The world’s number one open-source operating system, TrueNAS brings the performance and features of the legendary OpenZFS file system in an easy to use package. Available in two free and open-source software versions, TrueNAS also comes as a professionally-supported Enterprise solution when coupled with iXsystems branded hardware.
We wanted to update everyone on the progress of the TrueNAS 12.0 release train! In just four weeks, more than 20,000 systems have been upgraded to TrueNAS 12.0. The feedback on performance and feature improvements has been excellent. TrueNAS 12.0-U1 has entered development code-freeze and is now entering its final QA cycle for availability in early December.
TrueNAS 12.0 RELEASE was made available yesterday (October 20, 2020), and with it, TrueNAS CORE and TrueNAS Enterprise are now ready for production deployments. The merger of FreeNAS and TrueNAS into a unified software image is now officially complete and has become a production-ready platform right on schedule.
TrueNAS has long supported disaster recovery (DR) scenarios. This blog attempts to address the various types of supported DR scenarios and their related workflows. TrueNAS is a storage platform with powerful ways to ensure data integrity and consistency between local and remote sites. ZFS replication is the fastest and best way to ensure the data transferred is intact. Rsync is useful for file sync but cannot be used for live data or block-level data that could change during transfer. Cloud sync supports user workloads that archive to or from mainstream cloud providers.
TrueNAS 12.0 BETA2 is now available for testing with almost no functional changes, but it is up to 30% faster for many use cases! Minor BETA1 issues have been fixed and several performance improvements to ZFS, SMB, iSCSI, and NFS have been integrated. Given the number and importance of those performance improvements, this release was called BETA2. Snapshot your pool, backup your data, and try it out!
We were very fortunate to have Jim Salter of Ars Technica review the TrueNAS 12.0 BETA1 release as the “easy mode for ZFS”. We expected a tough and thorough review of TrueNAS CORE and that’s what we got. It’s also a very educational review, so we heartily recommend it to both existing FreeNAS and new TrueNAS users who are looking to use TrueNAS CORE.
We are excited to announce that TrueNAS CORE (12.0) BETA has hit both the target date and our quality goals. The BETA release has completed two full cycles of QA (the same as FreeNAS 11.3 RC1) and testing from almost 1,000 users. There are no high priority issues and we can now recommend that the Community can upgrade their FreeNAS 11.3 systems and start their TrueNAS 12.0 testing. Snapshot your pool, backup your data, and try it out now!
The iXsystems Engineering Team looked at the choices and decided that TrueNAS being multi-OS, was the right solution. It was better than picking one OS for all TrueNAS products and having to make major tradeoffs with respect to stability, continuity, market reach, and innovation. The modularity, stability, and simplicity of FreeBSD are well known as it integrates well with ZFS and is well suited to the Open Storage business model that TrueNAS uses. We also wanted to be more inclusive, broadening our community by inviting users and developers that are familiar with Linux.
After countless hours of tweaking and refining the TrueNAS shark fin logo, we ended up with a new logo to represent the concept of open storage. Without further ado, we’re proud to unveil the monochrome version of the new TrueNAS CORE, TrueNAS Enterprise, and TrueNAS SCALE logos, we’ve lovingly dubbed “the shark tanks” or “shark boxes”.
The Shelter-in-Place restrictions are hugely impactful on many businesses and employees. Thankfully, one of the major benefits of Open Source infrastructure is that it provides these impacted organizations with an avenue to keep budgets under control. Open Source enables businesses to be agile and control costs, whether they are growing or shrinking through an economic downturn. It is our mission at iXsystems to empower our customers through Open Source infrastructure and economics.
Veteran technology writer Jim Salter wrote an excellent guide on the ZFS file system’s features and performance that we absolutely had to share. There’s plenty of information in the article for ZFS newbies and advanced users alike. Be sure to check out the article over at Ars Technica to learn more about ZFS concepts including pools, vdevs, datasets, snapshots, and replication, just to name a few.
