ZFS + iSCSI architecture

iamatt iamatt at gmail.com
Wed Feb 20 01:42:50 UTC 2013


Sounds like a major headache.  I'd just deploy NetApp with OnTap 8.X or
isilon,  both BSD based now.
On Feb 19, 2013 7:15 PM, "Fleuriot Damien" <ml at my.gd> wrote:

>
> On Feb 19, 2013, at 11:20 PM, "bsd at todoo.biz" <bsd at todoo.biz> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> >
> > I am about to start deploying a large system (about 18 To which can grow
> up to 36 To) based on a big Intel platform with lot's of fancy features to
> have turbo boosted platform (ZIL on SSD + system on dongle if I go for
> FreeNAS). Since I want to move on quite fast I might decide to use FreeNAS
> in it's latest version.
> >
> >
> > The idea behind all that was to grant 5 or six critical servers access
> to the NAS so that they can take advantage of :
> >
> > 1. space available on the NAS
> >
> > 2. ability of the NAS to use ZFS and of clients to support this file
> system (including snapshots)
> >
> > 3. Access the server using iSCSI (at least this is what I initially
> planned).
> >
> > 4. Mount part of their filesystem using data stored on the SAN (like
> /usr/local/ or other parts of the system).
> >
> >
> >
> > The server accessing the data will be of two types :
> >
> > 1. 2 x Ubuntu server 10.04 LTS
> >
> > 2. 4 x FreeBSD (mainly 8 and 9) with jail configured
> >
> >
> > I have started reading about iSCSI and potential problems with FreeBSD.
> >
>
> What problems do you mean ?
>
>
>
> > So my main questions would be :
> >
> >
> > • Should I go for iSCSI ?
> >
>
> Well in all use cases, iscsi should perform faster than NFS.
>
>
>
> > • Should I rather choose / prefer NFS ?
> >
> > • Should I export a Volume as UFS rather than ZFS (is ZFS supported as a
> target) ?
> >
>
> I'm not sure what you mean here, when you export a zvol over ISCSI:
> - your SAN is the target and presents a block device (the zvol)
> - your client is the initiator
> - your client attaches to the ISCSI drive and formats it using filesystem
> XYZ, be it ext3, ufs or ntfs
>
>
>
>
> >
> > The main idea is stability, redundancy of data and ease of maintenance
> (in a headless FreeBSD / Linux world) before anything else !
> >
>
> ISCSI is a bit harder to setup IMO, however I think it''s more reliable
> than NFS, what with its auto retries if it loses the network link to a
> device.
>
>
>
> >
> >
> > That's the big pictures, if you have any pointers, advise, they are all
> welcome.
> >
> >
> > It is quite late where I leave, so I will reply to posts in 8 to 10
> hours, but I hope to have enough answer(s) to start an interesting thread
> (as I think this question is very interesting and not so clearly explained
> (at least in my mind))…
> >
>
> This is idd a very interesting topic and I hope to see more :)
>
>
>
> >
> > Thx very much for your infos and feedback.
>
>
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