What exactly IS the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini series? Isn’t TrueNAS free? That is a good question and worth looking into a little. I think it has crossed the mind of even the most loosely experienced NAS user that building your own NAS from scratch has always been an option. Things have moved FAST in the world of NAS (as does all of the technology of course) and whereas a decade ago building your own private server was difficult, required intense command/code knowledge and drought with technical hurdles, now building your own NAS and have premium-grade software is CONSIDERABLY easier. A big part of this change in difficulty is thanks to TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS), the free to download open-source software that effectively allows you to convert any old open structure PC or computer you have lying around into your own NAS server. One big advantage of freeNAS for many when weighing up a DiY solution vs turnkey solutions from brand such as Synology and QNAP is that the money you spend on a TrueNAS server is 99% going on the HARDWARE (unlike off the shelf NAS solution that leverage the price tag across hardware and software services). I have already made a full and detailed review of TrueNAS Core on YouTube and a huge review of TrueNAS here on NASCompares, detailing it to be a fantastically secure and customizable NAS software platform that still features a significantly higher learning curve due to its DiY base than those Synology and QNAP alternatives. So, what if you are completely won over by the hugely popular TrueNAS platform but are not feeling great about building your own server and/or just want those sweet, sweet commercial services (warranty cover, phone lines, live chat, technical support, etc)? Well, THAT is where the company iXsystems claims to have you covered, as they are the official hardware arm of TrueNAS and they supply ready-to-deploy TrueNAS hardware solutions that are customizable in scale, storage and power at the point of sale, which arrive ready to go – just plugin and you are good to go – with the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS being reviewed in today’s article. Now, some buyers might wonder where the money they are spending on the Mini X+ is actually going, as the software is free right? That is mostly true (with a few caveats we will touch on later) and today’s review of the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini X+ is about seeing what you get for your money, what is included in this TrueNAS commercial NAS solution and ultimately, should you opt for this turn-key alternative of TrueNAS rather than going DiY or opting for an off the shelf solution from QNAP or Synology? Let’s go.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Quick Conclusion

When iXsystems started providing turnkey/off-the-shelf solutions that featured TrueNAS, it was a potentially risky move. TrueNAS has an incredible reputation for being customizable, secure and versatile for storage thanks to it’s FreeBSD building blocks and ZFS structure. But more than anything, TrueNAS allows users to access premium-grade software completely for free. Bundling mostly ‘free’ software into a paid hardware solution is something that means the purchase has a lot more to justify than other solutions. Synology and QNAP have been producing easy to deploy hardware+software solutions for more than a decade now commercially and when buying those, you need to leverage your budget to buy a solution that is a 50/50 or 60/40 split between your money buying the hardware but also paying for the software you are using. So, when reviewing the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, as impressive as TrueNAS is, you need to focus ALOT more on the hardware that you are paying for here as it makes up at least 90% of the purchase. However, I can comfortably say that once you put together the hardware that this system is arriving with (2x 10GbE, 8 core processor, ECC memory, NVMe SSD inside and 7 bays of storage, custom chassis and pre-built), the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is definitely delivering a lot of bang for your buck! There are a few things I am less keen on, the inclusive warranty seems a little short (it can be extended for a price at checkout) and a few hardware design choices on the chassis baffled me slightly, but if you are drawn to the incredibly flexibility of TrueNAS right now for your home/business storage, but bulk at the idea of going DiY on it, then the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a great middle-ground and good value overall. Recommended.

SOFTWARE - 9/10

HARDWARE - 9/10

PERFORMANCE - 8/10

PRICE - 8/10

VALUE - 9/10

8.6

PROS

PCIe Upgradability is incredibly wide
8-Core Intel Processor and 32GB DDR4 ECC Memory is a great base level to start at
Surprisingly Compact Chassis
NVMe SSD for the system software included
Seems Pricey at first, till you price up the hardware and business options
Pre Build iXsystems configuration options are incredibly diverse (not just HDD/SSD choices, much more)
2x 10GbE Copper + Management OOB Port on a compact 5-bay like this is almost entirely unavailable from current commercial NAS brands
Inclusive HDD+SSD options open TrueNAS utility to Enterprise all-inclusive buyers
TONNES of ventilation
SSD bays are 15mm in height
Twin Front USB Design on a compact desktop NAS is smart

CONS

VGA instead of HDMI for visual-out is a little disappointing
Noisier option due to metal design
Some experienced TrueNAS users will likely still err towards a homemade build

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iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS Review – Packaging

Considering the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini is a 5-Bay NAS (with two additional SSD slots that we will discuss later), the retail packaging for this system was absolutely HUGE! I have reviewed 12-Bay desktop systems and half depth rackmounts that arrived in smaller boxes than this. Before this system arrived, I kinda assume that (given TrueNAS’ open source and ‘do it yourself’ nature) it would arrive in a form that was a little plain and underwhelming. I am pleased to say that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrived in packaging and protection that more than lives up to comparison with enterprise solutions from Synology, QNAP – hell even Netapp and HP bare metal enclosures. Covered in branding, I never thought I would see the TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS) logo adorned on a commercial retail product. How things change.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ for this review was supplied by the brand themselves and it was a pre-populated solution, featuring 5x WD Red plus Hard drives and 2x ixsystems branded SSDs. In the majority of cases, when you order a pre-populated solution online, this generally means one of two things. Either you get a solution whereby the HDD/SSD media is already installed in the system bays OR you get your NAS enclosure in its retail packaging and the additional drive media separately packaged. In the case of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS, the drive media is VERY securely protected in pre-cut hard foam, as well as arriving pre-installed inside the media trays.and encased in anti-static packaging. I have said this before in previous reviews, but I will ALWAYS respect a brand that appreciates the silent damage that shock and motion can impact on a system in transit globally and if a system is not packaged with this factor in mind, I am immediately wearing of brand’s long term feelings on the system. Budget/low-end solutions tend to arrive in cardboard frameworks that can withstand little-to-no pressure – I want enterprise solutions that are designed for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly use to arrive with superman-grade protection on day one and I am pleased to say that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ did not disappoint. 

Indeed, moving passed the storage media in this pre-populated system configuration, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS enclosure itself as also fantastically well protected. Remember, this is a 5x HDD enclosure – the SMB (small-medium business) tier, they could have cut some corners here. Massive respect.

The entire contents of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ package are largely what you would expect, but the majority of the things that it includes each seemingly are a little bit ‘extra’ than other turnkey solutions. This may seem a little small fry for a system that will typically set you back at $999+ (with the more scaled-up config options being added) but I think it is important to detail that this is a solution that has clearly been presented by people who know where they needs scale up a bit. Remember, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is arriving with software that is open-source (i.e Free to download) os alongside the commercial type support that is on the table to the end-user, iXsystems need to make sure that the physical product being purchased here ticks all the boxes.

The accessories that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrives with are all in a box in the top of the retail package. Going through them, here is what they were and how they each give a little more than expected.

• Power cable – A standard power cable, but crucially it was a 3 metre cable, not the usual 1 metre that off-the-shelf system tend to be
• 2x ethernet cables – Teo things here, first that it was Cat 6 (not the Cat 5e that a lot of brands offer, EVEN on 10GbE solutions) and that each cable was 7 feet long (not the 1 metre cables offered by most other turnkey solutions by default)
• Key and Screws – fairly standard stuff there to be honest
• Instructions, warranty and first-time setup guide – unlike most brand supplying a single folded sheet of paper that covered just physical connectivity and warranty coverage on a single bit of paper, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrived with a glossy manual, detailed first time setup and information on the security/login credentials all clearly presented throughout

That instruction and first-time setup manual were particularly interesting, as it is something that has been oddly lacking from most other turnkey NAS solutions that I have reviewed. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t;t make sense – the software in most NAS systems is ever-evolving and online resources can be updated regularly as system software gets its firmware updates. This is by no means a global policy and indeed, in my review of a Japanese DS920+ back in 2020 showed that Synology NAS there is also bundled with a thick book of guidance and setup assistance. There are arguments for and against this of course that range from costs to wastage, but on the whole, the glossy manual and range guides that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrives with is a great extra and given that one of the core appeals of the TrueNAS platform is the community support and flexibility in architecture, this is a solid bit of branding by both TrueNAS and iXsystems in the Mini X+ retail package. You can always just rely on the massive range of online resources that are available in the TrueNAS community of course (as well as using the direct guides and support services built into the GUI for TrueNAS in your browser – but it’s also good to have BOTH options on day 1). 

Overall, I cannot really fault the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS packaging and first impressions – it is a big container that largely justifies its ‘extra’ness. Let’s get to grips with the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS itself and discuss it’s design to see where your money goes.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Design

The external chassis of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a surprisingly compact enclosure and despite the largely free nature of the software, this is a remarkably modern designed chassis that definitely gives Synology and QNAP a run for their money. Arriving in a taller casing than most 5-Bays in the market, the system features a mesh front door, multi-stage locks, numerous LEDs and definitely gives you a feeling of quality about the product. In my past experiences of the open-source platform, I have never seen the software on anything but rackmount and reused PC tower chassis, so the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ look and feel is particularly stand out for me.

The first thing to look at is that hinged door. Servers with covering mechanisms to shield drive media bays from dust or accidental removal always run a slight risk of impeding airflow, but in the case of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ I think things are perfectly fine. The door is fully mesh ventilated and at no point covers the existing areas of passive ventilation on the front of the chassis. Indeed, the mesh also serves as an additional layer of dust capture which, although will need occasional cleaning, means that dust will not be drawn through the front of the system and into the NA Sby the active cooling fan.

The door also features its own lock and key (with 2 keys included in the accessories kit). It is also worth highlighting that although the key locked door IS a good idea to prevent accidental drive removal, it also has a couple of rather annoying consequences. One is that the closed and locked door will obstruct the USB ports inside, which although makes sense to prevent things from being connected without permission, is largely made redundant by the fact that a nefarious user can STILL access the rear USB ports unhindered anyway. So now all this seemingly does is stop you from attaching USBs to the front of the system without having the door hanging open. Additionally, the power button for the device is located on the inside of this hinged door and therefore powering the device on also needs keys in order to access the ON switch. Again, it was likely done to stop using from powering the system off in error/foul-place, but you can still just pull the power cable out the back anyway and in the event of the system powering down for maintenance or in a UPS power down situation, you are going to need keys just to turn the device on. I genuinely love to finally see the TrueNAS logo on a premium product, but the amount of things this door covers seems oddly unnecessary.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS also features numerous front-mounted LEDs to give you real-time information about the system activity, network activities, storage media access and health of the NAS on the fly. These LEDs are incredibly clear, even though the mesh front door panel. Once again though, an odd design choice with the hinged door in that the five system activity/health lights are visible above the lock BUT there is no icons, logos or guidance to what they are denoting. Open the door and all of them have the clear purpose icons, but why not have them on the outside door? Especially given how often this door will be closed. The system and LEDs all look great, with the option to change their brightness in the system settings, but I am surprised by the understated approach to them when you shut the door.

The rest of the surrounding chassis is fairly standard, the system clearly employs a horizontal funnel ventilation system, with an active rear fan drawing air throughout the system whilst in operation. There are no side vents and the base of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ chassis does not feature anything more than the rubberised feet. Memory upgrades and other component changes need to be made with removing the side/top panels of the system. The chassis is still a remarkably clean and compact designed affair that although mostly metal, is not as noisy in operation as I would have thought.

As mentioned earlier, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ that was supplied for this review arrived with several storage media drives included, an option that can be scaled to the user’s needs at iXsystem’s website. Let’s discuss the HDD media and bays first.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ features five SATA bays that are dual power-data (so no loose SATA or POWER connectors knocking around) and with each HDD arriving already installed in the tray, installation is quick and easy. TrueNAS runs on an additional SSD inside the system by default (we will touch on that later) so that means that these drives do not store the operating system, they are purely for your ZFS based RAIDZ storage. Alongside the lockable front door of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, each of these bays is vented at the front to assist passive airflow and they even arrive with their own locking mechanism, as well as the trays being springloaded to ensure the connection is smooth. 

The two SSD bays are built similarly to the HDD bays, are springloaded, dual SATA-POWER connectors and are ventilated but lack their own locks. I will also add that TrueNAS does not limit how you use these SSD media bays, you can use this media for faster storage pools, for caching or Fusion pool use in conjunction with the HDD based RAID. Additionally, the SSD bays are DEEP! If you were considering much bigger enterprise SSDs at the 15mm height level, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ will easily support one in each bay. The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ can be purchased unpopulated or populated too.

Those USB ports I mentioned earlier are also worth touching on a little more too. The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS features two USB ports on the front of the device (USB 3.2 Gen 1 and USB 2.0) which is pretty unusual for a desktop NAS (typically x1). The range of uses for these USB ports range from adding additional storage and backup drives, to USB printers, UPS’ and can even support KVM deployment with the rear-mounted VGA port for those that want to directly connect on a command level to the system.

Overall, aside from my reservations about the door of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ covering some things necessarily, the design and overall chassis of this NAS is very well put together. Arriving a little more comparable to a shuttle PC case than the more closed understated NAS chassis from Synology and QNAP, it still manages to look very ‘business’ and you aren’t left thinking it is not robust. Let’s discuss the ports ad connections of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Ports and Connections

The rear of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS is a little more industrial than the slick front of the chassis would lead you to believe. The is tonnes of ventilation for that large rear active fan, as well as the fan for the internal PSU. Accessing the internals of the system is made possible with simple thumb turn screws, but before we get to the internal hardware of this NAS, let’s discuss what we have here.

The rear fan and vents take up 50% of the rear of the device and it is noticeably quieter than I would have thoughts a mostly metal NAS with a fan/vent this big would be. It IS still a pinch higher in ambient noise than other 5 bays on the market, such as the Synology DS1520+ and QNAP TVS-h973AX, but not by a vast amount.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS does support a level of local access via a KVM setup as mentioned earlier, that allows you to access a command structure based UI that you can use to run troubleshooting and push SSH commands. Now, the UI you are going to be using is NOT the GUI of TrueNAS Core, this is simply an alternative to SSHing into the system remotely. The use of VGA and not HDMI as a visual out (when VGA visual monitors are hardly mainstream in the 2020s) is a little underwhelming, but given that the system is not using a processor that features embedded graphics and this form of system access is going to be rather low in general use, I think I can let this go for the most part.

What IS interesting about the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ connections though is that the system arrives with two 10GbE network ports by default. Now, if you factor in that the nearest you can get to a 5-Bay with 2x 10GbE from the off-the-shelf brands are the $1500 QNAP TVS-672X or the $1600 DS1621xs+ (both of which would arrive unpopulated) the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ coming with 2x 10GBASE-T ports at this price is really, really impressive. You DO of course have to factor in that it is using open-source (i.e largely free) software unlike the other two, but this does definitely put the price tag of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ into a greater perspective. That said, it is also worth keeping in mind that this IS a 5x SATA 3.5″ and 2x 2.5″ SATA NAS enclosure. Although I CAN see this media saturating a single 10GbE port (i.e 1000MB/s throughput), I don’t think you will even be in a situation where you will saturate both 10GbE ports here (i.e LAG/Trucking at 2,000MB/s) unless maybe, MAYBE you filled the device with enterprise-grade SSDs in the 7 bays. Nevertheless, the idea that you can run multiple connections to this device will mean that that high performance will still be accessible to a good % on each connection, meaning that there will be plenty of bandwidth to share out and a decent level of storage inside to fill it.

