upgrade my website with Infos about it and also the many users that wait for it. Keep going on, good work.

In response to wonderer, allow me to thank you for the encouraging comments regarding our work and NASLite in particular. It is good to know that the NASLite paradigm is appreciated.

In follow-up, I think that I’ve said this before, but mentioning it again probably will not hurt. NASLite is a task-specific NAS implementation that targets the most important and fundamental features of NAS. In turn, the “limited” number of features allow us to concentrate efforts on performance, stability and ease-of-use.

The result is a well-balanced compromise that satisfies most NAS needs of most NAS users. Anything other than that will accommodate some with special needs, only to alienate some with simple needs.

It is an inexpensive, simple, high-performance and environmentally responsible solution to an often over-complicated technology. Take it for what it is.

This thread will never die.

I just tired freenas. Actually, I am quite impressed by it.

Both NASLite and FreeNAS are based on stable OS and components - FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD (many in web hosting industry swear it is more stable than Linux). All the components, except software RAID, are stable.

Yes, I have seen complaints about the stability. How would a project which is a collection of stable components be unstable? The answer is bad configuration. Freenas web interface is very flexible but lacks the error checking, so if you do something out-of-order, it corrupts the configuration file and you will have big problems. However, for simple sharing which is simple and straight forward, it should be as stable as a full freeBSD box.

I have seen claims about the performance on both sides. Some say Naslite is twice as fast. Some say Freenas is twice as fast. Well, on a 100 base-t network, the bottleneck is the network, my guess is the performance is determined by the driver for your particular network card/chipset. If FreeBSD's driver is better than the Linux one, FreeNAS will perform better than Naslite. If the Linux driver is better Naslite will out-perform freenas. Older hardware with name brand network card/chipset will probably work better with either solutions, due to stable drivers. Your new, fat, and super fast hardware may not work well either either (or one but not the other) due to buggy drivers.

The installation of freenas is very easy and straight forward. You boot from a CD, and get the option to install on the HD or the USB thumm. This a strong challenge to Naslite. Naslite should consider getting rid of the seperate CD and USB versions and use similar installation method.

I want to make another point - there is no way Naslite is compatible with all the hardware out there, just because Linux is not compatible with all the hardware out there. Naslite should consider a different trial method (instead of floppy version). How about give people the full feature, but requires the user to go to the web interface to turn on the sharing every time the system restarts if the software is not licensed? And you can disable this "turn on sharing" button after 30 days. This way, people get a chance to test hardware compatibility before making the purchase.

Here's my take on FreeNAS, it's slow, it's slow, and did I mention it's slow?

All one needs to do is try and copy about a 2gig file with about 256megs of ram in your freenas server and watch it crawl like a worm, the webgui will be unavailable and it seems to just freeze until buffer space is released.

Here's a article from Tom's hardware, freenas performed pretty poorly for them as well.

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/08/0 ... smackdown/


I think people need to actually use freenas and not just install it, look at the shiny webgui and say it rocks. Come on people, the basic purpose is a file server, I want speed and stability, people are all over this fancy gui they spend 10 minutes configuring in, and then forget about how slow the file transfers are.

It wouldn't be a good idea, simply because you could turn on filesharing leave the nas booted for 30 days then reinstall the software. without ever purchasing the software.

Then, maybe have the trial version create a partition of 5GB (no matter how big the HD is)

You know if the software were like $200.00 USD I would agree with you, but it's not. It is only $29.00 and it works. Free NAS is likely a nice product but it doesn't have a small core of dedicated and payed developers behind it. The guys have a clear vision of where they want to go with it and they make it clear. They also try and include the apps we want as long as they don't cause unstable operation in the OS. For my money it is the best choice right now and I have been using it since 1.0.

Mike

Well, the problem is, Naslite is based on Linux, it is an OS, and it has all kinds of compatibility problems (the same problem with FreeNAS, which is based on FreeBSD).

When FreeNas works, it is the best deal one can buy for $0.
When FreeNas doesn't and Naslite works, that $29 is the best deal one can buy for $29.
But when Naslite doesn't work, that $29 is completely waste of money.

And free trial is a norm these days, from your $15 text editor to $30,000 professional DVD authoring. It is simply smart business to offer free trial because it

1. INCREASE the sales
2. DECREASE tech support burden by ensuring the hardware compatibility.