Fedora Linux vs. FreeNAS

For experimental use, test lab situations, or very special-purpose tasks, Fedora [Linux] is an excellent choice. We are almost exclusively a CentOS shop for our production stuff, but in labs, we take more risks with things like Ubuntu or Fedora. It's not as appropriate as CentOS for production level endeavors, but it lets us know "this is where we could be going" when we engage in r&d tasks.

Incentivized

FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.

Incentivized

• Better cutting-edge software packages than RHEL/CentOS
• Better for an R&D platform than other systems
• Combines the stability of RHEL/CentOS-style systems with more experimental software

Incentivized

• The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
• The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.

Incentivized

• Stability. It's good, but it's not anything like CentOS for stability
• End-user usability. It has a few glaring holes here and there with UI/UX

Incentivized

• Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
• Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.

Incentivized

There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.

Incentivized

We are an all-CentOS-shop, but we've done a number of things with Ubuntu and Fedora. Most of the production CentOS machines are only there because prior to that Fedora helped to blaze the trail to get there. It's been a very good platform for testing our new ideas. Ubuntu is similarly positioned in our organization, but Fedora stacks up well in our environment.

Incentivized

FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.

Incentivized

• It's been mostly positive. We don't spend a lot on R&D stuff, but Fedora [Linux] gives us a chance to gauge where we are at in comparison to where technology is headed

Incentivized

• Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
• Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
• FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys

Incentivized