Staying with FreeNAS or moving to TrueNAS?

I'm considering a move to TrueNAS 12...

  • I have already, without regret.

    Votes: 19 70.4%
  • I have already, but wish I'd delayed my decision.

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Some time in 2021

    Votes: 7 25.9%
  • Not before 2022

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .
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According to this thread TrueNAS 12.0 Schedule from @Kris Moore, TrueNAS 12 is now ready for mission-critical applications. I find myself at a crossroad atm. FreeBSD 11.3 is EOL, I'm still on 11.3 for production systems, with jails on 11.3, but with a couple of 11.4 dependencies (see this post). I've been running 12 on a test system. I'm aware of a cross-section of the community on 11.3 with jails on 11.4. I understand the risk of this is breakages. Still, others have made the move to 12, but a look through recent forum posts suggests there are a few issues in 12 that don't exist in 11.3.

I'm keen to understand forum members' views on whether they're planning to stay put with FreeNAS a while longer, or, the plan is to make the move to TrueNAS if they haven't already. I've set up a poll to gauge where the majority of the community sits on this. I'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to indicate your position in this poll. Voting is completely anonymous, however, if you decide to comment, you'll likely lose your anonymity.
 
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Samuel Tai

Never underestimate your own stupidity
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The only issues I've encountered personally have been cosmetic. However, there've been enough new release issues that were I to do it over again, I'd wait for U3 instead of upgrading at U1, which had the high priority data-loss bug with ACoW.
 

ThreeDee

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my minimalist setup with just a few samba shares, Plex and Ubiquiti UniFi controller in a couple jails has been trouble free since I installed 12 RC1
 
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The only issues I've encountered personally have been cosmetic. However, there've been enough new release issues that were I to do it over again, I'd wait for U3 instead of upgrading at U1, which had the high priority data-loss bug with ACoW.
Looks like the thread I quoted in the OP is out-of-date. For those on the cusp of migrating to 12, refer to the 12.2-U2 release notes, which also supports @Samuel Tai's point of view. For those interested in understanding the ACoW issue, start with this thread.

I'll keep the poll running for a week. So far, the trend is encouraging.
 

Heracles

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No plugins here : only pure storage. iSCSI to ESXi 6.7 U3 and NFS for Atlas. Replication target only for the others. I did not updated the pool's flags yet but I will do it next time I do some maintenance.

I ended up with a dead middlewared service, but it was not too bad to re-start it manually (my own thread about it...)

In this other thread, I detail the first part of my process.

Good luck with your own move,
 

Samuel Tai

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ChrisRJ

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@Basil Hendroff , to turn things around a little bit: What does TrueNAS provide over FreeNAS that would make the switch worthwhile for you? I know it is tempting to simply have the "latest and greatest", but since FreeNAS is by far the most critical system for me, I have decided to wait a bit longer.
 
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@Basil Hendroff , to turn things around a little bit: What does TrueNAS provide over FreeNAS that would make the switch worthwhile for you? I know it is tempting to simply have the "latest and greatest", but since FreeNAS is by far the most critical system for me, I have decided to wait a bit longer.
Good question. For some forum members, it will be about trialing the latest TrueNAS features and that's okay for non-production systems. For others, with production systems, it's more about risk mitigation. The longer you stay with an EOL release, the greater the risk of unpatched vulnerabilities and incompatible package dependencies on what has officially become an unsupported release. At the same time, as we've seen, migrating too early presents its own set of problems. The trick is trying to get a sense of when migrating is going to be less risky than staying put. I'm encouraged by earlier posts in this thread and get the feeling that 12.2-U3 is likely where I'll crossover.
 
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pschatz100

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Unless there is something mentioned in the release notes that is a "must have" for me, I don't upgrade more than two times per year. A week ago, I updated to 12.0-U2 without issue. With a major release, I usually wait for a U2 or U3 update and keep an eye on comments in the forum.
 
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The poll is closing today and the results as I write this are encouraging. In general, it appears TrueNAS has been well received. What the poll doesn't give any insight into is what proportion of TrueNAS systems are currently being used in mission-critical applications. I could be wrong, but if I were to hazard a guess, it would be that the group that is considering migrating to TrueNAS sometime in 2021 is more inclined to have such applications and that those, like @Heracles in the post above, who have already migrated would tend to be using TrueNAS for pure storage only.

poll.jpg
 

TAC

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Feb 16, 2014
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Updated to TrueNAS without a hitch. I put it off because I was scared but finally pulled the trigger and it was a total no brainer. :smile: Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, SABnzbd, etc. no pain what so ever.
 

TAC

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Looks like I need to update my signature file. :smile:
 
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Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, SABnzbd, etc. no pain what so ever.
Have you upgraded the jails as well as this does not automatically happen with the FreeNAS to TrueNAS upgrade? This is where things can get interesting and you need to proceed with caution. From what I've seen in the forum, plugin jails seem to more problematic than standard jails.
 
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