Portainer and Docker

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hazelbag wrote:

I saw that there is apps available from the ReadyNAS store for both Portainer and Docker, does anyone here have experience running these on their NAS?

 

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I don't use these - hopefully folks who do will chime in, and give you the advice you are looking for.

 

Though somewhat off-topic, I do want to offer some broader thoughts about apps - and why I've chosen not to run them.  This is clearly an area where reasonable people will disagree - and I am not arguing against running apps per-se.  But there are some downsides that I think people who are running them should consider.

 

These downsides are

1. Apps do consume system resources - particularly memory.  This can slow down your overall NAS performance, and in some cases can actually result in out-of-memory crash conditions.  The RN316 has 2 GB of ram and a modest processor with no GPU.  I believe the RAM can be upgraded to 4 GB, but not any higher.  The processor cannot be upgraded.
2. Apps sometimes will get in the way of firmware updates.  Sometimes the apps will simply break after the update due to changes in system libraries.  There have been a couple of cases where apps with web interfaces have broken the main admin web ui.
3. Very few of the third party apps on apps.readynas.com are actively supported by the developer (plex is really the only one). I often recommend rnxtras.com - because those apps are supported by WhoCares_ 
4. Bugs in the apps can result in unexpected shutdowns - which in turn can result in corrupted data or even total volume loss.
5. A more subtle "trap" is that running a lot of apps on the NAS itself makes it more difficult to switch to a different storage technology (since you need to find a way to host the apps on the new NAS)

If you do choose to run apps, my caution is to be very selective about which ones you install (and not to over-do it).  Also make sure you have an up-to-date backup before you install new apps or update firmware.

 

Personally, I used to run apps on the NAS, but a couple of years ago I chose to use my NAS purely for storage.  I have an older desktop PC set up as a dedicated server that has the NAS data volume mapped to a drive letter.  My various applications are all running on the PC.  My approach is more expensive to set up, but it is more robust, and I can upgrade the PC and NAS independently from each other - which IMO outweighs the cost disadvantage.