TrueNAS SCALE 21.04 makes its Debut

[ornias]

If you honestly believe I think this way..go read my posts on this subject. I have never implied that..

You did.

i have questioned why this basic functionality wasn't considered from the beginning...

Because TrueNAS is a storage appliance that never supported this.
It's also super weird and niche to demand to be able to run a storage appliance that bases its storage on... yet another storage appliance.

 

[hescominsoon]

You did.


Because TrueNAS is a storage appliance that never supported this.
It's also super weird and niche to demand to be able to run a storage appliance that bases its storage on... yet another storage appliance.

scale isn't a storage appliance...
no i did not..I asked a question why this basic functionality isn't included..which by extension would mean the middleware functionality would be written..i never said the middleware would write itself.

 

[Ericloewe]

scale isn't a storage appliance..

Respectfully, I must disagree. It's part of the name. TrueNAS. NAS. Network-Attached Storage.

In any case, the matter should be clear now. iSCSI initiator functionality is on the radar, but not a priority. I agree it would be cool, but let's keep things in perspective: TrueNAS Scale has an ambitious timeline, and cramming in every single feature is not realistic.

 

[ornias]

scale isn't a storage appliance...

Telling yourself that, doesn't make it true.
Its generally accepted and explained a lot on the forums that TrueNAS is an Applicance OS.

 

[hescominsoon]

Respectfully, I must disagree. It's part of the name. TrueNAS. NAS. Network-Attached Storage.

In any case, the matter should be clear now. iSCSI initiator functionality is on the radar, but not a priority. I agree it would be cool, but let's keep things in perspective: TrueNAS Scale has an ambitious timeline, and cramming in every single feature is not realistic.

Telling yourself that, doesn't make it true.
Its generally accepted and explained a lot on the forums that TrueNAS is an Applicance OS.

once the moderator jumped in i was going to let this lie.

The name doesn't always mean what you think it does. functionality does. I would not personally use SCALE as my core storage on a network..that's what TNC is for IMO. TNS(as i'll refer to it now) is a virtualization platform that can scale it's local storage out. That's the base functionality of TNS from what I see. You CAN use TNS as a pseudo replacement for TNC but there is functionality within TNC that is not present within TNS(which i have brought up). I am not saying TNS is a bad product...but I can see now it is not going to fit my use case for a hypervisor. I personally will move to something else...:)

 

[headwhacker]

While I also have a use case and would like to see iscsi initiatiator to be supported in TrueNAS SCALE (or in CORE) I get it why this is not a priority feature.
TrueNAS SCALE is still a storage appliance first and everything else second.

I do not fully grasp yet how SCALE will end up eventually when it moves over to a stable/released state, but what I am trying to achieve is 2 TrueNAS server. 1 primary and the other is a backup. The backup will become the primary host to host my VMs. Hence, where I see it being an iSCSI client and the primary TNS being the target.

But I imagine SCALE in a full cluster setup will make what I'm thinking somewhat irrelevant. Where VMs can move around on any node in the cluster and data will have redundancy via the cluster setup.

 

[ornias]

...

It's fine to hold opinions, but seeing TrueNAS as something other than a Storage Appliance OS is causing an insane amount of issues on the forum already. It's not just "debian with a GUI" it's a self-contained appliance based on debian.

TNS has a featureset that is basically TNC + Containers + kvm instead of behyve - jails
So I don't get why TNC would be more or less of a storage appliance than TNS would be.

there is functionality within TNC that is not present within TNS(which i have brought up)

The only thing you complained about is the lack of iSCSI initiator, which I don't think is a supported part of TNC either.

 

[hescominsoon]

It's fine to hold opinions, but seeing TrueNAS as something other than a Storage Appliance OS is causing an insane amount of issues on the forum already. It's not just "debian with a GUI" it's a self-contained appliance based on debian.

TNS has a featureset that is basically TNC + Containers + kvm instead of behyve - jails
So I don't get why TNC would be more or less of a storage appliance than TNS would be.



The only thing you complained about is the lack of iSCSI initiator, which I don't think is a supported part of TNC either.

TNC doesn't require an initiator for my use case as TNC isn't a hypervisor host. TNS by design..as I mentioned can be a pseudo replacement for TNC but I would not use it as a NAS as that is not the primary function of TNS regardless of the name. As I have said TNS will not fit my use case going forward...no worries..I will look for something else that does...:)

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

TNC doesn't require an initiator for my use case as TNC isn't a hypervisor host.

The two dozen or so VMs I run productively on TNC strongly disagree.

I still wonder what people are missing in TNC. I read so many postings going "finally we will be getting KVM which is so much better than bhyve", yet always fail to mention what precisely their problems are.

 

[hescominsoon]

The two dozen or so VMs I run productively on TNC strongly disagree.

I still wonder what people are missing in TNC. I read so many postings going "finally we will be getting KVM which is so much better than bhyve", yet always fail to mention what precisely their problems are.

