As a final comparison I gave the newest version of NexentaStor a try. I’ve been generally happy with NexentaStor, it’s always performed great and almost always notified me when issues arose. That being said, there are a few things that really irk me about it, the required serial number for the Community Edition is a real nuisance, especially since the Machine Key is different every time a new installation is made, even on the same hardware. Makes testing a real pain. The 18TB limit has also seen some controversy on the NexentaStor forums, as the company flip-flopped between Raw/Used requirement several times.
After installing NexentaStor 4 it was apparent that not much has changed since the previous version. It looks almost exactly the same as Nexenta 3.1. There’s some Java based tools that have been implemented but it offers no functional improvement over the previous version.
There are some new features implemented in this version but nothing really that would warrant upgrading the existing production boxes, especially since with the terms of the license changes I will not be able to add any more disks to the current build.
Pros:
– Rock solid SAN product designed for the enterprise
– Awesome iSCSI/NFS performance
Issues:
– No embedded install. Takes up at least one HDD bay.
– License change limits installs to 18TB of RAW storage
– Still uses crappy registration method