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Fangtooth Unification Begins

14 February 2025 at 03:29
TrueNAS “Fangtooth” takes its first big step into the limelight with today’s release of TrueNAS 25.04-BETA. With new features for both Community and Enterprise users, TrueNAS 25.04 will offer an upgrade to SCALE 24.10 and CORE 13.x users alike – and the BETA release is ready for eager testers to explore the new feature set and improved performance of this unified code base.

TrueNAS Fangtooth,

The incredibly popular TrueNAS 24.10 release was used as the foundation for Fangtooth development. The latest release, TrueNAS 24.10.2, brings the integrated Docker support and significantly improved performance over TrueNAS 13.0 to a level where it is recommended for (and used by) the majority of the TrueNAS Community, with over 100,000 systems in operation today.

Performance, Security, and Scalability

Fangtooth unifies CORE and SCALE and introduces a number of new features to TrueNAS to improve performance, security, and scalability for users, including:

  • Upgraded Linux Kernel 6.12 with improved and extended hardware support
  • OpenZFS 2.3 with Fast Dedup for data reduction on flash systems
  • Massive RAID-Z expansion acceleration (by 5X)
  • iSCSI Block Cloning for faster VMware clusters and virtualization workloads
  • New! Instances Support – LXC containers (similar to Jails) & Virtualization via Incus
  • Experimental TrueNAS Versioned API for third-party application integration

For further details, see the Fangtooth introduction blog, the OpenZFS 2.3 feature highlights, and TrueNAS release notes on our Docs website.

Existing TrueCommand users should refrain from upgrading to the Fangtooth BETA at this time, as the current release of TrueCommand 3.0.2 does not yet support this. The upcoming TrueCommand 3.1 will add the ability to manage 25.04 systems, in addition to retaining backwards compatibility with other versions.

Enterprise-Specific Extensions

TrueNAS Enterprise appliances running 25.04 will also receive improved security and performance features designed for more intense Enterprise workloads:

  • Improved Security (GPOS STIG) with additional logging and auditing
  • iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER) and NFS over RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) improves latency and IOPS for many applications
  • Veeam Fast Clone for SMB backup acceleration
  • Fibre Channel support for SAN transitions and extended compatibility

For more information about these features and other Enterprise benefits, including up to 24×7 support, connect with a TrueNAS product specialist to discuss available options.

More Flexible Virtualization Options

In addition to the robust Apps catalog powered by Docker Compose, the BETA release of Fangtooth leverages the Incus manager to offer both lightweight Linux containers and powerful KVM virtualization in the same management interface.

Containers, like the Jails functionality offered in TrueNAS CORE, offer lightweight, efficient virtualization by sharing the host OS kernel, providing faster startup times and reduced resource usage compared to full virtual machines. When stronger isolation, kernel independence, or a different guest operating system entirely is desired, a VM can be deployed and configured. This functionality is still under significant development in 25.04-BETA, and is suggested for early adopters who are comfortable with this emerging feature.

Fangtooth Unification Goals

The transition to TrueNAS Community Edition will allow the TrueNAS engineering team to undertake faster development of new features, provide a common codebase, and unite the community under a single release that provides a superset of the functional capabilities of CORE and SCALE.

Over 100,000 TrueNAS users have already taken the first step of migrating to the unified environment, with the transition of the Apps ecosystem from Kubernetes in 24.04 to the more stable and user-friendly Docker Compose in 24.10 laying the foundation and making TrueNAS 24.10 the most popular version of TrueNAS today. Today’s launch of TrueNAS 25.04-BETA marks the next step in the process.

When Should I Update?

If you are deploying a new TrueNAS system, we recommend TrueNAS 24.10.2 for added functionality, broad hardware support, an expanded App catalog, better performance, and an improved Web UI, all of which make managing TrueNAS easier.

Current TrueNAS 13.x users looking for the new capabilities outlined above can upgrade to TrueNAS 24.10.2 anytime, preserving data and essential NAS functionality such as SMB, NFS, iSCSI, and VMs.

Following today’s release of TrueNAS 25.04-BETA, a Release Candidate will follow in March, with the official release of 25.04 in April 2025. By July 2025, Fangtooth will be recommended to Enterprise users and available by default on our TrueNAS Enterprise hardware.