The system also features two more USB ports (USB 2.0L sadly, likely geared towards that KVM access option and/or UPS heartbeats) and also an additional network port. This is a 1GbE management port and is something we are seeing appear more and more in modern enterprise hardware. Out of band system management and a fixed connection to the internal control UI for maintenance and/or troubleshooting can be remarkably useful, especially in situations where there is a fault in the greater network preventing you from patching in conventionally.

After the inclusion of the two 10GbE ports on the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, I was genuinely surprised to see that they still had enough umpf in that CPU, the chipset and PCI lanes to also include a PCIe Upgrade slot. Now, the range of options that this bay can be used with is pretty vast (thanks once again to the open-source and free-roam user methodology of TrueNAS when it comes to its design). That said, it is worth factoring in that this port is a PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot (again, I am still pretty surprised it is there at all, given the available storage connections, the additional internal system SSD and those 10GbE ports) and that means that whatever card you using in that slow will not be able to exceed around 4,000MB/s in communicative bandwidth. I am not entirely sure the system would benefit from more 10GbE ports (given the unlikelihood that the 7 media bays here would already saturate the 20GbE possible by default anyway), but the ability to add storage expansion cards, performance enhancement cards, perhaps even wifi cards and maybe even a compact graphics card (it would need to be pretty compact though) to assist those JAIL programs from Plex Media Server transcoding to VMs. A very welcome surprise here.

Overall, the ports and connections on the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ are largely better than I would have ever thoughts for a system of this price/scale. Add to that the scalability in a bunch of ways by that PCIe slot and you really have something genuinely impressive here to build from in a connections sense. Let’s discuss the internal hardware of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Internal Hardware

Once you remove the individual side panels of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS chassis, you find a system that is a little more familiar to PC builders and is much, much more akin to the PC under your desk. The layout is less streamlined than Synology and QNAP NAS systems, but is still quite a today build and the few wires that are visible are all suitably tied and/or trunked.

The internal PSU is a compact profile model and is held in the top panel. This PSU (playing devil’s advocate here) is NOT going to be fun to replace in the event of failure (the PSU is the 2nd most vulnerable part of a NAS next to the storage media!) as it is pretty well embedded behind all the other components. The system does arrive with a 1yr warranty by default (a noticeable difference to the minimum 2 years and upto 5 years on Synology/QNAP SMB solutions) which can be expanded upon by using the tiered support levels from iXsystems, which would likely over this being replaced, but would they replace it or send you out a new PSU? I will look into that. Otherwise, the PSU here is a decent size, good quality and manages to deliver enough power for this well-equipped system, whilst not being overly large and forcing the system to be much bigger.

The other side of the chassis shows us a whole bunch more wires (again, well kept though). From here we can see the SSD that the iXsystems Mini X+ NAS hosts TrueNAS Core from. Now, I fully expected to see a standard 120/240GB SATA SSD here (as TrueNAS itself is not a huge program once you understand that the software lives on an independent boot drive from your actual RAIDZ/Pools. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when I noted that the system arrived with a 250GB WD Blue 550 NVMe SSD. Now, a couple of things. First off, I am still staggered how much the CPU/Chipset and it’s PCI lanes are being stretched here. An NVMe M.2 Bay, 7 SATA bays, 2x 10G and a PCIe 3×4 – this is seriously impressive to have an m.2 NVMe bay here. Next, the OS living on an NVMe SSD and not a SATA one means that the software will run CONSIDERABLY faster and feel a great deal more responsive. I would query the PCIe generation of that NVMe slot (PCIe 3×1 or PCIe 3×2 at most, surely), but that would still allow 1,000-2,000MB/s bandwidth for that SSD, which it can DEFINITELY saturate. This is a very impressive choice of SSD for the TrueNAS boot drive indeed.

Next, we can talk about the CPU inside the TrueNAS Mini X+ server. This iXsystem NAS arrives with an impressive C3758 Intel CPU, which features EIGHT cores and has a clock speed of 2.2Ghz. Although this is a little old as a CPU (released in late 2017) it is still a very efficient CPU for a 24×7 server that scored a 4675 on CPUBenchmark.

This CPU is placed under a tall heatsink panel (instead of an active CPU fan for the sake of power efficiency and passive cooling over day, week and monthly periods, which is pretty standard on NAS servers) and is a solid choice for VM deployment, as well as assisting fast file server access via those 10GbE ports. Alongside that CPU, the system also arrives with two RDIMM memory slots. The unit for this review arrived with two DDR4 modules and the system when provided by iXsystems will always feature ECC (error-correcting code) supported modules, supporting upto 64GB here. The CPU can support much higher, but likely limitations of how much slots could be added physically and by the available architecture of the hardware already being pushed means this was not going to be an option. Still, an 8 Core x86 64bit Processor, upto 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory and the system software running from an NVMe SSD – this is a lot to get your teeth into on day 1.

Let’s delve a little into the TrueNAS Core software that the iXsystems Mini x+ arrives with and see just what all the fuss is about.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Software

Now, iXsystems are the hardware arm of TrueNAS and when you purchase the Mini X+ NAS system, it arrives with the latest full release of the open-source software. Now, trying to cover everything that TrueNAS Core can do and offer the end-user would be around 5x longer than this review, so rather than repeat myself, I would direct you to check out my full video and written review on TrueNAS core below. Otherwise, here was the conclusion of that video review to give you some idea of what I thought of TrueNAS Core (running on this very Mini X+ NAS):

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that when it comes to TrueNAS is a fantastically capable software for managing your storage. It even manages to swerve the downfall of being ‘too enterprise’ but arriving as an open source free software platform to be enjoyed by businesses and storage enthusiasts. There is no avoiding that it IS quite a technical mountainous learning curve if you are arriving at it from a position of zero storage or network experience, but the last few big TrueNAS system updates have gone a long way to update some UI elements to be more intuitive, software wide help notes available at all times and the community support is as on-point at it has ever been. If you are a home users looking for a hurdles setup or a day-1 deployable system for your small business, then TrueNAS may be too big a jump for you and you would be better off with a traditional off-the-shelf NAS system. However, if you have the know-how, you have the willingness to get your hands dirty and already have the hardware in mind/in-house, then TrueNAS stands in a class of it’s own and thanks to some very unique architecture choices that are almost utterly unique to this platform, it’s pretty unparalleled in its scope.

 

Who is TrueNAS for

Who is TrueNAS NOT for

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure Users who are happy with/prefer community Support Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual Users who like to fine-tune Anyone that has ever built a PC Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc Users who prefer commercial-grade support Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key) Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction Users who want simplified Warranty Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

You can find my FULL video and written reviews of TrueNAS Core 12, running on this iXsystems Mini X+ NAS by clicking below. Fair warning, they are really, REALLY long and detailed, so many get a coffee and get comfortable before you head there!

TrueNAS Core Video Review	TrueNAS Core Written Review

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Conclusion & Verdict

When iXsystems started providing turnkey/off-the-shelf solutions that featured TrueNAS, it was a potentially risky move. TrueNAS has an incredible reputation for being customizable, secure and versatile for storage thanks to it’s FreeBSD building blocks and ZFS structure. But more than anything, TrueNAS allows users to access premium-grade software completely for free. Bundling mostly ‘free’ software into a paid hardware solution is something that means the purchase has a lot more to justify than other solutions. Synology and QNAP have been producing easy to deploy hardware+software solutions for more than a decade now commercially and when buying those, you need to leverage your budget to buy a solution that is a 50/50 or 60/40 split between your money buying the hardware but also paying for the software you are using. So, when reviewing the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, as impressive as TrueNAS is, you need to focus ALOT more on the hardware that you are paying for here as it makes up at least 90% of the purchase. However, I can comfortably say that once you put together the hardware that this system is arriving with (2x 10GbE, 8 core processor, ECC memory, NVMe SSD inside and 7 bays of storage, custom chassis and pre-built), the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is definitely delivering a lot of bang for your buck! There are a few things I am less keen on, the inclusive warranty seems a little short (it can be extended for a price at checkout) and a few hardware design choices on the chassis baffled me slightly, but if you are drawn to the incredibly flexibility of TrueNAS right now for your home/business storage, but bulk at the idea of going DiY on it, then the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a great middle-ground and good value overall. Recommended.

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What exactly IS the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini series? Isn’t TrueNAS free? That is a good question and worth looking into a little. I think it has crossed the mind of even the most loosely experienced NAS user that building your own NAS from scratch has always been an option. Things have moved FAST in the world of NAS (as does all of the technology of course) and whereas a decade ago building your own private server was difficult, required intense command/code knowledge and drought with technical hurdles, now building your own NAS and have premium-grade software is CONSIDERABLY easier. A big part of this change in difficulty is thanks to TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS), the free to download open-source software that effectively allows you to convert any old open structure PC or computer you have lying around into your own NAS server. One big advantage of freeNAS for many when weighing up a DiY solution vs turnkey solutions from brand such as Synology and QNAP is that the money you spend on a TrueNAS server is 99% going on the HARDWARE (unlike off the shelf NAS solution that leverage the price tag across hardware and software services). I have already made a full and detailed review of TrueNAS Core on YouTube and a huge review of TrueNAS here on NASCompares, detailing it to be a fantastically secure and customizable NAS software platform that still features a significantly higher learning curve due to its DiY base than those Synology and QNAP alternatives. So, what if you are completely won over by the hugely popular TrueNAS platform but are not feeling great about building your own server and/or just want those sweet, sweet commercial services (warranty cover, phone lines, live chat, technical support, etc)? Well, THAT is where the company iXsystems claims to have you covered, as they are the official hardware arm of TrueNAS and they supply ready-to-deploy TrueNAS hardware solutions that are customizable in scale, storage and power at the point of sale, which arrive ready to go – just plugin and you are good to go – with the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS being reviewed in today’s article. Now, some buyers might wonder where the money they are spending on the Mini X+ is actually going, as the software is free right? That is mostly true (with a few caveats we will touch on later) and today’s review of the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini X+ is about seeing what you get for your money, what is included in this TrueNAS commercial NAS solution and ultimately, should you opt for this turn-key alternative of TrueNAS rather than going DiY or opting for an off the shelf solution from QNAP or Synology? Let’s go.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Quick Conclusion

When iXsystems started providing turnkey/off-the-shelf solutions that featured TrueNAS, it was a potentially risky move. TrueNAS has an incredible reputation for being customizable, secure and versatile for storage thanks to it’s FreeBSD building blocks and ZFS structure. But more than anything, TrueNAS allows users to access premium-grade software completely for free. Bundling mostly ‘free’ software into a paid hardware solution is something that means the purchase has a lot more to justify than other solutions. Synology and QNAP have been producing easy to deploy hardware+software solutions for more than a decade now commercially and when buying those, you need to leverage your budget to buy a solution that is a 50/50 or 60/40 split between your money buying the hardware but also paying for the software you are using. So, when reviewing the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, as impressive as TrueNAS is, you need to focus ALOT more on the hardware that you are paying for here as it makes up at least 90% of the purchase. However, I can comfortably say that once you put together the hardware that this system is arriving with (2x 10GbE, 8 core processor, ECC memory, NVMe SSD inside and 7 bays of storage, custom chassis and pre-built), the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is definitely delivering a lot of bang for your buck! There are a few things I am less keen on, the inclusive warranty seems a little short (it can be extended for a price at checkout) and a few hardware design choices on the chassis baffled me slightly, but if you are drawn to the incredibly flexibility of TrueNAS right now for your home/business storage, but bulk at the idea of going DiY on it, then the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a great middle-ground and good value overall. Recommended.

SOFTWARE - 9/10

HARDWARE - 9/10

PERFORMANCE - 8/10

PRICE - 8/10

VALUE - 9/10

8.6

PROS

PCIe Upgradability is incredibly wide
8-Core Intel Processor and 32GB DDR4 ECC Memory is a great base level to start at
Surprisingly Compact Chassis
NVMe SSD for the system software included
Seems Pricey at first, till you price up the hardware and business options
Pre Build iXsystems configuration options are incredibly diverse (not just HDD/SSD choices, much more)
2x 10GbE Copper + Management OOB Port on a compact 5-bay like this is almost entirely unavailable from current commercial NAS brands
Inclusive HDD+SSD options open TrueNAS utility to Enterprise all-inclusive buyers
TONNES of ventilation
SSD bays are 15mm in height
Twin Front USB Design on a compact desktop NAS is smart

CONS

VGA instead of HDMI for visual-out is a little disappointing
Noisier option due to metal design
Some experienced TrueNAS users will likely still err towards a homemade build

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iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS Review – Packaging

Considering the iXsystem TrueNAS Mini is a 5-Bay NAS (with two additional SSD slots that we will discuss later), the retail packaging for this system was absolutely HUGE! I have reviewed 12-Bay desktop systems and half depth rackmounts that arrived in smaller boxes than this. Before this system arrived, I kinda assume that (given TrueNAS’ open source and ‘do it yourself’ nature) it would arrive in a form that was a little plain and underwhelming. I am pleased to say that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrived in packaging and protection that more than lives up to comparison with enterprise solutions from Synology, QNAP – hell even Netapp and HP bare metal enclosures. Covered in branding, I never thought I would see the TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS) logo adorned on a commercial retail product. How things change.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ for this review was supplied by the brand themselves and it was a pre-populated solution, featuring 5x WD Red plus Hard drives and 2x ixsystems branded SSDs. In the majority of cases, when you order a pre-populated solution online, this generally means one of two things. Either you get a solution whereby the HDD/SSD media is already installed in the system bays OR you get your NAS enclosure in its retail packaging and the additional drive media separately packaged. In the case of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS, the drive media is VERY securely protected in pre-cut hard foam, as well as arriving pre-installed inside the media trays.and encased in anti-static packaging. I have said this before in previous reviews, but I will ALWAYS respect a brand that appreciates the silent damage that shock and motion can impact on a system in transit globally and if a system is not packaged with this factor in mind, I am immediately wearing of brand’s long term feelings on the system. Budget/low-end solutions tend to arrive in cardboard frameworks that can withstand little-to-no pressure – I want enterprise solutions that are designed for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly use to arrive with superman-grade protection on day one and I am pleased to say that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ did not disappoint. 

Indeed, moving passed the storage media in this pre-populated system configuration, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS enclosure itself as also fantastically well protected. Remember, this is a 5x HDD enclosure – the SMB (small-medium business) tier, they could have cut some corners here. Massive respect.

