FreeNAS & TrueNAS Plans - 2020 and Beyond!

ornias

Wizard
Joined
Mar 6, 2020
Messages
1,458
Thank you for your reply.

I understand that in theory but in practice:

I can create a FreeNAS VM in libvirt and passthrough an LSI HBA, then create pool and use that for all other VM's on system, with no issue, forever and ever with months and month of uptime and never any errors, every few years the system sends me an email basically telling me to replace a drive.

If I create a VM and install TrueNas 12.0, I cannot create a storage pool on the same hardware with same configuration. I just get all kinds of errors. Sometimes I/O errors from the HBA card, and sometimes supposedly drives which work fine on 11.* are immediately Degraded in 12.*. I have never faced these kinds of challenges to this degree with any other beta or release.

It's still just a new release.
You might have all sorts of bad experiences, i'm not saying your not.
But both in theory AND in practice it's just a rename.

You just posted a thread about your issues and we, the community, didn't even get a chance to help you yet.
Still you start ranting about the product being at fault.

Are you really expecting us to be truely willing to help you with your issues, if you already started throwing conclusions in this thread?
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,776
Well, FreeNAS 11.3 is based on FreeBSD 11 while TrueNAS CORE is based on FreeBSD 12. That alone will of course cause regressions with respect to support of certain hardware and setups. But sticking with FreeNAS 11.x is not an option neither to iXsystems nor to us users. Because support for FreeBSD 11 is going to end. 11.3 is EOL, already. iXsystems decided (in my opinion rightfully so) to jump to FreeBSD 12 instead of 11.4 - which will most probably be the last release of FreeBSD 11.

If you base any product on an open source project like FreeBSD, you absolutely must track "upstream" or you will end up with some unsupported release. The situation is no different for Linux.

For example we all as users want TLS 1.3. TLS 1.3 is in FreeBSD 12, not FreeBSD 11 ... so?
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
You just posted a thread about your issues and we, the community, didn't even get a chance to help you yet.
Still you start ranting about the product being at fault.

Are you really expecting us to be truely willing to help you with your issues, if you already started throwing conclusions in this thread?

Nah not really. Though I see what you mean. I'm mainly just wondering on this thread how much time I reasonably have to work everything out. I have been trying with many systems. the thread I open was dealing with a specific system in particular. I'm not really ranting, I've no reason to expect anything from anyone. It just sounds like that because I'm at a bit of a loss and I'm not quite sure what to do, not that that is really anyone else's problem.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
Because support for FreeBSD 11 is going to end. 11.3 is EOL, already. iXsystems decided (in my opinion rightfully so) to jump to FreeBSD 12 instead of 11.4 - which will most probably be the last release of FreeBSD 11.

If you base any product on an open source project like FreeBSD, you absolutely must track "upstream" or you will end up with some unsupported release. The situation is no different for Linux.

For example we all as users want TLS 1.3. TLS 1.3 is in FreeBSD 12, not FreeBSD 11 ... so?
Right, well. Guess I'd better get my butt in gear then!
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
It's still just a new release.
It may be a bit early then to worry much. Hopefully it will all work out in due time, or I'll maybe I'll at least find a decent way to recycle all of my equipment after I order a fleet of systems running SCALE from ixsystems in Q3. :grin: :cool:
 

Patrick M. Hausen

Hall of Famer
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
7,776
Right, well. Guess I'd better get my butt in gear then!
You can count on this community to help you with any problem you can describe in some concise way - limited by our spare time, knowledge and ressources, of course. My point was that the update of the underlying OS from FreeBSD 11 to 12 is inevitable.
 

morganL

Captain Morgan
Administrator
Moderator
iXsystems
Joined
Mar 10, 2018
Messages
2,694
Right, well. Guess I'd better get my butt in gear then!
As the other posts have indicated, we have seen some issues with FreeBSD 12 drivers, particularly on less common or older hardware. if you have a chance to isolate the specific hardware providing issues, then there is a process of identifying the issue and seeing if the driver supplier can fix the issues. If the driver issues cannot be resolved with FreeBSD12 and TrueNAS CORE, then TrueNAS SCALE offers similar functionality with Linux drivers. It is not yet at the same maturity level, however.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
My point was that the update of the underlying OS from FreeBSD 11 to 12 is inevitable.
You're right, and for good reason. I just wasn't clear myself on how far along everything was, or how far behind I already am. Or more to the point I suppose if it is safe to assume yet that if something doesn't work now it never will.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
As the other posts have indicated, we have seen some issues with FreeBSD 12 drivers, particularly on less common or older hardware. if you have a chance to isolate the specific hardware providing issues, then there is a process of identifying the issue and seeing if the driver supplier can fix the issues. If the driver issues cannot be resolved with FreeBSD12 and TrueNAS CORE, then TrueNAS SCALE offers similar functionality with Linux drivers. It is not yet at the same maturity level, however.

