Top Hardware Components for napp-it and Solarish NAS Servers

Napp-it is the most popular free web GUI that can be used commercially with an optional Pro version. You can use it to build ZFS storage ontop of regular Solarish distributions like a genuine Oracle Solaris 11.3/11.4 or OpenSource Solaris forks like OmniOS with a minimalistic focus on production-ready storage and OpenIndiana more for general server use including desktop use.

Ever since Oracle bought Sun in 2010 it closed the free OpenSolaris project. When it did so, there was a void in Solaris based operating systems for ZFS storage. Companies like Nexenta build their storage appliances atop OpenSolaris derived distributions. There are other options for non-Solaris OSes like FreeBSD (e.g. FreeNAS), ZFS on Linux (e.g. Ubuntu), but it is still easy to build a powerful Solaris derived ZFS server with a web GUI using the popular napp-it project.  Using the OmniOS project’s OS along with the napp-it web GUI makes administration of a ZFS system a snap.

Since Solarish is not as mainstream of an OS as Linux or Windows, it is important to pick components that will work well in the environment. At STH we test hundreds of hardware combinations each year. We also have a great napp-it community in the STH forums. From this experience, we are going to keep a running log of the best napp-it and Solarish components. We are going to focus these guides on napp-it and OmniOS servers with under 120 storage devices and will periodically update the listing.

Here are our Top Picks for napp-it and Solarish / OmniOS Buyer’s Guides:

Top napp-it and Solarish Storage Picks

Like most ZFS systems, the real speed comes from caching. ZFS is designed to make effective use of RAM and solid state drives for caching. This means that there are four primary classes of drives for a napp-it and OmniOS system: boot drives, hard drives, L2ARC SSDs and ZIL/ SLOG devices. We maintain a list of the top five picks in each category to take the stress out of picking components:

We will keep these updated on a periodic basis.

Top napp-it and OmniOS Networking Picks

We have a list of our Top napp-it and OmniOS NICs. Networking performance is extremely important to overall performance. Nothing is worse than having an awesome network storage appliance then not being able to use it. (Coming Soon)

Top napp-it and OmniOS System Picks

Coming Soon

Have a specific question?

If you are looking for an awesome deal or have a specific question about napp-it and OmniOS hardware, feel free to ask in the STH forums.