For current software recommendations, always review the Software Status page for recommendations based on your profile.

Join the TrueNAS Community

Whether you’re looking to deploy TrueNAS 24.10 or help shape the future of TrueNAS 25.04, now is the perfect time to engage with our growing community. Download your copy of TrueNAS Community Edition today and join thousands of users already benefiting from True Data Freedom. Visit the TrueNAS Community Forums or connect with us on social media to share your experiences and insights.

The post Fangtooth Unification Begins appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

The TrueNAS H30 is the Swiss Army Knife of Storage

30 January 2025 at 11:40

Today, we’re capping off our TrueNAS H-series platform line with the upgraded TrueNAS H30. With support for 60 TB NVMe drives in each of its twelve bays and 100 GbE connectivity, the H30 delivers new levels of performance and capacity in the compact 2U storage market.

Powered by the newly released (TrueNAS 24.10.2) “Electric Eel” software and under active testing with the new TrueNAS 25.04 “Fangtooth” software, the H30 navigates effortlessly through a variety of enterprise workloads, from the edge of the cloud to the heart of your datacenter.

Like its H10 and H20 siblings, the H30 is a compact, low-power 2U platform designed for Edge workloads. With tri-mode technology to enable NVMe SSDs or SAS HDDs in each of its 12 bays, the H30 offers incredible advances in efficiency over previous-generation hardware, increasing performance and capacity by over 300%

H30_Release_Blog

All H-Series systems can be configured as either single controller or dual controller High Availability (HA) and offer expansion up to 114 drive bays in a 6U footprint. Upgrades from H10 and H20 to H30 can be done without data migration, and without downtime in HA systems. With network connectivity options from 1 Gbps through to 100 Gbps, the H30 is ready to be integrated into any network..

TrueNAS 24.10 delivers File, Block, Object, and Docker Apps services with HA using the highly reliable OpenZFS 2.3 as the unifying file system. 24.10 is now the most widely installed version of TrueNAS, with over 100,000 adopters in less than three months. The new TrueNAS H30 inherits all of the robust Electric Eel capabilities, including TrueSecure, with its federal FIPS 140 capabilities.

All TrueNAS platforms come with industry-leading Enterprise support, which is one of the highest rated on Gartner Peer Insights.

TrueNAS Fangtooth is preparing to enter its BETA release, adding several new capabilities to the TrueNAS H30 including:

  • 16 Gb and 32 Gb Fibre Channel for SAN migration
  • Fast Deduplication of NVMe flash storage for improved data reduction
  • Support for LXC containers and VMs through new Incus integration

Apps, Containers, and VMs enable TrueNAS storage systems to add new services, software. These can include MinIO, Nextcloud, backup software, and data migration tools like SyncThing. Integrating applications and storage reduces the cost, power, complexity, and space for Edge deployments like retail storefronts, and allow workloads with heavy IO demands to run directly adjacent to high-performance storage.

WIth tri-mode capability allowing NVMe, SAS SSD, or HDDs in its twelve integrated bays, and additional SAS expansion up to 114 bays, the TrueNAS H30 delivers a broad choice of storage media:

  • Hard Drives (HDDs) from 8 TB to 22 TB
    • Expansion from 12 Bays (2U) to 114 Bays (6U)
    • Max HDD Capacity: 2.5 PB + 100 TB Cache
  • NVMe Drives from 3.2 TB to 60 TB
    • Max NVMe Capacity: 720 TB + Dedup/Compression

Monster-sized NVMe SSDs have proven very popular for M&E companies looking to edit 8K videos and other content. These new 60 TB SSDs will enable even larger systems while increasing capacity-per-watt and per rack unit. Existing 30 TB SSDs have also proven to perform well for virtualization workloads. For customers with specific security requirements, self-encrypting and FIPS-compliant drives are available as well. To discuss available options in detail, contact a TrueNAS sales representative.

HDDs are growing in size more slowly than NVMe SSDs, but can still deliver 75% lower cost per usable terabyte. For backup, archive video surveillance, and other use cases, spinning disks still offer the best capacity per dollar. Unlike flash-only systems, TrueNAS can seamlessly back up and replicate flash to HDDs without any change in web UI or API. Each TrueNAS H30 can start with low-cost HDDs and add NVMe flash as performance is needed.