I see. Are there any hardware guides yet for 12? Anything like this one I mean: https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/hardware-guide ? There seem to be a pretty big shift here and historically one of the great things about Freenas has been the amount of information available -- from both the community and ixsystems -- in regards to what works and what doesn't, i.e. "will it freenas?". I suppose as more and more enthusiasts and admins alike adopt 12 we will have a larger repertoire for it as well.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
If you're running it virtualized, hardware shouldn't matter, right? What hypervisor are you using?
KVM with Libvirt. DIY CLI Management.

qemu-system-x86_64

```
<os>
<type arch="x86_64" machine="pc-i440fx-3.1">hvm</type>
</os>
```
I use the i440FX chipset because the NIC's used to get real noisy on bsd VM's when using Q35. That may have changed by now of course, though come to think of it I did test that recently on a pfsense VM.
 
Last edited:

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
If you're running it virtualized, hardware shouldn't matter, right?
The HBA cards could matter. As far as the servers, most of my Dells are 14 Gen, which could hardly be considered ancient. Besides, I always test on metal as well, as that's the idea behind the passthrough.
 

danb35

Hall of Famer
Joined
Aug 16, 2011
Messages
15,504
The HBA cards could matter.
True. TN12 runs fine on KVM (though under Proxmox, not libvirt), at least in my testing, and that's on a 10+-year-old Dell. What HBA? LSI/Broadcom/Avago/whatever they're called now are well-supported,
 

morganL

Captain Morgan
Administrator
Moderator
iXsystems
Joined
Mar 10, 2018
Messages
2,694
I see. Are there any hardware guides yet for 12? Anything like this one I mean: https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/hardware-guide ? There seem to be a pretty big shift here and historically one of the great things about Freenas has been the amount of information available -- from both the community and ixsystems -- in regards to what works and what doesn't, i.e. "will it freenas?". I suppose as more and more enthusiasts and admins alike adopt 12 we will have a larger repertoire for it as well.
Exactly, you'll be able to tell us what doesn't work well.. or it will get fixed. Wait a few months and we'll find all the issues, but appreciate your help.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
Moderator
Joined
Feb 15, 2014
Messages
20,194
Dell Gen 14 servers often use LSI tri-mode adapters, although used only for SAS-SATA. I seem to recall the stock LSI ones being problematic around launch, driver-wise. Can you be more specific? 1st generation SAS3 stuff should be stable, but the 2nd generation tri-mode stuff is more of a wildcard.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
Dell Gen 14 servers often use LSI tri-mode adapters, although used only for SAS-SATA. I seem to recall the stock LSI ones being problematic around launch, driver-wise. Can you be more specific? 1st generation SAS3 stuff should be stable, but the 2nd generation tri-mode stuff is more of a wildcard.

The Dell 14's are all software/non raid AHCI mode. These cards were installed after market specifically for use with FreeNas. SAS2008 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 Controllers. I'll have to check the exact models on all the cards, though they aren't all the same. For instance most are the dual port and a few have an extra port out the back for expansion. We plug them directly into the backplane, of course.
 

Attachments

  • LSI.png
    LSI.png
    7.5 KB · Views: 463

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
Can you be more specific? 1st generation SAS3 stuff should be stable, but the 2nd generation tri-mode stuff is more of a wildcard.
If you want to recommend two or three specific pcie card models, I'd be happy to order them and test all three of them in the Dell 14th Gen of your choice, and report my findings, of course.
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
Still you start ranting about the product being at fault.
Most of the frustration comes from somewhere else. Centos8 was supposed to be supported for another 10 years, and RHEL discontinued CentOs altogether with very little notice. LOL I jumped prematurely from seven now I'm faced with a major upgrade and a platform change all at the same time!:oops:
 

inman.turbo

Contributor
Joined
Aug 27, 2019
Messages
149
One Last Question. Would it be considered safe, or a Good Idea by any stretch to stay with Freenas until TrueNas SCALE is stable and production ready? I mean, I will continue testing, but eventually I will likely be switching over to scale anyway so ... waiting helps me save a step. As far as pool features and data, I don't need to import pools: I have enough free resources I can always just rsync data to an upgraded pool. In other words upgrades don't need to be done "in place", so to speak. And I may just purchase them anyway, as it seems it may be feasible considering the density that could be available.
 
Top