The entire contents of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ package are largely what you would expect, but the majority of the things that it includes each seemingly are a little bit ‘extra’ than other turnkey solutions. This may seem a little small fry for a system that will typically set you back at $999+ (with the more scaled-up config options being added) but I think it is important to detail that this is a solution that has clearly been presented by people who know where they needs scale up a bit. Remember, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is arriving with software that is open-source (i.e Free to download) os alongside the commercial type support that is on the table to the end-user, iXsystems need to make sure that the physical product being purchased here ticks all the boxes.

The accessories that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrives with are all in a box in the top of the retail package. Going through them, here is what they were and how they each give a little more than expected.

• Power cable – A standard power cable, but crucially it was a 3 metre cable, not the usual 1 metre that off-the-shelf system tend to be
• 2x ethernet cables – Teo things here, first that it was Cat 6 (not the Cat 5e that a lot of brands offer, EVEN on 10GbE solutions) and that each cable was 7 feet long (not the 1 metre cables offered by most other turnkey solutions by default)
• Key and Screws – fairly standard stuff there to be honest
• Instructions, warranty and first-time setup guide – unlike most brand supplying a single folded sheet of paper that covered just physical connectivity and warranty coverage on a single bit of paper, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrived with a glossy manual, detailed first time setup and information on the security/login credentials all clearly presented throughout

That instruction and first-time setup manual were particularly interesting, as it is something that has been oddly lacking from most other turnkey NAS solutions that I have reviewed. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t;t make sense – the software in most NAS systems is ever-evolving and online resources can be updated regularly as system software gets its firmware updates. This is by no means a global policy and indeed, in my review of a Japanese DS920+ back in 2020 showed that Synology NAS there is also bundled with a thick book of guidance and setup assistance. There are arguments for and against this of course that range from costs to wastage, but on the whole, the glossy manual and range guides that the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ arrives with is a great extra and given that one of the core appeals of the TrueNAS platform is the community support and flexibility in architecture, this is a solid bit of branding by both TrueNAS and iXsystems in the Mini X+ retail package. You can always just rely on the massive range of online resources that are available in the TrueNAS community of course (as well as using the direct guides and support services built into the GUI for TrueNAS in your browser – but it’s also good to have BOTH options on day 1). 

Overall, I cannot really fault the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS packaging and first impressions – it is a big container that largely justifies its ‘extra’ness. Let’s get to grips with the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS itself and discuss it’s design to see where your money goes.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Design

The external chassis of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a surprisingly compact enclosure and despite the largely free nature of the software, this is a remarkably modern designed chassis that definitely gives Synology and QNAP a run for their money. Arriving in a taller casing than most 5-Bays in the market, the system features a mesh front door, multi-stage locks, numerous LEDs and definitely gives you a feeling of quality about the product. In my past experiences of the open-source platform, I have never seen the software on anything but rackmount and reused PC tower chassis, so the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ look and feel is particularly stand out for me.

The first thing to look at is that hinged door. Servers with covering mechanisms to shield drive media bays from dust or accidental removal always run a slight risk of impeding airflow, but in the case of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ I think things are perfectly fine. The door is fully mesh ventilated and at no point covers the existing areas of passive ventilation on the front of the chassis. Indeed, the mesh also serves as an additional layer of dust capture which, although will need occasional cleaning, means that dust will not be drawn through the front of the system and into the NA Sby the active cooling fan.

The door also features its own lock and key (with 2 keys included in the accessories kit). It is also worth highlighting that although the key locked door IS a good idea to prevent accidental drive removal, it also has a couple of rather annoying consequences. One is that the closed and locked door will obstruct the USB ports inside, which although makes sense to prevent things from being connected without permission, is largely made redundant by the fact that a nefarious user can STILL access the rear USB ports unhindered anyway. So now all this seemingly does is stop you from attaching USBs to the front of the system without having the door hanging open. Additionally, the power button for the device is located on the inside of this hinged door and therefore powering the device on also needs keys in order to access the ON switch. Again, it was likely done to stop using from powering the system off in error/foul-place, but you can still just pull the power cable out the back anyway and in the event of the system powering down for maintenance or in a UPS power down situation, you are going to need keys just to turn the device on. I genuinely love to finally see the TrueNAS logo on a premium product, but the amount of things this door covers seems oddly unnecessary.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS also features numerous front-mounted LEDs to give you real-time information about the system activity, network activities, storage media access and health of the NAS on the fly. These LEDs are incredibly clear, even though the mesh front door panel. Once again though, an odd design choice with the hinged door in that the five system activity/health lights are visible above the lock BUT there is no icons, logos or guidance to what they are denoting. Open the door and all of them have the clear purpose icons, but why not have them on the outside door? Especially given how often this door will be closed. The system and LEDs all look great, with the option to change their brightness in the system settings, but I am surprised by the understated approach to them when you shut the door.

The rest of the surrounding chassis is fairly standard, the system clearly employs a horizontal funnel ventilation system, with an active rear fan drawing air throughout the system whilst in operation. There are no side vents and the base of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ chassis does not feature anything more than the rubberised feet. Memory upgrades and other component changes need to be made with removing the side/top panels of the system. The chassis is still a remarkably clean and compact designed affair that although mostly metal, is not as noisy in operation as I would have thought.

As mentioned earlier, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ that was supplied for this review arrived with several storage media drives included, an option that can be scaled to the user’s needs at iXsystem’s website. Let’s discuss the HDD media and bays first.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ features five SATA bays that are dual power-data (so no loose SATA or POWER connectors knocking around) and with each HDD arriving already installed in the tray, installation is quick and easy. TrueNAS runs on an additional SSD inside the system by default (we will touch on that later) so that means that these drives do not store the operating system, they are purely for your ZFS based RAIDZ storage. Alongside the lockable front door of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, each of these bays is vented at the front to assist passive airflow and they even arrive with their own locking mechanism, as well as the trays being springloaded to ensure the connection is smooth. 

The two SSD bays are built similarly to the HDD bays, are springloaded, dual SATA-POWER connectors and are ventilated but lack their own locks. I will also add that TrueNAS does not limit how you use these SSD media bays, you can use this media for faster storage pools, for caching or Fusion pool use in conjunction with the HDD based RAID. Additionally, the SSD bays are DEEP! If you were considering much bigger enterprise SSDs at the 15mm height level, the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ will easily support one in each bay. The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ can be purchased unpopulated or populated too.

Those USB ports I mentioned earlier are also worth touching on a little more too. The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS features two USB ports on the front of the device (USB 3.2 Gen 1 and USB 2.0) which is pretty unusual for a desktop NAS (typically x1). The range of uses for these USB ports range from adding additional storage and backup drives, to USB printers, UPS’ and can even support KVM deployment with the rear-mounted VGA port for those that want to directly connect on a command level to the system.

Overall, aside from my reservations about the door of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ covering some things necessarily, the design and overall chassis of this NAS is very well put together. Arriving a little more comparable to a shuttle PC case than the more closed understated NAS chassis from Synology and QNAP, it still manages to look very ‘business’ and you aren’t left thinking it is not robust. Let’s discuss the ports ad connections of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Ports and Connections

The rear of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS is a little more industrial than the slick front of the chassis would lead you to believe. The is tonnes of ventilation for that large rear active fan, as well as the fan for the internal PSU. Accessing the internals of the system is made possible with simple thumb turn screws, but before we get to the internal hardware of this NAS, let’s discuss what we have here.

The rear fan and vents take up 50% of the rear of the device and it is noticeably quieter than I would have thoughts a mostly metal NAS with a fan/vent this big would be. It IS still a pinch higher in ambient noise than other 5 bays on the market, such as the Synology DS1520+ and QNAP TVS-h973AX, but not by a vast amount.

The iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS does support a level of local access via a KVM setup as mentioned earlier, that allows you to access a command structure based UI that you can use to run troubleshooting and push SSH commands. Now, the UI you are going to be using is NOT the GUI of TrueNAS Core, this is simply an alternative to SSHing into the system remotely. The use of VGA and not HDMI as a visual out (when VGA visual monitors are hardly mainstream in the 2020s) is a little underwhelming, but given that the system is not using a processor that features embedded graphics and this form of system access is going to be rather low in general use, I think I can let this go for the most part.

What IS interesting about the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ connections though is that the system arrives with two 10GbE network ports by default. Now, if you factor in that the nearest you can get to a 5-Bay with 2x 10GbE from the off-the-shelf brands are the $1500 QNAP TVS-672X or the $1600 DS1621xs+ (both of which would arrive unpopulated) the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ coming with 2x 10GBASE-T ports at this price is really, really impressive. You DO of course have to factor in that it is using open-source (i.e largely free) software unlike the other two, but this does definitely put the price tag of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ into a greater perspective. That said, it is also worth keeping in mind that this IS a 5x SATA 3.5″ and 2x 2.5″ SATA NAS enclosure. Although I CAN see this media saturating a single 10GbE port (i.e 1000MB/s throughput), I don’t think you will even be in a situation where you will saturate both 10GbE ports here (i.e LAG/Trucking at 2,000MB/s) unless maybe, MAYBE you filled the device with enterprise-grade SSDs in the 7 bays. Nevertheless, the idea that you can run multiple connections to this device will mean that that high performance will still be accessible to a good % on each connection, meaning that there will be plenty of bandwidth to share out and a decent level of storage inside to fill it.

The system also features two more USB ports (USB 2.0L sadly, likely geared towards that KVM access option and/or UPS heartbeats) and also an additional network port. This is a 1GbE management port and is something we are seeing appear more and more in modern enterprise hardware. Out of band system management and a fixed connection to the internal control UI for maintenance and/or troubleshooting can be remarkably useful, especially in situations where there is a fault in the greater network preventing you from patching in conventionally.

After the inclusion of the two 10GbE ports on the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, I was genuinely surprised to see that they still had enough umpf in that CPU, the chipset and PCI lanes to also include a PCIe Upgrade slot. Now, the range of options that this bay can be used with is pretty vast (thanks once again to the open-source and free-roam user methodology of TrueNAS when it comes to its design). That said, it is worth factoring in that this port is a PCIe Gen 3 x4 slot (again, I am still pretty surprised it is there at all, given the available storage connections, the additional internal system SSD and those 10GbE ports) and that means that whatever card you using in that slow will not be able to exceed around 4,000MB/s in communicative bandwidth. I am not entirely sure the system would benefit from more 10GbE ports (given the unlikelihood that the 7 media bays here would already saturate the 20GbE possible by default anyway), but the ability to add storage expansion cards, performance enhancement cards, perhaps even wifi cards and maybe even a compact graphics card (it would need to be pretty compact though) to assist those JAIL programs from Plex Media Server transcoding to VMs. A very welcome surprise here.

Overall, the ports and connections on the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ are largely better than I would have ever thoughts for a system of this price/scale. Add to that the scalability in a bunch of ways by that PCIe slot and you really have something genuinely impressive here to build from in a connections sense. Let’s discuss the internal hardware of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Internal Hardware

Once you remove the individual side panels of the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ NAS chassis, you find a system that is a little more familiar to PC builders and is much, much more akin to the PC under your desk. The layout is less streamlined than Synology and QNAP NAS systems, but is still quite a today build and the few wires that are visible are all suitably tied and/or trunked.

The internal PSU is a compact profile model and is held in the top panel. This PSU (playing devil’s advocate here) is NOT going to be fun to replace in the event of failure (the PSU is the 2nd most vulnerable part of a NAS next to the storage media!) as it is pretty well embedded behind all the other components. The system does arrive with a 1yr warranty by default (a noticeable difference to the minimum 2 years and upto 5 years on Synology/QNAP SMB solutions) which can be expanded upon by using the tiered support levels from iXsystems, which would likely over this being replaced, but would they replace it or send you out a new PSU? I will look into that. Otherwise, the PSU here is a decent size, good quality and manages to deliver enough power for this well-equipped system, whilst not being overly large and forcing the system to be much bigger.

The other side of the chassis shows us a whole bunch more wires (again, well kept though). From here we can see the SSD that the iXsystems Mini X+ NAS hosts TrueNAS Core from. Now, I fully expected to see a standard 120/240GB SATA SSD here (as TrueNAS itself is not a huge program once you understand that the software lives on an independent boot drive from your actual RAIDZ/Pools. However, I was very pleasantly surprised when I noted that the system arrived with a 250GB WD Blue 550 NVMe SSD. Now, a couple of things. First off, I am still staggered how much the CPU/Chipset and it’s PCI lanes are being stretched here. An NVMe M.2 Bay, 7 SATA bays, 2x 10G and a PCIe 3×4 – this is seriously impressive to have an m.2 NVMe bay here. Next, the OS living on an NVMe SSD and not a SATA one means that the software will run CONSIDERABLY faster and feel a great deal more responsive. I would query the PCIe generation of that NVMe slot (PCIe 3×1 or PCIe 3×2 at most, surely), but that would still allow 1,000-2,000MB/s bandwidth for that SSD, which it can DEFINITELY saturate. This is a very impressive choice of SSD for the TrueNAS boot drive indeed.

Next, we can talk about the CPU inside the TrueNAS Mini X+ server. This iXsystem NAS arrives with an impressive C3758 Intel CPU, which features EIGHT cores and has a clock speed of 2.2Ghz. Although this is a little old as a CPU (released in late 2017) it is still a very efficient CPU for a 24×7 server that scored a 4675 on CPUBenchmark.

This CPU is placed under a tall heatsink panel (instead of an active CPU fan for the sake of power efficiency and passive cooling over day, week and monthly periods, which is pretty standard on NAS servers) and is a solid choice for VM deployment, as well as assisting fast file server access via those 10GbE ports. Alongside that CPU, the system also arrives with two RDIMM memory slots. The unit for this review arrived with two DDR4 modules and the system when provided by iXsystems will always feature ECC (error-correcting code) supported modules, supporting upto 64GB here. The CPU can support much higher, but likely limitations of how much slots could be added physically and by the available architecture of the hardware already being pushed means this was not going to be an option. Still, an 8 Core x86 64bit Processor, upto 64GB of DDR4 ECC memory and the system software running from an NVMe SSD – this is a lot to get your teeth into on day 1.

Let’s delve a little into the TrueNAS Core software that the iXsystems Mini x+ arrives with and see just what all the fuss is about.

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Software

Now, iXsystems are the hardware arm of TrueNAS and when you purchase the Mini X+ NAS system, it arrives with the latest full release of the open-source software. Now, trying to cover everything that TrueNAS Core can do and offer the end-user would be around 5x longer than this review, so rather than repeat myself, I would direct you to check out my full video and written review on TrueNAS core below. Otherwise, here was the conclusion of that video review to give you some idea of what I thought of TrueNAS Core (running on this very Mini X+ NAS):

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that when it comes to TrueNAS is a fantastically capable software for managing your storage. It even manages to swerve the downfall of being ‘too enterprise’ but arriving as an open source free software platform to be enjoyed by businesses and storage enthusiasts. There is no avoiding that it IS quite a technical mountainous learning curve if you are arriving at it from a position of zero storage or network experience, but the last few big TrueNAS system updates have gone a long way to update some UI elements to be more intuitive, software wide help notes available at all times and the community support is as on-point at it has ever been. If you are a home users looking for a hurdles setup or a day-1 deployable system for your small business, then TrueNAS may be too big a jump for you and you would be better off with a traditional off-the-shelf NAS system. However, if you have the know-how, you have the willingness to get your hands dirty and already have the hardware in mind/in-house, then TrueNAS stands in a class of it’s own and thanks to some very unique architecture choices that are almost utterly unique to this platform, it’s pretty unparalleled in its scope.