The TrueNAS H30 delivers 8-10 GB/s of all-NVMe performance and well over 100,000 IOPS for each primary protocol (iSCSI, NFS, SMB, S3) twice as fast as the H20, with 20 cores vs 10 cores and greater RAM capacity. Even with this high performance on tap, the H30 is energy-efficient, consuming approximately 400W when equipped with dual controllers.

TrueNAS F-Series Also Grows NVMe Capacity

For those looking for even more performance than the new H30, our all-NVMe F-Series delivers up to 4×100 Gbe performance. With 60 TB SSDs, the all-NVMe TrueNAS F-Series can accelerate even more data with up to 10 PB capacity in 14U. Both the TrueNAS F60 and F100 can be expanded with NVMe-powered expansion shelves with the same robust enclosure management support as traditional SAS expansion.

TrueNAS F100 with both Flash and HDD Expansion Shelves

TrueNAS F100 with both Flash and HDD Expansion Shelves

Ready When You Are

Talk to a TrueNAS sales representative if you need more information on any of our TrueNAS Enterprise systems. Our experts will match your use case requirements with the most cost-effective and future-proof platform. The H-Series platforms start from under $10,000 and grow based on performance and capacity needs.

The latest release of TrueNAS 24.10.2 is available now and is ready to download or update from the Web UI.

Monitor the Software Status page to see when your use case aligns with the updated version. When you’re ready, join the 100,000+ users already powering up with Electric Eel, and don’t forget to stop by the TrueNAS Forums to share your knowledge and experience.

Join today and help others unlock the power of True Data Freedom with TrueNAS.

The post The TrueNAS H30 is the Swiss Army Knife of Storage appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

TrueNAS “Electric Eel” Shines Brightly

30 January 2025 at 08:49

Following the highly successful initial release and first update of “Electric Eel” (24.10) the TrueNAS team is excited to announce the availability of the TrueNAS 24.10.2 update, downloadable from truenas.com/truenas-community-edition/ or within your existing TrueNAS system.

TrueNAS 24.10.2 provides over 120 bug fixes and delivers Enterprise-grade quality. It is also the basis for the all-new TrueNAS H30.

With this update, TrueNAS 24.10 “Electric Eel” will become the recommended stable version for our Mission-Critical users, as well as the shipping version of TrueNAS on new Enterprise storage appliances. For recommendations on when to update your system, visit the Software Status page.

The high quality of the predecessor (TrueNAS 24.10.1) is evident in the rapid adoption and its popularity with TrueNAS users. It is easily  the most commonly used TrueNAS version. With over 100,000 early adopters in a 12-week release period, 24.10 is the most popular TrueNAS release ever, and with good reason – it’s packed with several long-anticipated features like:

  • Docker Compose for simplified, containerized apps
  • RAIDZ Expansion for added flexibility in growing capacity
  • Updated WebUI with Global Search to help you get more done with fewer clicks
  • Customizable Dashboard Widgets for your most important information at a glance
  • NVMe enablement for H-Series for even more capacity and performance options
  • Improved Performance for all TrueNAS systems

Electric Eel is a great foundation for building the next TrueNAS release, Fangtooth, which will enter its first BETA in February. Fangtooth will be a unifying release for TrueNAS SCALE and TrueNAS CORE. This version introduces Incus support for LXC containers, further improves flexibility around IP addressing for Apps, and delivers several additional functionality and performance boosts. Further details will be made available before the BETA version.

Refined to Enterprise-Grade with Over 120 Improvements

TrueNAS 24.10.2 adds Enterprise-grade quality to the “Electric Eel” release, with over 120 bug fixes and improvements in the update. With this release, we expect many of our Enterprise customers who want to leverage the features to add to the growing numbers.

Major fixes include more robust support for updates with NVIDIA GPUs and fixing compatibility of the SED (disk encryption) utilities for encrypted pool upgrades from CORE to SCALE.

Introducing the TrueNAS H30

Our versatile TrueNAS H-Series is the perfect Edge vehicle for delivering the power of TrueNAS in a compact (2U), power-efficient package, and with SAS/NVMe storage options on all twelve bays.

