FreeNAS + TrueNAS Unifying Into TrueNAS 12.0 CORE/Enterprise

[phoronix]

Phoronix: FreeNAS + TrueNAS Unifying Into TrueNAS 12.0 CORE/Enterprise

BSD-focused vendor iXsystems has developed FreeNAS as their community-oriented NAS operating system while TrueNAS is what they ship on their storage solutions. FreeNAS and TrueNAS have been derived largely from the same code-base. Moving forward to TrueNAS 12.0 later this year, iXsystems is unifying FreeNAS and TrueNAS...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FreeNAS-TrueNAS-Unifying

[treba]

Really looking forward for OpenZFS 2.0. I have a FreeNAS running in my company and I really like it, but the fact that with the GELI full disk encrytion I can't easily mount the pool on a Linux machine always made me worry. If I understand things correctly, with OpenZFS 2.0 this should work just fine, right? (given that I recreate the pool with native OpenZFS encryption)

[ferrao]

I want to know if this merge will be in fact good for the old FreeNAS users or not. I'm specially interested on: Fibre Channel, HA, Swap on Flash support and the vSphere Plugin. Which are features that are only available to the TrueNAS segment.

[skeevy420]

Really looking forward for OpenZFS 2.0. I have a FreeNAS running in my company and I really like it, but the fact that with the GELI full disk encrytion I can't easily mount the pool on a Linux machine always made me worry. If I understand things correctly, with OpenZFS 2.0 this should work just fine, right? (given that I recreate the pool with native OpenZFS encryption)

You hit the nail square on the head...almost. ZFS on GELI is like ZFS on LUKS. Neither are compatible with the other OS, but only because the underlying encryption layer isn't supported on the other OS.

The pools themselves are compatible between the OSs if you send/recv them to non-encrypted disks.

[CommunityMember]

I want to know if this merge will be in fact good for the old FreeNAS users or not. I'm specially interested on: Fibre Channel, HA, Swap on Flash support and the vSphere Plugin. Which are features that are only available to the TrueNAS segment.

The newly named TrueNAS Core essentially subsumes FreeNAS. And there will be a TrueNAS Enterprise with license keys to enable additional functionality, and although they did not explicitly mention the things you identified, they would seem like the features they would charge extra for. iXsystems promises more details later (possibly initially on their own forum as people ask the obvious questions such as what enterprise features (if any) are now in Core).

[polarathene]

I thought FreeNAS using ZFS was a strong point and why it was on BSD? If it switches to OpenZFS, is that somehow still a better experience than OpenZFS with Linux?(or is the issue more of that ZFSonLinux/ZoL layer?) I don't quite follow ZFS stuff.

[CommunityMember]

I thought FreeNAS using ZFS was a strong point and why it was on BSD? If it switches to OpenZFS, is that somehow still a better experience than OpenZFS with Linux?(or is the issue more of that ZFSonLinux/ZoL layer?) I don't quite follow ZFS stuff.

Merging the development work of the various ZFS implementations and communities into one will hopefully reduce some duplication of efforts to merge fixes from the other group(s). However, as I recall, ZFS on Linux uses the Linux disk block layering approach, and uses additional compatibility layers, which is arguably (according to the ZFS experts) not as good as the direct to the metal capabilities first introduced with Solaris, and (mostly) compatibly implemented in FreeBSD. So, under that understanding, ZFS on *BSD will remain the better experience under at least some conditions (most consumers never push a disk subsystem anywhere near where one might notice a difference, but large enterprises running intense activities might).

[k1e0x]

I thought FreeNAS using ZFS was a strong point and why it was on BSD? If it switches to OpenZFS, is that somehow still a better experience than OpenZFS with Linux?(or is the issue more of that ZFSonLinux/ZoL layer?) I don't quite follow ZFS stuff.

It's a bit of a longer story but this pretty much sums it up.

As for GELI and LUKS.. ZoL 0.8 + (Default version for most Linux distros now such as Ubuntu and Gentoo) on Linux and the upcoming OpenZFS 2.0 on everything will have native encryption built in per-dataset. I've used it for a while now and it's a pretty nice improvement to GELI/LUKS.

Oh also macOS has ZFS native encryption support now as well.

The reason native encryption is nice over GELI/LUKS is because you don't have to pre-determine how large your encrypted disk will be as it shares storage with the entire pool and you don't have to repartition or put any other filesystem on top. You just create a dataset and set the encryption / key. (it's also cross platform and can even be used to store encrypted data on untrusted hosts securely using ZFS send/recv)

To the name change.. it's fine I don't know what CORE means.. maybe they didn't want to call it "community" but FreeNAS/TrueNAS is a pretty impressive product. I was a fan of NAS4Free (now called XigmaNAS) and this won me over by just being simple and clean.

[andrewjoy]

It's a bit of a longer story but this pretty much sums it up.

The fact that we are FINALLY getting a common ZFS repo with all the code is fantastic and should have happened 10 years ago. We need to get to the point where ZFS just works on everything no matter what. If it was not for linux devs acting like children when it comes to ZFS due to the licence this could be even more simple.

I would however like the Freenas web interface or something like it to be ported to linux, having to wrap my head arround the arcane ways BSD does stuff is a pain when everything else i use is linux.


EDIT

Also the new scrub features and the new zpool checkpoint features are cool as f**k.

[k1e0x]

The fact that we are FINALLY getting a common ZFS repo with all the code is fantastic and should have happened 10 years ago. We need to get to the point where ZFS just works on everything no matter what. If it was not for linux devs acting like children when it comes to ZFS due to the licence this could be even more simple.

I would however like the Freenas web interface or something like it to be ported to linux, having to wrap my head arround the arcane ways BSD does stuff is a pain when everything else i use is linux.

Well.. not all their fault. Oracle happened too.. and the Linux dev's don't matter much. ZFS supports Apple too and their dev's are just as indifferent. As for "arcane ways" .. well ok. lol Some find it easier, simpler.. I do.