 

Who is TrueNAS for

Who is TrueNAS NOT for

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure Users who are happy with/prefer community Support Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual Users who like to fine-tune Anyone that has ever built a PC Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc Users who prefer commercial-grade support Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key) Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction Users who want simplified Warranty Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

You can find my FULL video and written reviews of TrueNAS Core 12, running on this iXsystems Mini X+ NAS by clicking below. Fair warning, they are really, REALLY long and detailed, so many get a coffee and get comfortable before you head there!

TrueNAS Core Video Review	TrueNAS Core Written Review

TrueNAS Mini X+ iXsystems NAS Review – Conclusion & Verdict

When iXsystems started providing turnkey/off-the-shelf solutions that featured TrueNAS, it was a potentially risky move. TrueNAS has an incredible reputation for being customizable, secure and versatile for storage thanks to it’s FreeBSD building blocks and ZFS structure. But more than anything, TrueNAS allows users to access premium-grade software completely for free. Bundling mostly ‘free’ software into a paid hardware solution is something that means the purchase has a lot more to justify than other solutions. Synology and QNAP have been producing easy to deploy hardware+software solutions for more than a decade now commercially and when buying those, you need to leverage your budget to buy a solution that is a 50/50 or 60/40 split between your money buying the hardware but also paying for the software you are using. So, when reviewing the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+, as impressive as TrueNAS is, you need to focus ALOT more on the hardware that you are paying for here as it makes up at least 90% of the purchase. However, I can comfortably say that once you put together the hardware that this system is arriving with (2x 10GbE, 8 core processor, ECC memory, NVMe SSD inside and 7 bays of storage, custom chassis and pre-built), the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is definitely delivering a lot of bang for your buck! There are a few things I am less keen on, the inclusive warranty seems a little short (it can be extended for a price at checkout) and a few hardware design choices on the chassis baffled me slightly, but if you are drawn to the incredibly flexibility of TrueNAS right now for your home/business storage, but bulk at the idea of going DiY on it, then the iXsystems TrueNAS Mini X+ is a great middle-ground and good value overall. Recommended.

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If you have been on the fence about moving into the world of using the open-source platform TrueNAS for your private server, there is a good chance that the rather elite level server software is leaving you a pinch intrigued. The big ZFS optimized software that is available to download completely for free OR as part of a business targeted solution from iXsystems seemingly promises significantly more freedom and flexibility than off-the-shelf commercial NAS solutions, but there is no denying that regardless of whether you are an existing NAS user that is thinking of going down the ‘custom build’ route OR someone who thinks they are I.T verses enough to DiY it on day 1, that TrueNAS can be fantastically intimidating. Later in 2022, I will be exploring TrueNAS in huge detail, looking at what the platform offers to new users, how it compares with popular NAS brands like Synology & QNAP and hopefully helping to demystify this more community-supported platform. In this first Q&A, in what I hope will be many in 2022/2023, I have canvased YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and directly here on NASCompares for traditional NAS users burning questions about TrueNAS. I spoke with Morgan Littlewood, SVP for Product Management over at iXsystems, and put your questions to him. Below are those questions and his responses. If you have any further questions that are not covered in today’s Q&A, or have follow-ups to those that were asked, then fire them in the comments. We will have our full review of TrueNAS coming very soon here on NASCompares, along with a hardware review of the iXsystems Truenas Mini X+, so don’t forget to subscribe for that. But, let’s crack on with the Q&A.

Note – Today’s Questions come from you, the viewer/reader via the site or social media platforms. Where possible I have kept the questions in their original verbatim form. Where changes have been made, it has been for the sake of clarity in the question for structure.

Why are the hardware requirements for TrueNAS higher than EXT4 based Systems that also run on Linux?

TrueNAS is optimised for reliability and performance. Less RAM can be used, but it is not recommended. We don’t recommend anything that may result in a poor experience. ZFS is more robust and resource-intensive than EXT4 on account of its much safer Copy-on-Write architecture. Snapshots and clones are much simpler, and data safety during hardware and power failures is much higher.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  04:18

Why are the RAM and CPU requirements so high compared to other systems (from Synology or QNAP for example) that can arrive with Intel Celeron’s and even ARM processors?

TrueNAS is a fully Open Source system based on FreeBSD (TrueNAS CORE) or Linux (TrueNAS SCALE) with OpenZFS. The software is professional-grade and is not optimised for minimum personal electronics cost. The software can run on virtually any hardware, including all drivers, even QNAP hardware. Less CPU and RAM will result in lower performance.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  06:08 

In light of a recent spate of off-the-shelf NAS Ransomware Attacks on the likes of Asustor, Terramaster and QNAP, is there any reason that I should think that a TrueNAS build system is less susceptible?

Yes, QNAP (and Synology) have a consumer-grade architecture with poor isolations between apps and the Operating System. Hackers can break into these systems through the complex apps and get access to the underlying OS as a root user.  TrueNAS is professionally architected to avoid these and other issues. Complex apps are isolated to Plugins, Apps, and VMs with no host access. Unlike QNAP and Synology, all software is Open Source and visible to security experts for inspection. It is still important that users follow the best practices our software and documentation encourage.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  08:25

If TrueNAS (aka FreeNAS) is free and can be used on a custom build server, why should I spend more on hardware to buy an iXsystems system?

TrueNAS is Open Source and customers have a choice. Running TrueNAS on used equipment is the lowest-cost approach. TrueNAS on Minis or new server hardware will be similar in cost. TrueNAS Minis have the advantage of being thoroughly tested and supported by iXsystems. There is additional software for managing enclosures which are themselves optimised for storage (e.g., whisper-quiet fans). Any revenues from TrueNAS Mini contribute back our support of the TrueNAS Open Source project.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 10:32

Does TrueNAS have Mobile Applications?

TrueNAS is an Open System. There are many mobile apps that use the SMB, NFS, and WebDav interfaces into TrueNAS. Mobile browsers can access the TrueNAS or TrueCommand UIs.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 13:57 

Does TrueNAS have any preset minimums in place regarding that, if left unaddressed, inhibit the system in any way (remote access, application support, etc)?

If there is insufficient boot drive space, the software updates will be inhibited. Insufficient RAM will inhibit VMs from performing well.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 15:09

Aside from S.M.A.R.T and single drive benchmarks, does TrueNAS have more/better self-testing and benchmarking tools? e.g in an internal means to measure the performance of a RAID configuration?

We recommend FIO for performance testing of the ZFS pool, which is built into TrueNAS. Any other testing can be performed remotely on the system via its various protocols.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  17:40

What is the hardware entry point for a home user to start using TrueNAS?

TrueNAS is not targeted at small home users with one or two drives. Rather, it is for home users with many Terabytes of data, typically video or photo enthusiasts and/or users with a background in IT. We recommend either a used server or a TrueNAS Mini for home use. The TrueNAS Mini-E is the lowest cost, and the TrueNAS Mini-X has more power and flexibility. 

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 19:22

What are the benefits of running a smaller 4 Disk NAS on TrueNAS compared to Synology DS920+?

The Synology 920+ is a 4-Bay, 4 core Celeron processor with 4-8GB RAM. It uses a combination of BTRFS and RAID to store its data. It is a nice little hardware package with a non-production file system that is less reliable. Synology then mates BTRFS with RAID-5 which is also less reliable in the presence of power outages and bit rot. This combination makes the data storage less resilient, scalable, and portable. The TrueNAS Mini-X system is a step up from the Synology 920+ in reliability and flexibility. It has 7-Bays, 4 Cores, and 16-32GB of ECC protected RAM. It uses OpenZFS 2.0 which is more reliable by design and enables open, efficient replication to any OpenZFS system, plus the normal Rsync tools. ECC RAM is used to avoid any corrupted data or files and provide rapid detection of any faulty hardware. Without ECC, silent errors that are very difficult to troubleshoot and fix can occur.

TrueNAS has recommended drives, but does not make it difficult to use third-party drives, used or new. We’ve seen Synology move to branded drives with poor support of other drives. TrueNAS supports a ZFS Write Log function which makes the system very reliable even during power failures. Data that is written and acknowledged is always safe. The use of RAID-5 and BTRFS does not provide this level of protection

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 21:07

Which Drives do you use in your pre-populated systems and is the warranty on these inclusive with that of the system?

TrueNAS Minis use WD Red Plus HDDs and a variety of different SSDs. The system warranty includes all pre-populated drives for a single throat to choke experience. We have found the WD Red Plus drives to be very reliable in conjunction with OpenZFS.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  23:16

With TrueNAS Scale, will RDMA/RoCEv2 be supported? 

RDMA is a very useful technology for accessing data in RAM on another system. For accessing data on HDDs and Flash, there is only a minor benefit. TrueNAS SCALE will support RDMA in a future release based on customer/community demand.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  25:05

Do iXsystems and/or TrueNAS adequately support flash server use and if so, does it have intelligent wear monitoring?

SSD wear monitoring is available, but it’s really a band-aid for systems with poor flash characteristics. OpenZFS does two things that ensure a much longer flash life:

1. Writes to flash are distributed evenly over the drives in the system through the use of ZFS VDEVs
2. Small writes (e.g., 4K) are aggregated into larger writes (e.g., 64K) as part of the writing process. This reduces the stress on the flash media enormously. Even QLC drives can sustain heavy workloads with OpenZFS.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here: 26:04

How migratable is a TrueNAS RAID array between systems? I.e If my Intel i5/16GB DDR4 6 Drive RAID6 Drive configuration based system suffers a motherboard failure, how smooth/easy/possible is installing these 6 drives in another system? And does the hardware configuration need to match?

Great question. This is the beauty of OpenZFS. There are two ways to migrate data efficiently:

ZFS replication: this is incremental, very efficient, and can be done between two systems with different sizes and even different OSes. You can replicate the entire pool or specific data sets within it. Replication is efficient, making it feasible to do every ten minutes or every night.

Drive Transfer: A ZFS pool can be exported to its set of drives. The drives can then be removed and placed in another system, server, or JBOD and imported as a new ZFS pool with all data intact. The new system does not need to use any similar motherboard, RAID card, OSes, and it can even be a VM with access to the drives. If there are any drive errors, these can be repaired by the ZFS checksum and scrubbing processes. 

You can ZFS replicate or transfer a TrueNAS pool to an Ubuntu VM running on VMware. This is the difference provided by an Open Software model with a professional-grade architecture. The software is designed to give users the flexibility they want and not lock them into a proprietary ecosystem. TrueNAS enables data to be maintained well through several generations of hardware using these techniques. This is critical for long-lived data like family photos, videos, and professional work product. For businesses, it is very important that TrueNAS enables scalability from a few drives to over 1,000 drives in a single system. Large archive/backup systems can support many workgroup systems with the same software and tools. Synology is particularly limited in the scalability of its systems.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  28:16

Does TrueNAS have an active homebrew scene?

Yes, there is a very active community of users doing three things:

1. Building their own hardware platforms with new and second-hand parts. We have a few users that have re-used QNAP systems.
2. Assisting with software development. Some users will find a bug and then resolve it themselves. The software is largely in Python and C. Most users will just report the bug via our Community.
3. Developing or building Apps that run well on TrueNAS. Most of these Apps are now docker containers or combinations of containers.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  31:32

What are the benefits of an Open Source NAS over an off-the-shelf NAS system?

The role of a NAS is the long term retention and sharing of data.  Videos, photos, financial, and medical records all need to be retained for tens of years…even multiple lifetimes.  This can’t be done with a single box and will require an evolving family of platforms and backup strategies. Open Source provides the benefits of long term evolution and migration options.  Data can be replicated and migrated easily between systems. New systems can be built with second-hand hardware and free Open Source software.  The user has control of their own destiny. That is Open Source economics. TrueNAS embraces Open Source economics and allows you to choose the hardware platform that best suits your applications and your budgets.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  33:35

How does the TrueNAS Community help a new user?

The TrueNAS Community is a fantastic resource for the average user. Because TrueNAS is Open Source, there are thousands of users that both have operating experience, but extremely good knowledge of how the software works and how to resolve systems integration issues, recover data, and troubleshoot hardware.  When you are trying to do something new with your system, it’s common to find that hundreds of people have already worked out how to set something up, or have the experience to tell you that you can’t get it to work. Community members can save themselves many hours of work and have a fun conversation. The TrueNAS forum is moderated to make sure forum posts are polite and welcoming.

Find the answer in the video Q&A here:  35:48

You can watch the original Q&A with Morgan Littlewood of iXsystems below:

If you have any further questions about TrueNAS that were not addressed in this Q&A, fire them below in the comments and we will have them featured in a follow-up interview this spring/summer. Thanks for reading.

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If you like this service, please consider supporting us. We use affiliate links on the blog allowing NAScompares information and advice service to be free of charge to you.Anything you purchase on the day you click on our links will generate a small commission which isused to run the website. Here is a link for Amazon and B&H.You can also get me a Ko-fi or old school Paypal. Thanks!To find out more about how to support this advice service check HEREIf you need to fix or configure a NAS, check Fiver Have you thought about helping others with your knowledge? Find Instructions Here  

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Have you been considering a NAS for a few years, but looked at the price tag that off the shelf featured solutions from Synology or QNAP and thought “wow, that seems rather expensive for THAT hardware”? Or are you someone that wants a NAS, but also has an old PC system or components around that could go towards building one? Or perhaps you are a user who wants a NAS, but HAS the budget, HAS the hardware, but also HAS the technical knowledge to understand EXACTLY the system setup, services and storage configuration you need? If you fall into one of those three categories, then there is a good chance that you have considered TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS). The community supported and highly customizable ZFS storage platform that is available for free and along with regular updates has adapted over recent years towards diversifying different kinds of users, their setup’s and their requirements of TrueNAS. Today I want to review the TrueNAS software. In order to do this, I have been supplied with a Mini X+ 5 HDD/2 SSD Desktop system (hardware review on that soon) by iXsystems, a company with established ties with TrueNAS and the platform’s official enterprise hardware solution partner. This review is going to be conducted a little different than my normal NAS server reviews. Unlike a review of a new piece of NAS hardware, TrueNAS is a software platform that is significantly more flexible in it’s installation (ultimately available in one form or another on a custom PC build or even much smaller shuttle case builds). Equally, unlike many who have reviewed TrueNAS and it’s previous versions or recent splinters (e.g. FreeNAS, Core, Scale, Enterprise, etc), today’s review is going to be a fresh look at this platform, what it does better than Linux NAS systems like Synology or QNAP, what is does worse and ultimately help users who are thinking of moving towards the steeper learning curve of custom-built TrueNAS. What TrueNAS lacks in the ease and simplicity of traditional NAS drives, it can more than makeup for it in its sheer scope and potential to be more powerful, efficient and flexible overall. So, let me guide you through my highlights of 30 aggregate hours of use with TrueNAS.