H10_Front

Designed for the demanding Edge environments, the TrueNAS H30 is the big brother of the H10 and H20, with twice the Cores, RAM, Flash capacity, and performance. As the first TrueNAS appliance with support for 60 TB NVMe drives, the H30 offers up to 720 TB of NVMe storage in 2U for all-flash solutions. With 20 cores and 256 GB of RAM, the new H30 delivers over 8 GB/s and supports a combination of NVMe and HDD pools. More information is available in a separate blog.

Want to learn more about how the TrueNAS H30 fits into your organization? Contact us to speak to a product specialist, and find out how to harness the power of open source storage.

True Data Freedom Awaits

This updated version, TrueNAS 24.10.2, has been released and is ready to download or update from the Web UI.

Monitor the Software Status page to see when your use case aligns with the updated version. When ready, join the tens of thousands of users already powering up with Electric Eel, and share your experience on the TrueNAS Forums.

Join today and help others unlock the power of True Data Freedom with TrueNAS!

The post TrueNAS “Electric Eel” Shines Brightly appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

Fangtooth Unifies the TrueNAS Community

8 January 2025 at 06:37

The Fangtooth is a deep sea fish with two outsized teeth, the largest of any ocean fish in proportion to their body. It’s also the code name for the next version of TrueNAS, the successor to the very successful TrueNAS Electric Eel.

For TrueNAS, the two teeth of the Fangtooth fish represent CORE and SCALE, combining together with the goal of unifying both CORE and SCALE versions into the common TrueNAS Community Edition (CE). TrueNAS “Fangtooth” will be an upgrade for both SCALE 24.10 and CORE 13.x users, introducing new features for both Community and Enterprise users.

TrueNAS Fangtooth (aka TrueNAS 25.04) nightly images are available for developers, and the BETA1 version is expected to be ready in February. Bug fixes, feature updates, and ongoing polishing will continue until the targeted release date in April 2025.

TrueNAS Fangtooth

Where TrueNAS Began Its Swim

TrueNAS CORE is the original successor of FreeNAS based on the FreeBSD Operating System. With the introduction of TrueNAS SCALE in 2022, modern Linux capabilities were introduced to TrueNAS, enabling adoption by a much larger and still rapidly growing community.

We were realistic that SCALE would not be as mature and polished as CORE for many software versions, so SCALE was initially created as a fork of CORE, with each version continuing their development, bug fixes and security updates independently. CORE 13.x has been in sustaining mode for the last 18 months and received its latest major update in November, to reach 13.0-U6.

Achieving Parity and Building Upon Success

As of October 2024, roughly equal numbers of SCALE and CORE users exist. SCALE is continuing to grow at a rapid rate, having doubled in system count over the past year, and CORE is declining slowly as users migrate to SCALE.

TrueNAS 24.04 “Dragonfish” achieved parity in storage quality with 13.x, and 24.10 “Electric Eel” added a better Apps infrastructure based on Docker while retaining all the storage quality benefits. With OpenZFS features such as RAIDZ expansion and improved performance, 24.10 is now superior in many dimensions to 13.x and has the most users of any release. We expect TrueNAS SCALE 24.10.1 will see even higher adoption among Enterprise users.

However, there are a few capabilities (discussed later) in CORE that Electric Eel does not provide. Fangtooth addresses these issues and enables it to be the upgrade path for both CORE and SCALE users alike. Fangtooth is the new, unified Community Edition.

The benefits of re-unification will be enormous for the community, both users and developers. Before the end of 2025, we expect the following to be true:

Most TrueNAS users will be on Fangtooth. The community experience will be streamlined, benefiting users by allowing them to share a common software base.

New features and security patches will be on a single, unified TrueNAS version, simplifying the process for users and developers. Features, APIs, and UIs will not diverge. Engineering, quality assurance, and support resources will ensure that the common version meets all users’ functional and stability needs.

The TrueNAS community will be larger, and satisfaction with the software and documentation will be higher. The TrueNAS business will also get stronger with increased resources and accelerated new features.

TrueNAS Fangtooth

Fangtooth Bridges the Feature Gap

Fangtooth not only unifies CORE and SCALE, but also introduces a variety of new features to TrueNAS that improve performance, security, and scalability for both users and developers. The most notable of these new capabilities are:

TrueNAS Versioned API:  This allows third parties to use APIs to control TrueNAS, knowing that future versions of TrueNAS will honor the same API schemas. TrueNAS can evolve and improve in a more organized manner, allowing external tools to run with longer stability. Future versions of TrueCommand can more easily maintain better system longevity. User-Linked API Tokens are also included to provide secure and restricted management.

