Core or Scale for my use case?

[VladTepes]

There have probably been a million posts like this, and I hope I'm posting in the right place, but in any event:

Given my my use case (below) would I be better of with TN Core or TN Scale?

My main uses will be
1a. Backup of windows machine
1b. Backup of documents, photos, video projects, website projects.
2. Media Server (most likely Plex)
3 (maybe) Steam games library
4. (if possible) PiHole - this isn't essential though as I can always use a Pi ;)

From my research so far I'm thinking Core is my best option? I'm happy to be educated otherwise though.

Thanks in advance, lads and ladettes :)

 

[SweetAndLow]

I'm pretty sure you are going to want scale, if you are planning on running services scale is going to have better support

 

[danb35]

tl;dr: either would likely work well for you.

CORE is, at least in theory, the more stable piece of software. It's been around for a long time, it's pretty well feature-complete, and what it does, it does pretty well. For your stated uses:

• 1a and 1b, it presents a SMB file share; anything that can back up to one of those will be able to back up to CORE. There's also a variety of software you can run using a plugin or otherwise that can serve this purpose, depending on exactly how you want to do the backup--Nextcloud is one popular one.
• Plex runs fine in a jail; lots of us have been doing that for a long time. IIRC, there are a few features that aren't present on the FreeBSD version compared to the Linux version, but I don't recall what they are. Emby also runs just fine; I haven't played with LMS or Jellyfin.
• No idea about running a Steam games library on CORE.
• Pi-Hole runs well in a small Linux VM, which again runs well on CORE.

SCALE is the relatively new kid on the block, runs on Linux vs. FreeBSD, and is supposed to add a number of features which don't quite seem to have materialized yet. Being Linux, it doesn't use FreeBSD jails, but rather Docker containers by way of Helm charts. But since Linux is lots more popular with the rest of the world than FreeBSD, that tends to mean that software availability and compatibility will be better. Of the specific things you mention, I don't see that it would do much for you that CORE won't, with the possible exception of the Steam library. But rather than using a VM for Pi-Hole, you'd run it as an App in a docker container, which is a point-and-click thing in the GUI.

Subjectively, it feels like iX are leaving CORE to die on the vine; it's looking like all the new development effort is going into SCALE with none of it (even GUI features which you'd think would be easy to move over) making its way back into CORE.

So the bottom line is that either would likely do what you've said you need to do, and probably do it about equally well. Individual application software (e.g., Plex) is likely to be a little more up-to-date under SCALE than CORE (and for some reason people seem to feel a pathological need to keep Plex up to date). But it does seem that SCALE is going to see more active support from iX going forward.

 

[VladTepes]

Surely they'll continue to develop/support Core given that Enterprise is also built on FreeBSD.

Does Scale allow backups etc the same way as Core (ie SMB shares)?


Maybe my best bet is:
1. Get existing machine up and running.
2. Upgrade to current stable version of CORE. (i.e. update from FreeNAS 11.3)
3. Then look at potentially migrating from Core to Scale. (assuming that's possible)

 

[danb35]

Surely they'll continue to develop/support Core given that Enterprise is also built on FreeBSD.

Maybe. But when? When is any of the new GUI from SCALE, for example, going to make it to CORE?

Does Scale allow backups etc the same way as Core (ie SMB shares)?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this question--are you asking if SCALE does SMB sharing? Yes, of course it does. The core NAS functionality is pretty much the same between the two products.

Then look at potentially migrating from Core to Scale. (assuming that's possible)

It's supposed to be possible, though it hasn't worked for me as yet.

 

[twyrick]

As a counter-argument, perhaps? I've been running TrueNAS CORE since it came out (and FreeNAS before it), and I run a Plex server, a NextCloud server, and a HomeBridge (allows smart home devices to work with Apple HomeKit when they don't natively support it). I back up 2 Macs onto SMB shares via "Time Machine" to it as well, and have an SMB "data" share of 2TB or so that's just available to any computer on my network that might need it for a storage target.

I just learned about SCALE recently and it sounds great to me. But CORE has been meeting my needs just fine, once I got it all properly configured for what I wanted to do. The one thing I can tell you is if you want to run NextCloud? Either look at SCALE for that, or make sure your TrueNAS CORE box has enough RAM to run a virtual machine well. I run my NextCloud as a "snap" in Ubuntu Linux running in a VM. When I tried to do it in a BSD jail, it was *very* trouble-prone and limited in functionality. (NextCloud's ability to allow group document editing relies on a library that doesn't exist in BSD, but does in Linux.)

I'm not sure about running a Steam games library from TrueNAS either, except to say I know the Steam client lets you edit the folder paths it uses for the game installation. So in theory, all you have to do is make sure your PC has a mapped network drive to an SMB share on the TrueNAS for that purpose. In practical daily use though? Your results may vary. I say that because I know at least with the Mac Steam client, I used to change its default folder to an external (USB attached) hard drive for the games and it would occasionally forget the setting and revert to only looking in the default location for them. (Typically happened after a Steam client update.)

 

[danb35]

NextCloud's ability to allow group document editing relies on a library that doesn't exist in BSD, but does in Linux

I think you're thinking of an application, specifically Collabora (or CODE), which is now available in BSD.

 

[twyrick]

I think you're thinking of an application, specifically Collabora (or CODE), which is now available in BSD.

I was, and that's good to know!

In any case? I can still say I highly recommend NextCloud as a "snap" in Ubuntu. It does automatic updates as new NextCloud releases come out with zero effort on my part. (The snap image contains all the related applications NextCloud uses, so it keeps all of that stuff consistent, etc.)

I guess the BSD Jail NextCloud plug-in would do that too, in theory. But that would rely on somebody regularly maintaining it, which never really happened the whole time I was attempting to use it.

 

[danb35]

I guess the BSD Jail NextCloud plug-in would do that too, in theory.

Maybe. I never trusted the plugin, though, which is why I wrote this:

GitHub - danb35/freenas-iocage-nextcloud: Script to create an iocage jail on FreeNAS for the latest Nextcloud 28 release, including Caddy, MariaDB or PostgreSQL, and Let's Encrypt

Script to create an iocage jail on FreeNAS for the latest Nextcloud 28 release, including Caddy, MariaDB or PostgreSQL, and Let's Encrypt - danb35/freenas-iocage-nextcloud

github.com

...which has resulted in one of the longest discussion threads here:

Scripted installation of Nextcloud 28 in iocage jail

It seems like there are lot of guides here on installing Nextcloud, and a number of people reporting problems with many of them. So, I figured, why not write another one? The difference between this method and the others is that this method employs a script to create the jail, install all the...

www.truenas.com

 

[VladTepes]

Thanks all :)