Part II of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (23/03)

Part III of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (25/03)

Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE.

TrueNAS Review Disclaimer – As mentioned in my introduction, my review of TrueNAS today was made on an iXsystem Mini X+, an 8-Core Intel-based system that featured 32GB of DDR4 memory, as well as arriving with 2x 10GbE ports, PCIe Upgradability and mixed storage media support. The system arrived with 5x WD Red Drives and 2x 2.5″ SSDs. This hardware does not impact the bulk of this review as TrueNAS is available as an open-source download that can be installed onto a custom PC, flashed server etc. However, the iXsystem Mini X+ arrives with TrueNAS Core and a few smaller extra bits that are exclusive to this more complete hardware+software package. Where appropriate, I will highlight it, however, the bulk of the features, settings and stand out areas of attention below can be applied to the free, standalone version of this platform. Additionally, there are references to enterprise features and TrueNAS Command (a wider remote deployment monitoring and management portal tool) that may be exclusive to that platform. Finally, my personal background is largely focused on traditional turn-key NAS solutions and therefore I decided to present this review on how things are done differently to NAS brands such as Synology and QNAP. You can find iXsystems Pre-built TrueNAS solutions over on Amazon here.

Review of TrueNAS – GUI & Deployment

First-time deployment of TrueNAS (after the initial installation of the software on the hardware system which will vary based on whether you have opted for an iXsystem solution or a custom build) is very straightforward. Once the system is booted, connected to your network and initialized, finding the device is possible via truenas.local. or obtaining it’s address from your switch or using an IP Scanner.

So, the first thing that I want to discuss about TrueNAS is the design. Finding a very interesting middle ground between providing all the configuration options in a single screen, whilst still not overwhelming the end-user, getting it pretty close to nailing it.

Alot More Hints and Tips than I was Expecting!

The first thing I was very surprised by in the design and deployment of the TrueNAS GUI was the sheer number of hints and information ‘i’s around every single screen. As TrueNAS and FreeNAS before it are built on FreeBSD, although there I expected a GUI, I did think it would still be rather command-line heavy still. However, not only are the controls of TrueNAS almost all displayed in a clearly visible GUI, but also I struggled to find a single option or choice that didn’t have a tip or guidance suggestion. This was a particular surprise as one of the biggest hurdles for most users considering moving from a turn-key NAS solution towards TrueNAS (custom or an iXsystem) is that intimidating climb up the steeper learning curve. It was a genuine and extremely welcome surprise to see how much guidance was available to even small and insignificant choices in the storage system setup where available.

Presentation of Storage and Resource Use is VERY Clear

Another thing that I fully expected to be present, but not to this level, was how the information on your storage areas (Pools, data sets, individual drives, etc) and the monitoring of your resources were displayed both analytically AND clearly. Of course, I expected TrueNAS to have the means to assess the system hardware health and status, but like most of my early personal experience with FreeNAS, UnRAID and FreeBSD years before, I thought this information would be available less in the GUI and more in command retrieval. However, the resource monitor and storage status (both, when delving into the system deeper and just via the initial splash screen of the GUI) provide an excellent level of information and in the case of the former, can be broken into a report form. Getting the presentation of storage on a GUI that can suit both the novice and the veteran techie is a tremendously tough line to balance and although there are a few areas where TrueNAS tends to ‘info-dump’ you a little, this area was no one of them.

Sharing Tab and its Breadcrumbs (WebDav, iSCSI, SMB, etc) Are More Intuative than Most

Another part of the TrueNAS graphical user interface that sets it apart a little from off the shelf NAS hardware+software is how the menu bar is displayed. With most NAS brands having their GUI comparable to popular operating system desktops (primarily Windows, MacOS or Android for the most part), TrueNAS’ GUI is a little bit more comparable to WordPress for the most part. The bulk of the config and service options are all located on the left-hand side of the screen and although there is only a handful at first glance, each one breaks down into subcategories quite quickly. The responsiveness of this menu system is particularly impressive and it’s easy to forget that you are accessing a remote system. Although the bulk of the tabs and options are where you would hope, one particular stand out example of things being done in a different and better way than most brands in the sharing tab/menu. Although most NAS brand software and GUI have tabs dedicated to sharing files (as well as contextual menus on files and folders), once you start breaking down into different sharing protocols, things get a little distance out and you end up having to keep multiple windows open to create and manage your cross-platform sharing environment. TrueNAS on the other hand has bulked these all together into the single tab and allows navigation through and between considerably more intuitive. Equally, the customization and configuration of shares and you delve deeper (although increasing the learning curve) are significantly more diverse to allow tweaking and improvements based on your setup.

Live Reports of System & Processes are Very Detailed and Quick to Navigate

Much like the Storage Presentation and Resource Use, getting reports of historical system information and active processes are much more detailed on the TrueNAS platform than I have seen from many NAS brands. TrueNAS uses Graphite for metric gathering and visualizations. Some general settings can be found in System > Reporting. Once again, it’s a fine line to have information regarding the server be presented in a fashion that is digestible to less storage-experienced users without potentially dumbing things down a little. Luckily these do still seem to present all the information that either tier of user is going to need and is done so by the information being broken down into sections that in turn can be delved deeper into by degrees. The UX of TrueNAS has clearly been thought about a lot and although many FreeNAS veterans might have disliked the changes in some areas towards making it simplified in places, there are still options for drilling down into system heath and history quite significantly.

Lots of Theme Customizations and a Theme Maker

A very surprisingly detail of TrueNAS is how much the GUI can be customized. Most NAS brands and their software allow the end-user (i.e that current user of many that have access credentials) to change minor details. The Wallpaper, their login icon and time/date display and pretty much the full range of choices. Given the fact most off-the-shelf NAS solutions are designed with being more user-friendly and attempting to de-mystified network storage for average users, I was VERY surprised that it was TrueNAS that had a greater degree of customization available in how the GUI is displayed. Colour schemes, logo changes, scaling, icon replacements, fonts, accents and changes to the top bar. There is a comparatively large amount of choice and customization compared with turn-key NAS solutions from Synology and QNAP and leans very well into the already established idea that TrueNAS is designed around custom builds.

No Avoiding That it is Still Very Stat and Tech Heavy some less experienced Users

As much as I like the GUI fo TrueNAS and how it has melded the controls very well to remain accessible to the experienced and inexperienced user, it has to be said that this is not done 50/50 and although there are hints, guides and recommendations by the system through all choices, it is still a very tech-heavy product and although the basic/top-layer decisions are user friendly, it isn’t going to be long before the full pages fo customization and configuration choices presented in the TrueNAS GUI are going to be a little overwhelming for those that are more used to these tougher decisions being hidden behind presets or set up behind a scaled option of security. In a few other areas of TrueNAS, this is addressed with an ‘advanced’ tab or mode option that until pressed will hide these tougher elements of the setup unless needed. Sadly this is not a system-wide design choice in the GUI and the TrueNAS UX is something that can demand accelerated learning. Alot of this might be solved with ‘easy’ ‘intermediate’ or ‘expert’ table opens on the bulk of pages, but as it stands it can sometimes be a bit of a ‘cannot see the wood because of all the trees’ situation when looking for a specific option in a menu, as there are 10-15 choices/boxes on the screen. The TrueNAS UI in the latest version IS very good and considerably more user-friendly than I thought it would be, but I would still be reluctant to call it novice-friendly.

No Search Functionality at the Home Screen

This was something that, despite the arguably higher skill level that TrueNAS commands in it’s user base, I was still surprised was absent – A search feature from the main GUI. It would not be a commonly used feature, however, I have met plenty of less experienced users or those in a rush looking for a specific option/service/setting that would appreciate a search functionality to be available. There ARE a few services and options in the menus that feature search functionality, but they are generally always limited to that specific function and not system-wide.

Review of TrueNAS – Storage

Realistically, THIS is the thing that is going to be paramount to most users of TrueNAS, Storage! But simply storing data is not enough, it is about how well it stores it, how customizable it is to different user environments, how secure it is in terms of backups and redundancy, how robust it is and the maintenance of that storage moving forward. TrueNAS arrives with ZFS (zettabyte File System), an enterprise-ready open source file system, RAID controller, and volume manager with unprecedented flexibility and an uncompromising commitment to data integrity. It eliminates most, if not all of the shortcomings that veteran storage professionals claim are apparent in ‘EXT4’ or the much newer ‘BTRFS’ file systems from brands such as Synology and QNAP NAS devices. Alongside the widest support of ZFS currently available in the market, TrueNAS also is one of the most scalable solutions available in the world (in part thanks to that freedom in building the hardware architecture being available and the open-source design of the platform allowing migration being considerably more seamless as you change out hardware over time. ZFS also brings big advantages in deduplication and compression techniques that improve how much data is being written to the system, whilst simultaneously simplifying the internal pathways of the system to larger bulks of users. In recent years, turnkey solutions from Synology and QNAP (as well as more affordable brands such as Asustorand Terraamster) have provided a degree of duplication on their platforms (QNAP seemingly extending this more than most) but ZFS has most of the architecture for these processes natively built into it and although you WILL need to bulk up on your hardware (16GB memory recommended in most cases if you want both for example), it still allows TrueNAS to stand out. Here are the elements of TrueNAS storage that stood out for me.

Exceptionally High Level of Access Control Options and Configuration of Data Sets

If there are two areas of consistency throughout TrueNAS storage that need to be highlighted above all others, it would be control and security. At practically every tier of the system’s internal storage management, you are able to apply numerous measures of bespoke user choice protection. More than the fact that standard elements of encryption, ACL and storage segmentation are available here, but more the sheer depth of it. You are able to assign extremely rigid access controls to your storage pools, zDevs, zVols and data sets from the ground up, as well as the branch these security measures into select user and group access (which can be changed by a superuser on the fly with ease). Along with that, ACL support is extremely wide-ranging, giving you the means to create areas of storage that are completely inaccessible (in either direction) by the greater system that ensure that storage can be created quickly, but without opening doors to your mission-critical storage. This bespoke control extends quite heavily to the configuration of Access Control Levels, as access Control List (ACL) is a set of account permissions associated with a dataset and applied to directories or files within that dataset. ACLs are typically used to manage user interactions with shared datasets and are created when a dataset is added to a pool. TrueNAS seemingly allows a create degree of control on this than most NAS systems on the market right now.

Excellent level of support of SED Media and Encryption levels in General

Then with Security, TrueNAS covers this in a few key areas. First off, several methods/protocols of encryption are supported by the system (giving the end-user a choice at the setup level) and generally ‘choosing’ your encryption method is not something offered by most brands to this extent (or at all in many cases). Next, there is the fact that encryption can be applied at every level of thes storage is required. When we look at some other NAS brands that included encryption, they tend to include encryption at the shard folder or volume level (pool level is supported with the use of encrypted drive media). TrueNAS is one of the very few several software on the market that provides native and configurable encryption at every level (storage pool, volumes, data sets, etc) and along with support of key management, there are additional failsafe options available that also passphrase support too. Finally, you have the support of self-encrypted drives (SEDs) in the system that can be fully utilized and that additional encryption be afforded to the greater storage system with the others. In short, you can create a fantastically encrypted storage system to an unparalleled degree in trueNAS. Again, not too shabby for an open-source bit of software!

Unrecommended Storage Configuration Choices Need to be ‘Forced’ to be actioned

One issue that will inevitably come to providing software that is highly customizable is giving the end-user too much rope to hang themselves with! Once you make your way past the rudimentary aspects of storage, the end-user can start putting together the building blocks of their storage inefficiently (or worse still dangerously) and run the risk of creating a basis for their storage for years to come that is inherently flawed. Balancing that line of allowing complete control and customization, whilst stopping a user from doing the wrong thing is a tough line to tread (QNAP have been walking this one as best they can for years too). TrueNAS has addressed this with a (very) soft lock system. When building your storage, if you are configuring the resources in a less than optimal/safe way, the system will give you a warning on the screen that details the potential downside/detrimental effect of your action. This warning can then be closed/dismissed and in order to continue, the ‘continue’ option will be joined with a button ‘force’. This is TrueNAS’ middle ground to allow creative freedom, whilst letting the end-user know that the action they are performing has a layer of risk attacked. For example, you are configuring a RAIDZ2 (think RAID 6) and you are using 8 disks that are not all uniform in capacity, but you do not care/want to proceed anyway. This is where the system would present you with a warning to ‘force’ through. The same thing when you build pools without redundancy or use differing media interface types outside of a fusion pool or cache setup. It is by no means a perfect solution, but at least TrueNAS have clearly understood that they need to steer things a bit at times.

Copy on Write Architecture is an additional Layer of File Level Error Recovery

An interesting architectural advantage of TrueNAS utilizing ZFS is the support of CoW (Copy on Write). This is a system of checksum built data health that involves a brief period of two actions of write occurring on any data being sent to the TrueNAS serve, which are then compared for consistency and then a single final, verified version of that data resides. ZFS does not change the location of data until a write is completed and verified. This ensures that your data isn’t lost during an interrupted task such as a power outage. ZFS uses a 256-bit hash of the data in a file system block, known as a checksum. This checksum ensures data integrity during writes. The way it handles and tests writes means that each write is tested, eliminating storage degradation such as bitrot. It also eliminates the write hole which allows for silent data corruption within RAID. Similar methods of data health and verification are utilized in other storage technology (such as ECC memory and in the write actions of BTRFS) but not to this extent and in such a widespread way. Writes do not overwrite data in place; instead, a modified copy of the block is written to a new location, and metadata is updated to point at the new location.

Support of RAIDZ Means that Initial Building is Faster and Recovery More Precise

One of the long understood advantages of ZFS that TrueNAS provides immediately (perhaps to the jealousy of EXT4 and BRTFS system users) is the utility of RAIDZ. RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is the ability to combine multiple media drives into a single storage pool that provides some/all of the benefits of increased storage performance, storage performance and redundancy (eg a safety net to still access/recover your data in the event of a drive failure). RAID and RAIDZ are similar on the face of it (with support of striping and mirroring), but it is a lot of difference in the larger arrays in terms of building, writing and recovery. RAIDZ has some interesting benefits, the first and most obvious is that a RAIDZ compared with a RAID5 takes minutes, not hours to build! Additionally, RAIDZ has a better understanding of empty blocks and that becomes beneficial in the event of a RAID rebuild, as in the event a drive fails and you introduce a new HDD/SSD, RAIDZ will ONLY need to rebuild the areas onto the replacement disk that data original resided on (using parity data from the other present disks) and then just zero’ing the rest of the disk. Similar systems like this have arrived from Synology on their platform for after RAID recovery (still using TBRFS) but still not as fluid and native as in ZFS. Striped VDEV’s, Mirrored VDEV’s and Striped Mirrored VDEV’s are essentially the same as RAID0, RAID1 and RAID10 accordingly with one difference; automatic checksumming prevents silent data corruption that might be undetected by most hardware RAID cards. ZFS uses the additional checksum level to detect silent data corruption when the data block is damaged, but the hard drive does not flag it as bad.