Fast Dedup: This feature is experimental in Electric Eel and is undergoing additional testing to be ready for production use. The significant reduction in storage media costs can benefit many use cases.

iSCSI Block Cloning:  Virtualization solutions can benefit from using iSCSI XCOPY commands to efficiently and rapidly copy data.

Upgraded Containerization & Virtualization: TrueNAS further improves its virtualization capabilities with the integration of Incus support, and an upgraded WebUI with support for native LXC containers.

Upgraded Linux Kernel: By upgrading to Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, Fangtooth will have updated support for new hardware. This will be an advantage for both CORE and SCALE users upgrading their hardware.

Apps with Configurable IP addresses: Apps in Electric Eel use TrueNAS’s host IP address. Fangtooth enables IP alias addresses to be created and assigned to one or more Apps.

Fangtooth bridges the gap between CORE and SCALE by bringing features new to SCALE users, but equivalent to CORE 13.x features.

LXC Containers:  LXC is the next generation of Linux Sandbox and a natural evolution for those coming from FreeBSD Jails. These will also be managed via Incus and provide  a consistent UI for LXC and  traditional VMs. Like Jails, there is efficient use of RAM and the ability to allocate a separate IP address. Within an LXC, there can be a full Linux instance and a Docker/Kubernetes engine. Tools like Dockge and Portainer can be used. You can see an early demonstration of the Incus management in TrueNAS on the TrueNAS Tech Talk (T3) Podcast – Episode 8

Fangtooth takes TrueNAS Enterprise appliances to the next level with features enabling Enterprises to build more secure, scalable, and performant solutions:

Improved Security (STIG): Additional work on logging and auditing will take TrueNAS to the next level in government security compliance and robustness.

NFS over RDMA: The performance needs of applications increase with data size, compute speed, and cluster size. NFS over RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) increases bandwidth and CPU efficiency on clients and the TrueNAS systems.

Veeam Fast Clone: Veeam data movers can use SMB COPY commands to accelerate specific actions and improve general performance. TrueNAS is working with Veeam to better integrate solutions for Enterprise users.

Fibre Channel: FC storage has been supported on Enterprise 13.x for over 5 years, and with its addition to Fangtooth, Enterprise users not only have a migration and upgrade path, but existing customers searching for Fibre Channel storage for their existing SAN will be able to choose from our full line of solutions, including the powerful TrueNAS F-Series.  The same LUNs can be accessed via FC or iSCSI and backed up through True Cloud backup.

Systems upgraded from CORE to Fangtooth will also be more secure and perform better. Most users prefer the modernized UI and the addition of the global UI search capability. More information on Fangtooth will be made available prior to the BETA.

When Should I Migrate?

If you are deploying a new TrueNAS system, we recommend TrueNAS SCALE 24.10 for added functionality, vastly broader hardware support, an expanded App catalog, better performance on most workloads, and an improved Web UI, all of which make managing TrueNAS easier than ever.

TrueNAS 13.0 users looking for the new capabilities outlined above can upgrade to TrueNAS 24.10 at any time, preserving data and essential NAS functionality such as SMB, NFS, iSCSI, and VMs – the primary exception being Jails. Jails can be manually migrated to 24.10 using Linux Sandboxes and either Dockge or Portainer. For those interested in the full set of unified features, Fangtooth will provide even better tools (e.g., LXC) for Jail-like functionality while avoiding the security concerns of iocage.

Fangtooth is completing an internal ALPHA and is available as a Nightly image for development and testing. We anticipate that Fangtooth BETA testing will start in February, and the Fangtooth RELEASE version in April would be the earliest for any significant upgrades.  By July 2025, we expect Fangtooth to be recommended to Enterprise users.

For current software recommendations, always review the Software Status page for recommendations based on your profile.

Join the TrueNAS Community

Whether you’re interested in deploying the existing TrueNAS 24.10 or helping shape the future of TrueNAS 25.04, there’s never been a better time to join the growing TrueNAS community. Download your copy of TrueNAS Community Edition today and join the thousands of users experiencing True Data Freedom. Share your experience on the newly relaunched TrueNAS Community Forums or find us on social media!

