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.
HPE 3PAR StoreServ is a great storage device for both file and block-level storage needs. You can use it in place of SAN devices required by database servers. It provides an amazing compaction ratio and, hence, reduces overall storage footprint and cost. This is, however, slightly costly if your environment doesn't really see high transactions most of the time.
We are using HP 3PAR storeServ 8200 for both our file level and block level storage.
I really love the amazing compaction ratio provided by HP 3PAR. Some of our disks have compaction ratio above 25:1, which is super amazing. You can definitely look for around 75% reduction of storage footprints.
It has a great user friendly web console "SSMC"(StoreServ Management Console). This is an additional bonus and can be used by even non-storage people like DBA and Network to take a look at storage performance.
The system requires a physical or virtual system to manage upgrades and patches and for call home features. Most other systems have this integrated into the array. Just another piece of infrastructure to manage.
There are some system jobs that come pre-scheduled in the initial setup, but there is at least 1 job that should be added to this by default. When you delete storage, you also need to run a job to compact the CPG (a group where the luns all reside) to reclaim the previously used storage as free. This should be done by default at least monthly in the background.
There are 2 different GUI front ends that can still be used. The older version (3 PAR management console) is being phased out (has been for 3 years).
We are very satisfied with 3PAR performance and especially the IOPS (Input Output Per Second) is pretty amazing. It is easy to configure and doesn't require much knowledge of storage for Tier 1 support team.
With their phone home technology, we usually have a replacement part on its way by the time we wake up in the morning, or if the event occurs overnight. We have had great support when we had questions or events that required a call.
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.
We still use NetApp storage enclosures at each plant for our routine file shares (CIFS) but I would love to swap them out for the HPE 3PARs as we use for our ERP app data. The 3PARS are simply faster and much better at near-instant replication. But even more importantly we can get the reporting that we need from the 3PAR within a few minutes, even custom reports. 3PARs are much easier to manage than NetApps in general and I think that the only place that they compete is in compaction.