• RAIDZ (sometimes explicitly specified as RAIDZ1) is approximately the same as RAID5 (single parity)
• RAIDZ2 is approximately the same as RAID6 (dual parity)

RAID5 places blocks in a regular pattern. You only need to know the block number (address) to determine which disk stores the block, at what address, and where the corresponding parity block is. Also, with N disks, exactly one parity block is stored for every N-1 data blocks.

In RAIDZ, ZFS first compresses each recordsize block of data. Then, it distributes compressed data across the disks, along with a parity block. So, one needs to consult filesystem metadata for each file to determine where the file records are and where the corresponding parities are. For example, if data compresses to only one sector, ZFS will store one sector of data along with one sector of parity. Therefore, there is no fixed proportion of parity to the data. Moreover, sometimes padding is inserted to better align blocks on disks (denoted by X in the above example), which may increase overhead. However, we have still not touched on two more core advantages of ZFS and it’s RAID management…

3 Disk Redundancy is Available and Should Get More Kudos!

TRIPLE DISK PARITY! Now, if you don’t know what that is, then you can be forgiven for wondering why I have put that in capital letters. However, those that know, love it. In short, RAIDZ3 is the 3 disk fault-tolerance storage pool configuration that is largely unavailable conventionally in any other RAID configuration, requiring at least 5 disks (again, HDD or SSD) it means that you can withstand 3 drives failing. Now, if that sounds like tremendous overkill, then let me share a fun fact with you! Most drive failures that I have witnessed (and I welcome commentors to contribute on this) do NOT stem from poor treatment of a single drive, dropping an enclosure or poor individual handling. No, the bulk of drive failures I have witnessed have stemmed from three causes (looking at logs and SMART info):

• Inherent fault at the point of manufacture or in the logistics chain that has developed over time
• Overworked system hitting RAID arrays harder than intended 24×7 etc, or just designed drive workloads being exceeded in general
• Critical larger system failure in the middle of a widespread write action (eg power failure as all drives are engaged for writing)

Now, in THOSE three examples, the key factor to keep in mind is that in none of them is an HDD or SSD on its own. At manufacture in bulk, in transit in crates of 20x at a time or in larger setup RAID array – the things that harm the storage media is hitting several at once. Even if you ignore the degenerative factors of exceeding workloads and system critical failure damage, there is no avoiding that when you buy multiple HDD/SSD from a single e-retailer (eTailer?), they do NOT provide you with multiple drive with each drive from a different crate/carton. No, that would be spectacularly inefficient for any retailer. No, you have to accept that there is a % chance that as soon as 1 drive fails that (without identifying to cause) that another drive in the array could fail for the same reason soon. So a double disk redundancy such as RAIDZ2 or RAID 6 would give you extra time – but how much time? Who known. But if your data is mission-critical and you weigh up the cost of another HDD in a custom build design such as TrueNAS, a triple parity RAID system starts to make a lot of sense.

ZFS ReSilvering Often Overlooked Safety Net

Another wildly overlooked and misunderstood advantage of ZFS and TrueNAS’ utility of it is in the support of Re-silvering. For those unaware, resilvering is when a drive that WAS part of the RAID array is disconnected and reconnected in a brief window that allows the system to identify that the drive belongs in the original pool and re-embraces it quickly. In practical terms, imagine your system suffers a very brief SATA/Controller board malfunction and a drive is dismounted (software level). Alternatively (and something surprisingly more command than you might think) an HDD in a tray/bay of the NAS might be accidentally physically ejected. Resilvering would allow the system to KNOW that the drive is part of the set and reintroduce it. In EXT4 or BTRFS, that brief disconnection would result in the RAID pool changing to a degraded status and the end-user would be forced to 1) endure a slower system as data is being exchanged with the pool in this parity-reading state as 2) the system wipes the former HDD/SSD to re-write all the data it had already and 3) unnecessary stress is placed on the system resources throughout. In ZFS and TrueNAS, the system would SEE that the recently ejected/dismounted drive is part fo the pool, verify that it has the data in place and then re-introduce the drive. the time this takes is largely based on how long the drive was disconnected (and data written in the interim) but it can genuinely take seconds or minutes – unlike the hours to days that a RAID recovery from a degraded state would take.

USB Storage Media is Visible and Managed in the Storage Manager

It is a very small detail but one I think is worth highlighting. Namely that USB storage media in TrueNAS is handled much differently than in other turnkey NAS solutions from Synology and QNAP. In those latter examples, USB storage is treated at arms length, visible in the file manager in the GUI of course, but then only really visible for use in the backup tools (which is still great). In TrueNAS however, USB storage media is visible, configurable and manageable directly from the storage manager. Now, obviously spreading a RAID over SATA storage media and a USB drive would be ridiculously dangerous for storage, however, there are still plenty of benefits and management advantages to having external storage visible alongside the management of the rest of the storage – aside from backup management and configuring the access privileges of the drive media, it also allows the USB drive to be managed for scheduled tasks and processes alongside the rest of the system and integrated into the reports and monitoring of the TrueNAS system. It is a small detail, but one that really stood out for me when comparing TrueNAS against Synology DSM and QNAP QTS USB media management overall.

Fusion Pools of Mixed Storage Media is Great and Rarer Than You Might Think

Another (relatively) recent addition to TrueNAS and its use of ZFS is the option to create fusion pools. A comparatively streamlined process, when you think about how technical and advanced the average options of TrueNAS can be to the end-user, fusion pools allow you to introduce mixed tiers of storage of different performance and combine them into a single visible pool, but in the background the system is sending data to the drive media that is best suited to supply it – so metadata on the SSD media, larger bulkier sequential data on the HDDs etc. ZFS sends writes to individual physical disks rather than just a RAID volume. This allows for stripe writes across RAID volumes and can perform synchronous writes to speed up performance. This model also ensures there are no long waits for file system checks. ZFS incorporates algorithms to make sure your Most Recently Used (MRU) and Most Frequently Used (MSU) data are stored in your fastest system storage media. Utilizing MRU & MSU combined with flash/NVDIMM ZILs/SLOGs and ARC/L2ARC devices, you can speed up your performance astronomically. Similar systems to this exist in QNAP’s EXT4 service ‘tiered storage’ and both they and Synology offer NVMe SSD caching services in conjunction with an existing pool/volume, but again this is done to a considerably higher and more customizable degree in TrueNAS. It just takes more time and knowhow to set up though.

Smart/Intuitive Option to Define Drive Media Use

Then there is an interesting storage setup choice that TrueNAS offers that is actually quite a bit of fresh air versus the more complex elements of it’s configuration. Namey that the system also includes an option to specifically designate a soon to be created area of storage to a task/use. So, if you have introduced one or more drives to your custom build server, you can choose whether you want this to be an independent new pool as a hot spare, to factor as additional storage redundancy, dedicated deduplication storage, designate the space for metadata (SSD recommended of course) and more. It is a surprisingly user-friendly option amidst all the complexity and a welcome addition to save time and headaches!

No Native Browser GUI Based File Manager

One missing feature of TrueNAS that really surprised me was the absence of a browser-based file manager. Now, on the face of it, many will argue that the GUI of your storage system should be reserved for system management, configuration and for troubleshooting (some even erring away from browser GUIs entirely in favour of SSHing etc directly into the system as a superuser for these tasks for pace). Equally, once you have correctly created and configured your storage (along with creating shared paths and enabling the right file access protocol in TrueNAS) you will be able to mount and access your storage in a drive, folder and file level in your native OS (arguable BETTER). However, the ease and added benefits of ALSO being able to access your system storage from time to time in even a simple file/folder level in the GUI cannot be overstated. Sure, you CAN create a very based root directly breadcrumb style breakdown in a browser tab – but with most NAS brands offering the same OS-level native file/folder access AND offering a web browser GUI file management option (with copy, paste, archive, thumbnails, sharing, editing) AND mobile applications to do the same. It is really odd that this is not a native option in TrueNAS. You COULD use 3rd party tools of course to do this, but that would be a credit to those and not TrueNAS.

RAIDZ Still Takes Longer than Traditional RAID in ReBuilding Fuller Arrays

This is a small negative in the grand scheme of things and hardly something that leaves TrueNAS/ZFS reflected too badly against EXT4 and BTRFS setups, but although ZFS Raid rebuilding IS much faster if your actual capacity used is smaller (only building the data/space used and hashing/zeroing the rest), that advantage does not help in the event of your storage pool being much fuller and in testing a RAIDZ at 90% full vs a near-identical RAID5 on 4x4TB actually took a pinch longer on the ZFS pool. Again, the difference was small and largely down to the additional checksums and verification of ZFS, but still, something to note.

Potential Defragmentation in Copy On Write Methodology

Earlier, we discussed that ZFS utilizes copy on write (CoW) in order to create a 2nd copy of the data for ensuring the integrity of the write action. Unfortunately, this can mean that TrueNAS can suffer from data fragmentation as time wears on. There are direct performance implications that stem from that fact. This can be avoided with scheduled/periodic de-fragmentation, but this can be time and resource-consuming depending on the volume of your storage. So potentially, the fuller your storage pool is with actual data, the slower it will ultimately get. Write speeds in ZFS are directly tied to the amount of adjacent free blocks there are to write to in order to maintain the CoW process. As your pool fills up, and as data fragments, there are fewer and fewer blocks that are directly adjacent to one another. A single large file may span blocks scattered all over the surface of your hard drive. Even though you would expect that file to be a sequential write, it no longer can be if your drive is full. This can be an often overlooked and direct reason for long term performance drops in some systems over time if left unchecked. I have personally not experienced this, but it has been discussed online (forums, reddit, etc) and therefore I still thought I should address this.

Still Not Especially Novice or even soft IT knowledge Friendly User

Despite the big efforts by TrueNAS to demystify the complexity of storage management in several areas of its storage area (fusion pools being partially automated mixed media pools, the suggested vDev drive drop-down, USB management in that same area and ‘force’ warning options to name but a few), there is still no avoiding that TrueNAS is CONSIDERABLY more complicated to setup your storage and is a large jump from the frank simplicity of Synology and QNAP. Some would argue that the simplicity offered by turnkey/off-the-shelf NAS solutions are incredibly restrictive and inherently limiting, but there is still a substantial learning curve to setting up your storage in TrueNAS that needs to be appreciated and understood at the outset.

In the next part of this review of TrueNAS later this week we will be looking at Account Management, as well as how Business Users who are considering TrueNAS for their enterprise storage can get support and how far that support extends.

Part II of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (23/03)

Part III of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (25/03)

Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE.

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If you are considering managing your own private server, want to build it yourself (investing your budget primarily into the hardware) and want to take advantage of free to download open source software, then there is a huge chance that you are aware of TrueNAS. In part two of my full review of the TrueNAS Core software, I will be looking at how business users are going to find the account management of TrueNAS, how those accounts can be adapted/changed on the fly, what authentication methods are on offer to those accounts, how detailed the alerts are, in what ways can those concerned by notified as quickly as possible and just what options are available to business users who like the flexibility of TrueNAS but want commercial-grade support. We have a lot to cover, so I won’t waste much of your time, but I should add that today’s review was made possible with help from iXsystems providing a Mini X+ TrueNAS system. iXsystems is the business arm of the open-source TrueNAS platform and they provide the means for users who like the FreeBSD platform to have more of a turnkey ‘off the shelf’ solution at their disposal. If you want to read the FULL review, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE.

Part I of the TrueNAS Review Can be found HERE

Part III of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (25/03)

Review of TrueNAS – Accounts Creation, Control & Management

Given the rather technical, bespoke and detailed nature of TrueNAS, it is easy to understand why the solution is aimed at business users who want things set up in a ‘certain way’. Although turnkey solutions are easier to deploy and are generally more user-friendly, they are more often than not too rigid and inflexible for businesses to use in their larger business models. In most cases, a TrueNAS custom-built (or iXsystem) will be deployed in the center of a business and accessible from many, many company staff for backups, email, document archives, hybrid sync storage and more. Therefore it is important to review how TrueNAS handles multiple accounts, how security is afforded to these accounts and how privileges and access to more mission-critical or confidential data are managed. TrueNAS features a quick and easy means to create multiple users and/or groups for the host user network (as well as connecting these with remote access as required). Let me talk you through what stood out for me in TrueNAS when it comes to account management.

Significant Range of Security and Account Configuration Options

Creating a user account in TrueNAS is incredibly straightforward, as well as making each account as secure as possible. Each account has the standard username and password settings you would expect, but then they delve quite a bit deeper into how you want these users to access the system, their subgroups (which then allows you to create bulk protocols/privileges for all users in that group quickly) and the nature of their account. Options such as which file directories this user can interact with can be set to rear only, write or full access are fairly standard, but I like the options for locking some user accounts easily, creating unique SSH keys, creating temporary admin powers and rotational/changeable passwords are a nice extra touch. As the system is predominantly designed to be remotely accessed via 3rd party client OS’ and 3rd party client software, the more customizable user account features of user images and bespoke desktop GUI found on NAS systems such as Synology and QNAP are absent, but this is still a very easy and detailed user creation element to TrueNAS.

Good Support of Microsoft Account Authorization

It’s a relatively small extra detail, but user account security in TrueNAS also includes an option to integrate the use of Microsoft account security when accessing the storage on the server. This is applicable to any system running Windows 8 or higher (including Windows 11) and allows the authentication methods that are used in the Windows operations system to be used to further verify the identity of a connected user. This user service is not exclusive to TrueNAS of course, but it is another neat piece of third party crossover support that the software includes in its open-source architecture.

Impressively Configurable 2-Step Authentication

The fact that TrueNAS features the support of 2 step authentication (also known as 2FA – 2 Factor authentication) is not going to be a huge surprise for many, given its ubiquitous appearance on pretty much all software clients in the last few years. For those that arent aware, in brief, two-step authentication allows you to have a 2nd degree of user authentication when logging into a service/software alongside your password, as your phone will need to provide a randomly generated code every time when you log in. You need to use one of the many authentication client tools available online (with Google Authenticator being one of the most used for mobiles), but it is surprisingly easy to set up. Where 2-Step authentication in TrueNAS differs from most is the level of configuration that is on offer within the 2FA settings.

Most systems will provide you with the option to simply synchronize with the authentication tool you are using (3D generated barcode or long passkey as best suited to the end-user). TrueNAS on the other hand allows you to change the authentication interval that the randomly generated code changes (usually 30 seconds) to longer for those that need it for accessibility support, as well as change the validity period/number of attempts before a potential lockout. Then you have the option to customize the length of the one-time password (OTP) to greater than the usual default 6 digits (something I have not seen offered by any other NAS brands in 2022). Finally, there is the choice to integrate the requirements for 2-step authentication into SSH logins (command line access with an SSH client window tool such as Putty), which given the huge degree of SSH access built into the typical TrueNAS use scenario, it definitely beneficial.