The post Fangtooth Unifies the TrueNAS Community appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

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In the last TrueNAS Tech Talk of 2024, Kris and Chris bust a few more myths about SLOG sizing, the famous "80% Rule" about free space in ZFS and TrueNAS, tal...

Electric Eel is Now Feature-Complete

3 October 2024 at 01:21
TrueNAS Electric Eel (SCALE 24.10) is now feature-complete with the availability of the first Release Candidate. TrueNAS SCALE 24.10-RC.1 is now available for download, or update directly from within your existing TrueNAS installation. As always, please carefully read the Release Notes before deploying or updating your system.

Electric Eel emerged into the BETA stage on August 29th. In the last four weeks, a record number of users have volunteered to test Electric Eel and explore the new Docker-powered App capabilities. The Electric Eel uptake rate is over 3X Dragonfish and over 10X the 13.3 BETA versions.

The BETA process has proven that in-place App migration from Kubernetes to Docker will work for the existing catalog applications, with user data preserved. As of RC1, we have reached 100% in the Porting and Migration progress, as tracked on our GitHub Apps page. All previous Apps have been ported for new installs under the Docker framework, and users with existing Kubernetes-based installations from Dragonfish can automatically migrate during the TrueNAS upgrade process. Shout-out to our amazing Apps engineering team, as well as the community members who helped us test the migration processes during BETA. With this important migration milestone reached, we can now turn our attention to adding new Apps and Features in the coming months.

In addition to achieving parity between the old and new App catalogs, Custom Apps deployed under Dragonfish and earlier as Docker images can now be migrated to the native Docker framework in Electric Eel. More advanced settings such as manually installed Docker provisioning in a systemd-nspawn container using the community Jailmaker will need to be manually migrated.

What’s new in Electric Eel RC.1

We’d like to extend our thanks to our community members who jumped into the BETA release with both feet, eagerly testing, reporting, and helping us correct bugs. Our first BETA version was a success, and today’s RC.1 has 200 additional fixes and improvements.

Building on our community feedback, the engineering team has made several major improvements and has now completed the Electric Eel feature set. New functionality and changes in 24.10-RC.1 include:

  • Login Alerts on root/admin user login or attempted login
  • App logs are better captured and displayed in the UI
  • Improved App Info cards (now with links)
  • App Utilization (CPU/Memory/Network/Disk IO) displayed on the Apps page
  • New Dashboard is completed with better mobile support. The legacy “Old Dashboard” has been removed.
  • Custom App YAML Editor allows for custom application configurations to be deployed. (If a GUI is desired, we suggest deploying the built-in Portainer App.)
  • Custom App Migration is enabled for users who deployed Docker images in Dragonfish and earlier using the “Custom App” UI option
  • NVIDIA drivers are now handled in a more modular manner, and can be installed dynamically post-installation

Install the new modular NVIDIA drivers from the Apps -> Settings Page in 24.10

One of the major anticipated features of the Docker framework in Electric Eel that users have expressed interest in is the YAML editor for advanced Apps configuration. In 24.10-RC.1, the Custom App YAML editor now allows more complex Apps to be created and deployed through editing of the configuration file. For RC1, the ability to allocate a unique IP address for an installed App is not yet present. This functionality is planned as an App infrastructure update after the RELEASE version of Electric Eel is completed.

With BETA completed and now RC.1 released, the total feature set of Electric Eel can be summarized. We’re looking forward to more feedback (and bug reports!) from our community.

TrueNAS Electric Eel

You can look forward to more blog posts and emails highlighting these new features and upgrades in 24.10 – while many of them are already present in RC.1, some of these features won’t be ready until RELEASE, while others such as Fast Deduplication are labeled as Experimental and should be handled with care by early adopters and testers only.

With Electric Eel now feature-complete, the TrueNAS engineering team is focused on the development of the next release, “Fangtooth” in mid 2025. More information will be available at the end of 2024. Many thanks to those who submitted, and voted for, the Feature Requests that have already been adopted. If you have a specific feature or functionality that you feel would benefit TrueNAS, please feel free to submit it on our Community Forums, and vote for other suggested features to help us enhance 24.10 and beyond.

When Should I Migrate?

