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iXsystems FreeNAS Mini NAS Review

iXsystems' FreeNAS Mini incorporates enterprise features, an advanced file system and a flash cache to deliver superior performance in its price range.

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Multi-Client SMB Performance

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Sadly, these two charts don't show the time or effort that went into building our multi-client test. We have 120 virtual machines with a dedicated non-blocking gigabit Ethernet port for each. The VMs run on ten servers, each with two octa-core Xeons. 

The workload run from each machine is a trace file of recorded Microsoft Office activity. This is a typical workload from an office environment with users opening, editing, building and saving Word, Power Point and Excel documents. Individual traces are not designed to stress the NAS, but when they're combined from multiple sources, we stress the system. 

We expected the FreeNAS Mini to perform well in this test, but the system didn't live up to our expectations. We used its default compression settings and suspect the slight compression may not be the best choice for this environment. With six settings to choose from, we admittedly did not get a chance to test them all.

Still, with the cache drives enabled, the FreeNAS Mini delivers the second-best latency. Without it, the FreeNAS Mini encounters the highest delay.

19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 16 July 2015 07:40
    Thanks for this review! I've been looking at this NAS for a while, ECC ram and ZFS where two strong points.
    Reply
  • DarkSable 16 July 2015 09:22
    $1000 for a diskless system?

    How much is the case itself? That I might be interested in, but...
    Reply
  • hmarafi 16 July 2015 10:40
    Thank you, a great review, if you can make a review how these devices can handle transcoding (Plex) Please.
    Reply
  • colinstu 16 July 2015 13:26
    $1000 for a diskless system?

    How much is the case itself? That I might be interested in, but...

    The case is a Supermicro CSE-721TQ-250B which is $160.
    A great motherboard would be the X10SDV-F which is $850 (dual GBe Intel nics, Xeon-D 8 core, check Anandtech they did a great review on it). Stronger CPU than the one in this review.

    Then for $1017 you can get the X10SDV-TLN4F which includes built in 2x Intel 10GBe as well as 2x Intel GBe.
    or for $?? (probably more) the X10SDV-8C-TLN4F which is the same as above but has Hyperthreading (16 threads).
    Reply
  • Lulzon 16 July 2015 14:39
    Can someone explain what the market for these are? The form factor and limitations in expansion make it feel consumer level, but the power packed inside and price tag feel more enterprise for small teams or high workloads.
    Reply
  • ammaross 16 July 2015 14:58
    utilizes the DRAM as a cache for in-flight data, you'll want to stick with ECC memory to protect that information from corruption.
    Just by way of correction, ZFS has memory page checksums in addition to disk block checksums so even a memory bit corruption on non-ECC RAM can be healed on-the-fly.
    Reply
  • James Mason 16 July 2015 15:08
    Can someone explain what the market for these are? The form factor and limitations in expansion make it feel consumer level, but the power packed inside and price tag feel more enterprise for small teams or high workloads.
    Smaller businesses. I'm thinking law firms and architectural businesses, that just have a ton of documents and pictures to store. Which would fit right in at between 4-24tbs.

    The price still seems kinda high, I'd like to see "real world use" as opposed to benchmarks but that's so difficult to actually do.
    Reply
  • BulkZerker 16 July 2015 16:31
    All that processor for a nas... Asrock's avaton board still seems like a better choice IMO. Than again, I'm more looking at max storage vs max speed., esp considering how this nas can and will be set up.
    Reply
  • photonboy 17 July 2015 10:43
    Price is very reasonable for small business assuming someone with enough tech knowledge to setup properly.

    If the price seems high then it's not for you, but as said this is not a consumer product for home users. You want a basic, easy solution then investigate some of the WDMYCLOUD options instead. I bought a 4TB model and added a 4TB WD Elements as backup but that's for video storage and not as reliable nor as fast as a business class solution.

    $2000 with drives for business is really not bad considering the cost to run a business, loss of data costs, and the fact you can probably write of some as a business expense.
    Reply
  • Mike Bethany 18 July 2015 14:06
    FreeNAS with ZFS is a fantastic combination but the FreeNAS Mini needs one more drive for the RAID.

    On a side note, some guy vehemently argued against using ECC memory with ZFS. He admitted it was really stupid to *not* using ECC memory but he just couldn't admit he was wrong so he kept doubling down on dumb. His major argument? I was a few dollars off on the price of ECC memory.

    You have to love the Internet.
    Reply