No Bulk Group or User Creation Options

One small but present absence that I noted in TrueNAS was the lack of an option to create bulk users at once or to import an existing CSV or .xlsx file. This is a very minor detail of course and only applicable to users who have larger volumes of users they wish to move over to a new server from an existing setup, but I am still surprised that it is absent in TrueNAS Core. I have contacted iXsystems to enquire about this and apparently it IS an option that is available in TrueNAS Scale, but nevertheless, I am disappointed that it is not available across the whole platform.

Review of TrueNAS – Alerts & Notifications

Most users who are looking at getting a private server, although initially heavily invested in tinkering and playing with the device, will eventually want the system to just sit in the corner, be quiet and do it’s job! It’s understandable, as interesting as the software and services are, ultimately a NAS (TrueNAS or otherwise) is a tool and as soon as you have set the device up to do the thing you specifically need it to, you want to go back to doing other things and whilst your NAS carries on. However, whilst that is true, in the event something is wrong or out of the ordinary system processes are noticed internally, you want the TrueNAS to tell you ASAP! Most NAS systems have inbuilt notifications and alerts that can be pushed to select/all end users that can be tailored to preferred client devices and methods. In the case of TrueNAS there are (as you might expect) a wide, WIDE variety of settings and choices for delivering those all-important notifications and although in the case of many apps being 3rd party (therefore having their own notification and alert schemes in place as appropriate), the greater storage system, network/internet connections and user behaviour alerts are still pretty extensive in their alert options. Here is what stood out in TrueNAS for me in this area.

VERY Customizable Alerts and Notification Customization

I really cannot stress enough how diverse the range of alert configuration options that TrueNAS allows you to adapt. The window above is just a small example of the many, many windows available although it is a long, long list of options, you cannot really suggest that TrueNAS didn’t cover all the scenarios. There are even slightly more customizable ones that you can add too. The delivery of these alerts is a little less straightforward than those found in Synology/QNAP (which have proprietary client apps for mobile and desktop that allow faster alert methods) but a large number of platforms are supported in TrueNAS for notifications that include email, Slack, AWS, InfluxDB, Mattermost, Pager Duty, SNMP Trap and more. Alongside incredibly concisely built alert parameters, each one can be scaled in priority and in turn, its urgency adjusted.

TrueNAS uses a 7 tier alert priority scale and you can adjust each alert & notification variable in the wide-ranging list to your own requirements. For example, if you were running a shared storage area with a team of 10 users and 8/10 of those users were accessing the system at once (potentially bottlenecking the network in a 1GbE network, depending on the file volume/frequency), you might want the system admin/IT to know this. It isn’t a high-level alert, more of a case of being aware of the additional network load. In that case you can setup an alert of bandwidth/zdev access above a certain level/% and suitable admin to receive a level 2 notification (NOTICE) so they are aware. Alternatively, example 2, there have been several failed login attempts under a specific user account, but eventually that user has logged in successfully. This might be a cause of concern as repeated password attempts could so easily be an unauthorized individual connecting to the greater system. You can set the # of failed login attempts before an automatic lockout OR set an alert of level 3 ‘WARNING’ to alert a system admin to look into this account behaviour to access the situation. Alerts and notifications become significantly more intricate (breaking down into encryption certificates, hardware health, critical system failure, SSH/Telnet logins. etc) and this easy 7 tier alert system can be applied to all instances.

Build In Support Lines, Business Support tiers, Direct System Messaging System and Issue Reporting Mechanism in the TrueNAS GUI

As TrueNAS is an opensource and community-driven NAS platform, you would be forgiven for wondering just how much this all means when you hit a technical wall, encounter system roadblocks, need advice on a setup or just generally looking for guidance. One of the main appeals of an off the shelf/turn-key solution from brands such as Synology and QNAP is that as a paid hardwware+software solution, you feel that there will be technical support lines via live chat, email and even phone in some cases (depending on the level of solution of course) that a homebrew/DiY solution will not be able to supply. However, the support on a TrueNAS system is a little more diverse than that. If you build your own NAS system from scratch and install TrueNAS Core onto your system, you will not have access to premium/commercial level support, but you do have links in the TrueNAS GUI to community support, details online guides and access to the Jira support system that allows your query for assistance to be submitted to the community pool. There are also provisions there to check if your issue has already been documented and resolved elsewhere. These links are immediately available from within the GUI in multiple areas.

But if you are a business user, despite the TrueNAS open-source/freely available status, you may well have opted for it for it’s customization and flexibility compared with off the shelf NAS solutions. Therefore you might still want paid/commercial/enterrpise grade support. This is where the distinction between going TrueNAS DiY and pre-built TrueNAS from iXsystems becomes a little clearer, as iXsystems are the official pre-build provider of TrueNAS and with their solutions, they offer a scaled range of support options that include numerous contact methods. In addition to all the TrueNAS CORE support options that are still available, TrueNAS Enterprise customers who purchase hardware from iXsystems can receive assistance from iXsystems if an issue occurs with the system. Silver and Gold level Support customers can also enable Proactive Support on their hardware to automatically notify iXsystems if an issue occurs. Here is how those support options scale and which systems support each tier:

The level of support afforded to each tier of the iXsystem hardware portfolio is not quite as straightforward, however, as smaller-scale systems only support upto a bronze tier. Therefore on closer examination, you can only access the highest/most-involved customer support tier when you are looking at the enterprise tier hardware systems. Now, on the face of it, that makes sense in terms of priority as it is those highest volume use systems that are going to want the fastest and most responsive support. Equally, the most modest systems will be used by smaller-scale users and have smaller scale utilities in mind. Still, I know more than enough NAS users who choose more modest NAS systems from Synology and QNAP, BUT will push for extended warranties, 5year warranty enterprise storage media, choosing to allocate their storage server budget towards lengthy support periods for peace of mind/insurance. Here is how the commercial support options spread across iXsystem hardware options:

Overall, I think TrueNAS (and iXsystems) have balanced the level of support and assistance options that are available to most kinds of NAS user. It makes sense that a free-to-download software platform would not be able to provide a commercial/enterprise-grade support level without having to financially support this behind a subscription service. And they do not leverage this against the community support, opening encouraging this as an option and facilitating multiple methods of looking up similarly submitted and solved issues, streamline the community support process as much as possible and still presenting the choice to go down the paid-support route when needed. The face this support is not available in non-iXsystem TrueNAS setup’s might be a bit of a downer for some, but as mentioned multiple times in this review, the money that some users are saving in a custom/DiY solution in TrueNAS vs a turnkey/off-the-shelf solution from Synology/QNAP needs to be paid in learning how it all works. I think TrueNAS and iXsystems found the best middle ground possible here.

Larger Range of Configuration Options Can be Overwhelming and Lacks Convenient Preset Options

When I said that there are a lot of alert and notification choices built into TrueNAS, I was not kidding. Even at a casual glance, they are in the triple figures, and that is jsut on the outset. It IS true that the bulk of them are automatically set to one of the 7 pre-set alert levels by default, but if you have a slightly more secure/closed setup in mind for your system notifications, you are going to be spending hours, not minutes adjusting them all to your unique needs. The same goes if you want to run a more open setup for testing, as the TrueNAS default settings are a pinch higher than I would class as ‘casual’ in scaled alerts (better safe than sorry). Now, other turnkey solutions on the market combat this by providing various alert/notification switches BUT also arriving with security councillors/preset configuration dropdowns. In brief, I wish TrueNAS had a range of preset notification levels, perhaps set as ‘low-medium-high-business-enterprise’ that changed these settings in bulk and THEN you can go in manually where needed and change a few, allowing you to create a custom profile which you can then save as ‘CUSTOM’. Similar tiered/scaled choices exist in other areas of TrueNAS for other services that change bulk options on the fly, as well as ‘advanced’ tabs in places when you want to get your hands a little dirtier and play with options at a deeper level in the GUI. Overall though, I prefer to have too many alert/notification options that are not enough though!

In the third and final part of my review of TrueNAS coming later this week, you can find out what I thought about Security, Network Management, how the platform handles applications & Addons and my overall verdict of TrueNAS Core 12.

Part I of the TrueNAS Review Can be found HERE

Part III of the TrueNAS Review is HERE (25/03)

Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE.

Join Inner Circle

Want to follow specific category? Also Read...Week 44 Tech Roundup - TrueNASHexOS AMA - User Questions AnsTrueNAS on a UGREEN NAS - INSTHow to Install TrueNAS on a UGUpgrading QNAP TS-h973AX (no HWhat is HexOS? A Truly User-FrTRUENAS Without a HDMI!!Jonsbo N2 NAS Build with TopToHexOS (on TrueNAS SCALE) and tLeaving WD NAS? - Should You C Subscribe

You can also follow specific search terms:

This description contains links to Amazon. These links will take you to some of the products mentioned in today's content. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Visit the NASCompares Deal Finder to find the best place to buy this device in your region, based on Service, Support and Reputation - Just Search for your NAS Drive in the Box Below

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If you like this service, please consider supporting us. We use affiliate links on the blog allowing NAScompares information and advice service to be free of charge to you.Anything you purchase on the day you click on our links will generate a small commission which isused to run the website. Here is a link for Amazon and B&H.You can also get me a Ko-fi or old school Paypal. Thanks!To find out more about how to support this advice service check HEREIf you need to fix or configure a NAS, check Fiver Have you thought about helping others with your knowledge? Find Instructions Here  

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Making the decision to opt for open source and go DiY for your perfect storage server can be quite intimidating. Building a PC might well be easier in 2022 onwards than ever before, but when it comes to the management of your storage media, managing the security, balancing user access vs keeping things secure all the while ensuring that this 24×7 solution keeps on running is no small task! It is for that reason that many users look towards software solutions such as TrueNAS Core (formally FreeNAS) and TrueNAS scale to create their ideal server setup that will last years. TrueNAS has an incredibly well-established reputation as the most customizable server software in the world and what it might lack in ease of use and novice-friendly options, it counters with a truly incredible range of layer security and management design options. In the third and final part of my full review of the TrueNAS core platform, I want to look at the security of the system, how it allows you to micro-manage your network, how it supports 3rd party services and finally conclude this review with my verdict on TrueNAS. Should you choose TrueNAS and invest your budget purely into hardware, or should you opt for a turnkey solution from Brands such as Synology and QNAP? Talking of turnkey solutions, did you know that you can get TrueNAS in a premade solution? This is the 3rd option that many tend to overlook when weighing up their private server options and today’s review was made possible thanks to iXsystems supplying one of their Mini X+ pre-built NAS systems. iXsystems are the official hardware and business service provider of TrueNAS. You can find out about their range of iXsystem’s TrueNAS solutions on Amazon here. Let’s carry on with the review of TrueNAS Core 12.

Part I of the TrueNAS Review Can be found HERE

Part II of the TrueNAS Review is HERE

Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE.

Review of TrueNAS – Network Management & Security

Aside from the storage of your data, another HUGE element of managing your NAS (TrueNAS or otherwise) is how well the system manages its network connectivity. This is such an important part of the perfect storage setup that it can often be the make-or-break of a system. This is especially true in 2022 as concerns of cyber security, ransomware, malware and remote access to your home/business network are extremely current! In the last 18 months, big turnkey/off-the-shelf NAS solution providers have been affected by ransomware and remote command injection-based attacks (Deadbolt, QSnatch, Dirty CoW, Dirty Pipe and more) and this has led to a large number of users rolling up their sleeves and deciding to move towards highly customizable/configurable solutions that allow them to craft a completely unique network security setup. Using TrueNAS to do this is arguably going to be a much more technical process BUT the range of customization and unique internal separate options that the platform offers is completely unique in many places and part of that stems from TrueNAS being built on FreeBSD (rather than Linux, as most other NAS platforms are built on, though there IS a Linux kernel TrueNAS option for those that want the benefits inherent to that platform in TrueNAS Scale). This allows a greater degree of partitional design that allows incredibly unique storage setups that brute force attacks and injected code methods can not overcome beyond a certain point. Eg If you think of TrueNAS on FreeBSD as a house, every single door in the house has a unique lock (multiple unique locks per door if you choose) and having keys to even a single door is just not enough to access everything. Even command-line/back-end access can be forbidden and for many that level of native isolation to the storage, backups and snapshots is damn near irresistible! Here are the elements of TrueNAS core that stood out for me in its network management and security.

Wide Range of Connections, Services and Protocols Supported but off by Default

The first thing that struck me about the TrueNAS system is how all of the available means to interact with the system (in terms of both file protocols, internal services and external communication services) can be configured quite extensively AND are all switched OFF by default. This is going to divide opinion a little, but I really, REALLY like this! For a start, having all of these services listed in a single place means that in the event of a system lockdown (eg you think your system may be under attack and/or you want to restrict processes that can be used as attack vectors/entry points), this makes shutting these processes down (or even lowering their individual access levels to allow existing critical services to continue) CONSIDERABLY easier! Additionally, some services that are necessary to system maintenance but crucially can be resource hungry might need to be temporarily suspended by the system admin (eg SMART disk checks) to ensure that other short term but high priority services have enough horsepower. Then you have the option to suspend some/all SSH/Command level access very quickly which can often be a catch-all method of suspending an active malware attack. These configuration and system service control also can be extended to which ones are available/active at start up (for those that are concerned at the impact of a firmware update restarting the system and activating/disabling specific services). These controls are available (for the most part) in the majority of turnkey solutions and off-the-shelf NAS drives such as QNAP and Synology, however they are not presented in such a single-portal access and config fashion, which can make all the difference when changes that are required are time-sensitive!

Use of the JAILS system is Smart Once You Get Your Head Around it

The term JAILS is one that is thrown around a lot when people talk about security in the TrueNAS platform and for good reason. When it comes to installing a new third party tool/service that is not native to the platform, in TrueNAS you can install these additional components as completely contained areas of the system. These JAILS are excellent for securely and safely partitioning the system and services, that way in the event of troubleshooting, giving limited access to or quickly locking down a specific application or service. In essence, TrueNAS has two options to create a jail. Unusually for the platform, they even include a Jail Wizard (a hand holding guide, not a man in a big hat) which makes it easy to quickly create a jail. ADVANCED JAIL CREATION is an alternate method, where every possible jail option is configurable. There are numerous options spread across four different primary sections. This form is recommended for advanced users with very specific requirements for a jail. Many users might query why you would use a jail system such as this to run these contained storage/services, as opposed to a virtual machine or a container (as found more often in Linux). However, as jails run the FreeBSD operating system. These jails are independent instances of FreeBSD. The jail uses the host hardware and runs on the host kernel, avoiding most of the overhead usually associated with virtualization that requires hardware to be hard-locked or provisioned. The jail installs FreeBSD software management utilities so FreeBSD packages or ports can be installed from the jail command line. This allows for FreeBSD ports to be compiled and FreeBSD packages to be installed from the command line of the jail in a way that is considerably more configurable and more hardware efficient overall. That isn’t to say that TrueNAS ignores the versatility of Linux and containers, as their newer TrueNAS SCALE (Scale-out, Convergence, Active-active, Linux, Easy – doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but covers the big advantages inherent to Linux kernel use) platform is built on Linux and takes advantage of those benefits too.