Look in jira for libvirt...also search libvirt in google. Livevert has been problematic and BSD for quite some time it's also why a lot of us are looking beyond beehive because it's networking stack tends to be unstable in some cases like mine where I can't keep it from disconnecting from its own internal network.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

it's networking stack tends to be unstable in some cases like mine where I can't keep it from disconnecting from its own internal network.

So the client's VirtIO network device gets disconnected? Or the bhyve tap interface loses connectivity to the bridge? I never had a single instance of something like this happening. And I run bhyve since the release that must not be named. Ubuntu, Windows, FreeBSD ...

I will look into JIRA - and research what precisely libvirt is in the first place. Never cared much about the fundamentals as long as my VMs worked.

Thanks.

 

[marshalleq]

For years I've been wishing FreeNAS just had that little bit extra so I could move away from Unraid. Unraid is apparently getting some of the features like ZFS, but I seriously doubt it will be as polished as what has been achieved by TrueNAS scale. I've really missed the solid engine room behind a basic server that Unraid does leave a bit to be desired. Things like proper backups, user accounts, integration with ZFS scrubbing. I've tried Proxmox, but the lack of docker is a no go for me. I know it can be run in a VM, but there are some challenges with that when it comes to automating snapshots etc.

So, long story short, I came here thinking I'd chuck this on my test system and be ready to migrate across, but - then I realised this may actually end up being something that I have to pay serious money for, so I think I'll wait and see. Hopefully they make a free edition just like what Freenas has had. Loving what has been done so far on SCALE though!

 

[morganL]

For years I've been wishing FreeNAS just had that little bit extra so I could move away from Unraid. Unraid is apparently getting some of the features like ZFS, but I seriously doubt it will be as polished as what has been achieved by TrueNAS scale. I've really missed the solid engine room behind a basic server that Unraid does leave a bit to be desired. Things like proper backups, user accounts, integration with ZFS scrubbing. I've tried Proxmox, but the lack of docker is a no go for me. I know it can be run in a VM, but there are some challenges with that when it comes to automating snapshots etc.

So, long story short, I came here thinking I'd chuck this on my test system and be ready to migrate across, but - then I realised this may actually end up being something that I have to pay serious money for, so I think I'll wait and see. Hopefully they make a free edition just like what Freenas has had. Loving what has been done so far on SCALE though!

TrueNAS SCALE is free just like FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. It works on roughly the same hardware... until you want cluster systems and need more bandwidth between nodes.

 

[marshalleq]

Is there any documentation that shows that it's definitely going to be free? Now that you mention it I actually think I might have seen it. In which case I'll be jumping in tomorrow and installing it on my test box, with the aim to get it running on my prod box. It sounds like it's pretty stable right now - I already have ZFS so hopefully it migrates straight across for most of it. Super excited to potentially finally have something I can rely on for the basics.

 

[morganL]

Is there any documentation that shows that it's definitely going to be free? Now that you mention it I actually think I might have seen it. In which case I'll be jumping in tomorrow and installing it on my test box, with the aim to get it running on my prod box. It sounds like it's pretty stable right now - I already have ZFS so hopefully it migrates straight across for most of it. Super excited to potentially finally have something I can rely on for the basics.

Its in the 1st line of the web page: https://www.truenas.com/truenas-scale/

 

[marshalleq]

LOL, that's embarrassing! Thanks for your help - installing now.

 

[ornias]

LOL, that's embarrassing! Thanks for your help - installing now.

While technically all features are opensource and accessable for free either in GUI or CLI.
The storage-clustering (gluster) UI (which is quite tightly related to SCALE) is integrated into TrueCommand, which requires a license above 50 drives.

 

[marshalleq]

I don't really envision having more than 50 drives lol. I just use a NAS to store important photographs and things and contribute back to the community and learn something really. But I probably do have nearly 20 if I count them all up - greedy me, but lots of them are smaller SSD's.

 

[kian1991]

I would love to upgrade from my current CORE install. But I wonder if I can later easily update from this last alpha to the next beta stage of scale?
Also when updating from core to scale is there already some guide or Sth (to keep my pools)
I remember reading somewhere that I need to export and import the pools is that true?
keep it up guys :)

 

[marshalleq]

I would love to upgrade from my current CORE install. But I wonder if I can later easily update from this last alpha to the next beta stage of scale?
Also when updating from core to scale is there already some guide or Sth (to keep my pools)
I remember reading somewhere that I need to export and import the pools is that true?
keep it up guys :)

There is a step by step on here I saw for coming from FreeNAS, you should be able to find it if you search. I just came in from Unraid and my ZFS drives imported fine. And when I say imported, there's not a file with config to import per se, it's more like a scan to see what's there and it imports from there. I have also seen guys come in from Freenas to unraid and import their drives into unraid without issue. I suspect you'll be fine. You could also just give it a go by installing to a USB stick temporarily if you want to prove it.