Obi-Wan
Dabbler
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2018
- Messages
- 17
The title probably comes off as whiny, I don't mean it to, but I didn't find a different way to word it.
I'm new to FreeNAS and NAS/Networking/Storage/Backup/etc. in general. I'm learning a lot fairly quickly, but there are many things and terms that I still don't understand. I'm fully aware that there is a lot of stuff that I don't know and that I need to spend a lot of time learning, I can't expect anyone or any single document to hand me everything on a silver platter.
Still, when I search around the forums I often see people referring others to the User Guide. This often makes sense if you are wondering about how to do something, but I generally find it makes very little sense when wondering about what something is or how something works.
What prompted me to write this post was that I was thinking about setting up snapshots. Again, the User Guide can tell me how to do this, but I'm not able to read from the guide what these snapshots actually are and how they work. To me this seems like very useful information!
After searching around a bit I found this post and this post that more or less explain how they work. In one of them danb35 complains he has seen other threads about misconceptions around snapshots as well. So why isn't this information in the User Guide? Is it supposed to be more of a cookbook?
I understand that things take time and know full well from my own job that writing documentation isn't exactly top priority. But for me, as a complete stranger in this new field, the User Guide comes off as lacking, and this makes me wonder if it is so on purpose. Not that it is lacking on purpose, but that it doesn't contain this kind of descriptive general information on purpose. Perhaps because most FreeNAS users are not complete newbies like myself? I don't know.
Again, I don't want to complain about the User Guide, I just really feel like I'm missing something! (Which, admittely, could just be experience!)
I'm new to FreeNAS and NAS/Networking/Storage/Backup/etc. in general. I'm learning a lot fairly quickly, but there are many things and terms that I still don't understand. I'm fully aware that there is a lot of stuff that I don't know and that I need to spend a lot of time learning, I can't expect anyone or any single document to hand me everything on a silver platter.
Still, when I search around the forums I often see people referring others to the User Guide. This often makes sense if you are wondering about how to do something, but I generally find it makes very little sense when wondering about what something is or how something works.
What prompted me to write this post was that I was thinking about setting up snapshots. Again, the User Guide can tell me how to do this, but I'm not able to read from the guide what these snapshots actually are and how they work. To me this seems like very useful information!
After searching around a bit I found this post and this post that more or less explain how they work. In one of them danb35 complains he has seen other threads about misconceptions around snapshots as well. So why isn't this information in the User Guide? Is it supposed to be more of a cookbook?
I understand that things take time and know full well from my own job that writing documentation isn't exactly top priority. But for me, as a complete stranger in this new field, the User Guide comes off as lacking, and this makes me wonder if it is so on purpose. Not that it is lacking on purpose, but that it doesn't contain this kind of descriptive general information on purpose. Perhaps because most FreeNAS users are not complete newbies like myself? I don't know.
Again, I don't want to complain about the User Guide, I just really feel like I'm missing something! (Which, admittely, could just be experience!)