If you are deploying a new TrueNAS system, we recommend TrueNAS SCALE Dragonfish 24.04.2.2 for:

  • Added functionality over CORE
  • Vastly broader hardware support
  • Expanded App catalog (which will migrate to Electric Eel)
  • Sandboxes provide jail-like capabilities using systemd containers
  • Better performance on most workloads
  • Improved web UI makes managing TrueNAS easier than ever

Dragonfish users can easily update to Electric Eel RC.1 when desired, but at this point we only recommend it for early adopters. We recommend users review the TrueNAS Software Status page for advice.

If you’re ready to explore the Electric Eel Release Candidate, grab it from our downloads page now – and stay tuned for the upcoming full release!

The post Electric Eel is Now Feature-Complete appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

Enhanced Data Migration in Electric Eel

27 September 2024 at 00:05

One of the cornerstones of TrueNAS is how your data can be managed and manipulated. We believe that your data belongs to you, free from proprietary systems and vendor lock-in – part of our promise to what we call True Data Freedom.

While vendor lock-in can be deliberate and calculated on the part of the vendor, feeling locked-in to a storage ecosystem can often have more to do with simply fearing the time, effort, and pain of migrating the data to another vendor’s product, only to risk being stranded again in yet another different vendor’s ecosystem. While most vendors often provide tools to migrate to another one of their own products, they never make it simple to move to another vendor’s product.

To combat this, TrueNAS 23.10 introduced the Enterprise File Sync feature with Syncthing to enhance data mobility and simplify data migrations both onto – and off of – TrueNAS systems. TrueNAS 24.04 refined that feature set, and now TrueNAS 24.10 is poised to enhance it even further with the inclusion of SMB Alternate Data Stream (ADS) import. With the inclusion of SMB ADS migration, it will be easier than ever to migrate from a third-party NAS solution onto TrueNAS, or if you so please, off of TrueNAS onto something else.

With TrueNAS, the only way we want to lock you in is by providing an experience so good you don’t want to leave. And, if we can’t provide that, we provide the tools to help you do so.

What are Alternate Data Streams?

Have you ever downloaded a program or document from the internet, and received a warning message from your operating system that the file or some component was blocked because it was “untrusted” or “unsafe”?

Alternate Data Streams

This so-called “Mark of the Web” comes from the presence of an SMB Alternate Data Stream, in this case a flag attached to the file called “Zone.Identifier” that indicates the original URL of the file.

The Mark of the Web is just one of many Alternate Data Streams; with other applications choosing to store application data or metadata – ranging from simple timestamps to answer “when was this file last opened?” or more complex organization features such as MacOS file colors and tagging.

While TrueNAS has supported Alternate Data Streams when serving SMB shares for some time, Electric Eel now allows for the migration of these crucial pieces of metadata when importing data from third-party NAS solutions.

Migrate Data Easily From Any Compatible Third-Party NAS Solution

Using the Syncthing Enterprise application, TrueNAS 24.10 will have the ability to connect to a remote SMBv3 server directly from your TrueNAS installation. No plugin or service installation will be required on the source NAS server. A common identity service (such as Active Directory) must be used in order to synchronize security information and descriptors. If the two systems cannot use the same identity service, permissions will need to be updated after the migration. More information can be found on the TrueNAS Docs site under Third-Party Data Migration, and TrueNAS Enterprise customers with a valid support agreement can contact iXsystems for direct assistance.

Syncthing SMB migration between NAS systems

Using two copies of Syncthing Enterprise, TrueNAS can ensure that file consistency is maintained during the migration process, while keeping the source data available for use. Any changes made on the third-party system are automatically reflected on TrueNAS. No more manually running scripts or batch jobs, no more “pivot” systems in the middle of the data flow – simply enjoy the power and simplicity of TrueNAS and Syncthing working together.

Learn More

As we draw closer to the full release of TrueNAS 24.10, stay tuned for additional updates on new features and functionality that will arrive later this year. If you’re just starting out with your journey, you can download the current version of TrueNAS SCALE 24.04, and upgrade to 24.10 later this year.

For supported, Enterprise-ready solutions, check out our full line of TrueNAS systems, from the energy-efficient, highly-available H-series edge system to the performance flagship all-NVMe F-series. For help selecting and right-sizing the systems for your particular need, contact us directly to arrange a chat with one of our experts to learn more about how TrueNAS can help your organization.

The post Enhanced Data Migration in Electric Eel appeared first on TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era.

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