Product Introduction
SoftNAS™ Cloud is a network attached storage (NAS) virtual appliance. Our products are commercial-grade storage management solutions for businesses that require high-speed, reliable storage at affordable prices.
SoftNAS Cloud® supports the following platforms:
- Cloud computing platforms such as Amazon EC2®, VMware vCloud® Air™, and Microsoft® Azure™
- On-premise Computing Infrastructure such as VMware vSphere®.
Architecture and Technology
SoftNAS Cloud® runs as a Linux®-based, 64-bit CentOS redistribution guest OS treated as a VM in a virtual server environment. In many use cases, storage devices are attached to the physical hardware layer, then presented to SoftNAS Cloud® as a VM running Linux.
SoftNAS Cloud® operates on an industry-standard Linux platform, and uses a derivative of the Zettabyte File System® (ZFS), an open-source project originally released on OpenSolaris® by Sun Microsystems, Inc. This makes SoftNAS Cloud® able to leverage many ZFS features and add layers of functionality for NAS solutions in virtual computing and cloud computing.
An Apache webserver provides robust, secure access along with Secure Shell® (SSH). Storage is accessible via TCP/IP protocols including NFS v3, NFS v4, SMB/CIFS (Microsoft® Windows File Shares), and iSCSI.
SoftNAS Cloud® is packaged with a primary administration interface called SoftNAS StorageCenter™, which provides commercial-grade storage administration and management functionalities for businesses of all sizes.
Cloud Computing:
SoftNAS Cloud® provides the highly-available network storage backbone needed for business-critical cloud applications in the following environments:
- Amazon EC2
- Microsoft Azure
Premise-Based Computing:
SoftNAS Cloud® installs from a download to act as a virtual server appliance. Run as many instances of SoftNAS Cloud® VM as are needed in any of the following environments:
- VMware vSphere
SoftNAS Cloud®™, SoftNAS StorageCenter™, SnapReplicate™, and SNAP HA™ are trademarks of SoftNAS Inc. All other trademarks referred to in this guide are owned by their respective companies.\
Using Our Documentation
SoftNAS has organized its documentation according to task based and platform based documentation. This means you can find what you are looking for by simply selecting the subject you wish to know about, and drilling down to the appropriate location. Task based pages such as this one are organized into platforms, allowing you to narrow your focus to the content and platform relevant to you. Content that is common across platforms is listed in All Platforms, and content specific to, or primarily focused on a given platform is organized accordingly. We hope you find this format simple and easy to use. See the links below to begin your journey. Remember, if you don't find the subject matter you are looking for, check the All Platforms section.
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We also provide a platform-centric approach to our documentation. To search by platform (such as AWS, Azure, or VMware) click the relevant link below:
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Disks in Softnas®
Softnas® allows you to add or combine multiple storage types on the same instance. SoftNAS provides a similar experience across its platforms. This means that a great deal of its functionality, user experience, requirements, and features are common to each platform.
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The only differences between adding disk devices on AWS and Azure are the actual cloud platform credentials needed and the specific disk device types they offer for use. If planning on using RAID, you need to remember to allocate the appropriate number of disk devices required for a specific RAID type planned to be used. for more information, please refer to Planning your Instances - Software RAID Considerations. |
This includes physical disks from your on-premise environment, or Softnas® storage. Our simple to use interface allows you to select and add this storage quickly and easily, and to manage tasks such as partitioning with simple point and click operations.
The following articles help you to add the storage required, whether physical disks, block storage, in order to provision your pools and volumes.
All Platforms Information
Add Disk Devices
- In SoftNAS StorageCenter, choose Disk Devices from the main menu.
OR
- Select "Step 5 - Add Storage Devices" from the Getting Started Checklist.
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Partitioning Disks
- Log on to SoftNAS StorageCenter.
- In the Left Navigation Pane, select the Disk Devices option under the Storage section. The Disk Devices panel will be displayed.
- Disk devices must be partitioned prior to use. The available devices are listed in the Available Devices grid.
- Device Usage - indicates the current status of the device, which can be one of the following:
- Device needs partition - the initial state for a new device that has no partition
- Available to assign - the device is partitioned and ready for use in a storage pool
- Used in pool <poolname> - the device is in use by the indicated storage pool name
Use the buttons on the toolbar to partition the devices for initial use.
- Use Partition All to partition all disk devices.
- Alternatively, select each disk device, then use Create Partition to partition a device individually.
- Remove Partition can be used to remove an existing partition that is no longer needed.
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AWS Specific Information
Azure Specific Information
VMware/RHEL Specific Information
| Pricing Information | Supported? |
|---|---|
EBS General SSD (gp3)1 | Y |
| EBS General SSD (gp2) | Y |
| EBS Provisioned IOPS SSD (io1) | Y |
| EBS Throughput Optimized HDD (st1) | Y |
| EBS Cold HDD (sc1) | Y |
| Any Object Storage Devices | N |
1 Must be created using the EC2 Console, not supported by the StorageCenter Administrative Interface
| Pricing Information | Supported? |
|---|---|
Premium SSD | Y |
| Standard SSD | Y |
| Standard HDD | Y |
| Ultra Disk | Y |
| Any Object Storage Devices | N |