Ability to Bind the Admin GUI to a Specific IP and Port

This is a small but often overlooked setting, but when setting up your TrueNAS network interface ports, you can either leave the interfaces as dynamic and wide-ranging in access to the GUI – OR – you can craft an impressive static IP and fixed access credential to the administration GUI. Dynamic/Static IP control is widely available on most NAS systems (allowing the address of the NAS to be more fluid or fixed to ensure long term connections do not become interrupted between system/router restarts and/or updates) but the wider range of system controls and customization allow you to create incredibly closed admin control rules, thanks to authentication and white/black listing settings being used in conjunction. This is also applicable to the SSH/Command line-level access too. It is far from unique to TrueNAS BUT it is a great deal easier to build this routine on their platform than others (as well as arranging secure recovery methods).

Additional Interesting Passphrase Access Method for encryption alongside Key Use

Another unique piece of methodology by TrueNAS that (although far from new) is provided in a very interesting way on this platform is encrypted storage locking/unlocking. Alongside a very wide range of encryption options available to choose from when setting up every stage of the storage creation tiers (pool, volume, datasets, shares, etc) the TrueNAS also allows the user to create a passphrase. Now, on the face of it, I can hear a few seasons storage users saying “HOLD ON – THAT IS NO BETTER THAN A PASSWORD!”, but let’s dig a bit into this. Now, most users when they create an encrypted container (or whatever they are encrypting, run with it for a sec), the system generates an elongated key (depending on encryption algorithm of choice_), as well as the option of a downloaded key form. Now, it is ALWAYS highlight advice NOT to place this key (code or download) onto the NAS storage as that would massively undermine the whole security of the system. However, sometimes you do not have the encryption key available or just want momentary access. For that ease of access, during the setup of the encrypted setup, you are offered the chance to enter a passphrase in order to allow faster access to the encrypted storage. Now, this does not reveal the encryption key as it is not stored locally. Also, the passphrase is heavily limited in its # of entries and can be adapted to ensure that attempted bruit force hacks will lock the system down (like any other security setting). It is not going to be a system service that is widely used, however, it is still a nice additional option for faster access on the fly whilst not undermining the encryption.

Significantly Number of Options to Segment Admin/Controls Across System to Avoid a single ‘All-Power’ Control Panel if Desired

This all brings me to one of the most outstanding architectural differences that TrueNAS brings to the NAS market that a lot of turnkey solutions (by accident or design) do not fully offer, and that is the overall ability to completely remove creating a single all-power user. Now, on the face of it, I can hear some IT Admins fainting/getting angry BUT with most people’s storage business storage becoming physically spread wide BUT all connected over the internet, that is placing ALOT of power in the admin/power-users hands. There is absolutely a need in most Network/Data storage setups for a single account that can do and access EVERYTHING on a storage system, but that also means that this account, if exploited/accessed via a vulnerability, can be used to dismantle/destroy your storage system much, MUCH faster than anyone can physically disconnect individual components from the greater storage network. With the growing desire for enterprise towards hybrid storage and SD-WAN setups, interconnected storage is incredibly common and if your multi-site deployment doesn’t maintain uniform rigorously high-security standards across the board, one weak link can let the whole system down. But in the case of TrueNAS you have so many means to separate and compartmentalize the system, control access privileges to services, binding methods to users, groups and services, fixed connection rules and closed-shutter pre-emptive measures that can be adjusted to your needs (in an arguably complex setup it has to be admitted) means that you have the option in design to choose to create batches of locally powerful users instead of an all-powerful single user. Likewise, you can create multiple hierarchical rules that supersede others on the system that can create a checks and balances system of control that might well be better suited to many businesses that run in a more parallel style, all whilst the TrueNAS systems that are spread out can still communicate automatically and do their job. Again, this CAN be created to a very close degree on Synology and QNAP platforms, but you cannot truly remove the power user.

OpenVPN Support Integrated into the OS in the Available Service list

Most NAS systems in 2022 onwards have some form of support of VPN clients. This can stem significantly from brand to brand but in most cases, you find that they will select a handful of particular Virtual private network providers to provide tailored setup config options for (as well as generic setup options for others). In the case of TrueNAS, along with the support of WireGuard (which it is possible to connect your TrueNAS directly to via the WireGuard network with a few easy steps by creating some custom tunables to enable the service in the system settings menu) the system provides some great support of OpenVPN. OpenVPN (much like TrueNAS) is open source project and therefore free to use (non-commercial use, which requires the OpenVPN Access Server product which is sold by OpenVPN Inc. is not free). Within TrueNAS OpenVPN is a native service (so available from the start) and this allows much faster implementation and deployment of the VPN Server and/or Client functionality. This means TrueNAS can act as a primary VPN server to allow remote clients access to data stored on the system using a single TCP or UDP port. Alternately, TrueNAS can integrate into a private network, even when the system is in a separate physical location or only has access to publicly visible networks. OpenVPN includes several security options that, while not required in all user case scenarios, can help protect the data being sent into or out of the private network.

• Authentication Algorithm: This is used to validate packets that are sent over the network connection. Your network environment might require a specific algorithm. If no specific algorithm is required, SHA1 HMAC is a good standard algorithm to use.
• Cipher: This is an algorithm to encrypt data packets sent through the connection. While not required, choosing a Cipher can increase connection security. You might need to verify which ciphers are required for your networking environment. If there are no specific cipher requirements, AES-256-GCM is a good default choice.
• TLS Encryption: When TLS Crypt Auth Enabled is set, all TLS handshake messages are encrypted to add another layer of security. This requires a static key that is shared between OpenVPN server and clients.

OpenVPN is widely supported on the bulk of NAS providers but it is nice to see it here as a native application within TrueNAS, given that the platform is somewhat restrictive in the services it natively arrives with outside fo the app/add-on center.

Full System API Design

One thing that TrueNAS is always keen to highlight about the architecture of their platform (and for those that care for this, it IS a big design appeal of Core) is that pretty much the whole system is API designed. API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. If you are planning on connecting your server with one or more external services (more often as a database, but there are many other 3rd party client services that can communicate with a NAS) it can be somewhat of a security concern to provide login user credentials to these services so they can communicate with the system. API keys allow you to create a single access portal to a specific service to communicate with the NAS in a select and controlled fashion and without impact on the access control levels or privilege levels of your existing user groups. Remote connections with services can be made with all parts of the TrueNAS system services with API keys (rather than the administration/root login), aiding automated remote processes access without dangerously powerful credentials available to them. API keys can be generated on Synology and QNAP NAS systems, however not to the same system-wide extent thanks to the architecture of TrueNAS and that means that (once again) the platform is considerably more flexible than most – IF you have the time to craft it that way.

No Security Walkthrough? No Security Councilor?

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but yet again, the thing that might well put a lot of users off the TrueNAS platform when it comes to security and Network management is the sheer complexity and intimidating scale of the options presented to you. In most cases, I think that TrueNAS takes an understandable hard position on storage complexity – you cannot be THAT customizable and configurable and keep things easy/straightforward. However, when it comes to network and security, I think TrueNAS could stand to benefit from further security and network setup guidance. They support the usual ‘?’ tips on most pages and links to the extensive community/official guides, which are a big help. But with fewer examples of dynamic help (setup wizards being mandatorily available on all network/security setups as you find on Synology and QNAP) as well as a security councilor/single-portal being absent to see all your system security in a single window (as TrueNAS DOES provide this in the storage manager) this is where many users will pause continuously in the early setup to triple check and unless they are a network security professional, will always feel that nagging sense of doubt. A security councillor or setup wizard may seem overly simplistic for TrueNAS, but it would serve as a useful alternative for some users who want to use a pre-set setup that they can customize down the line.

Review of TrueNAS – 3rd Party Tools, Applications and VM Deployment

One element of TrueNAS that divides opinion about the platform is its first-party services. TrueNAS offers a huge number of native services, tools and storage setup options that allow you to craft a fantastically bespoke and secure storage system, but the demands from most business/enterprise-class data storage users in recent years have changed dramatically thanks to the rise of cloud platforms and turnkey NAS solutions arriving on the scene to provide SaaS and PaaS solution – namely Software as a Service and Platform as a Service. These solutions (generally hybrid cloud/bare-metal such as Synology NAS + C2 or pure cloud such as Google WorkSpace or Office 365) provide your storage AND a range of applications and tools native to the brand (i.e 1st party) that allow you to interact and utilize your data in a closed ecosystem. This starts at tailored access to formats such as images, docs, music and video and inevitably extends to virtual machine deployment, native email & accounts management and more. Now, TrueNAS does not really provide any first-party/native tools that are comparable to this but DOES provides a fantastic base of operation that allows you to integrate a HUGE number of third party SaaS and PaaS provide to integrate with their system. Let’s discuss how TrueNAS handle that 3rd party support of add-ons.

App Installation is Highly Customizable and Has Advanced Options

Thanks to that open-source architecture and large community/homebrew community available to TrueNAS, there is a wide range of options to connect your existing services and client tools with the system and TrueNAS has a plugin center immediately available from the GUI. As you might expect, it is remarkably configurable but also is not quite as intimidating as other areas of the system that require installation and setup to be refined in great detail (but it DOES have the advanced option to go down that road if you want), but for those that care about how well/secure applications will be running, there is a tremendous range of config options available that include storage location, network, privileges (limiting root access) to start with and then widen out dramatically towards who can access, how they access, what powers the tool will have, safeguards and much more. Perhaps you created your DiY TrueNAS server to serve a specific purpose and want that tool (Plex, Emby, NextCloud, Smart Home tools, etc) to have the lion share of the performance and hardware options at it’s disposal – that is incredibly scalable and configurable in TrueNAS that is simply impossible in QNAP and Synology.

Choices of Different App Repositories and Homebrew Installations

At the outset, when viewing the available addons and tools afforded to the app center of your iXsystems NAS, you will see that there are very few tools immediately available to download and install. These tools are ones that have been better catered to the system in conjunction with iXsystems on the TrueNAS system but you are not limited to these and alongside the option to access the verified/unverified community applications list (which is significantly broader in its tools than the iXsystems list), but you also have options to install custom made plugins at the command line level (creating jails and cages quickly) and for those with the skillset, this makes the TrueNAS significantly easier to adapt towards specific 3rd party tools and custom server use. Once again, compared with the Synology or QNAP platform, although their range of 3rd party applications (and 1st party apps of course) are wider in support in their respective app centers, once you try to step outside of this portal, their system’s more closed architecture can be a real bind. Both of those turnkey platforms have their own homebrew communities in Synocommunity and QNAPClub, but you are still relying on 3rd party app crafting in a way that the TrueNAS platform otherwise allows direct homebrew tool creation and deployment more broadly.

Virtual Machine Deployment is extremely QUICK and scalable!

When it comes to hosting and deploying virtual machines, this is one of the most compelling cases for opting for TrueNAS for many users. Typically right now deployment of virtual machine infrastructure in businesses (even smaller businesses that want to deploy centralized virtual systems to their staff on a local level) fall into two categories. There is opting for subscription-based pure cloud services such as the SaaS and PaaS options mentioned earlier in the review to host virtual terminals/PCs in conjunction with a hypervisor platform such as VMware or Hyper-V OR host them on a physical/bare-metal server on-site for network/remote access. There is of course the option to combine the two via hybrid storage and the right hosting/sync tools, but this is mostly an enterprise option and we are entering the NetApp/EMC tier at this point for most hyperscale users. Now, the reason TrueNAS commands such a compelling argument for itself when it comes to Virtualization is that you have full control of the components and hardware that make up your server – something that is just not as open in choice to turnkey solutions (which by design are closed in hardware specifications and offer limited scalability). Virtual machine deployment on the TrueNAS platform is possible in several ways.

First, there is using the system’s own hypervisor level tools to deploy a VM natively which allow a number of virtual hardware emulation choices immediately, as well as configurable network and setup options that will dynamically use the system hardware (also allowing you to be flexible on how the system reserves that hardware when a VM is powered on. Alongside this, the open-source and configurable nature of TrueNAS means that pointing an existing hypervisor VM tool locally on a client system or via installation in a jail etc on the NAS itself is a great deal more frictionless than the fixed design of Virtualization Station and Synology Virttaulization Station. These tools from QNAP and Synology do an excellent job and are wide-ranging in the platforms, OS’ and existing 3rd party SaaS/PaaS provides they support in their presets, but on the whole, they are less flexible to bespoke VM deployment than TrueNAS and then further bolstered by the scalability and upgradability of TrueNAS in it’s hardware. Migrating your existing TrueNAS storage and services into a much more powerful DiY setup as the cost/efficiency/power of modern hardware arrives is much more open-ended, with most NAS provided hypervisors requiring migration to remain in the closed ecosystem (i.e you can only move your Synology VMM setuP to another Synology NAS and that brand’s choice of hardware). Virtual Machine deployment on TrueNAS is still much more of a technical affair than those of turnkey solutions and it also lacks a few of the 2-3 click deployment-ready Windows/Linux VM advantages of QNAP Virtualization Station, but it is still a fantastically customizable, highly scalable and extremely adaptable virtual machine platform.

Apps Cannot be installed in the Background

This is a remarkably minor gripe I know. But when installing multiple services via one of the means afforded TrueNAS, it is a slower process than those found in many turnkey solutions. Between the system being largely inaccessible via the GUI to a user when the system is installing an application, to a slight clunky feeling of their deployment, users who are familiar with the commercial OS design and UX of Synology and QNAP are going to find adding new and executing services dealt with a little more friction. Most of this stems from the TrueNAS platform being more ‘hands on’ in its maintenance, but ultimately being designed to be part of a larger setup silently in the background, rather than the primary interface on a regular basis.

Range of Applications Available out the Box Still Seems a Little Thin

Given the scale and years of history in the development of TrueNAS, it still seems rather odd that further development towards first-party applications and services remains comparatively short. New service support is regularly added, as are verified 3rd party applications in the add-on list, but TrueNAS proprietary applications still seem pretty thin on the ground. I understand the reasoning behind this – TrueNAS wants to focus on making the very best data storage solution it can be, leaving other tailored data specializations to those that produced popular tools, which it can then add support for in its platform. However, even simple areas such as 1st party tools for file management, local client synchronisation/backup tools that support file pinning/streaming natively in shared folders or a mobile application for allowing administrators to quickly access, configure or troubleshoot the system more conveniently would be appreciated I am sure. This is all very possible with 3rd party tools that support TrueNAS, as well as the platform themselves recommending specific tools in places. However, many might feel that with each service requiring at best a sign-up and at worse subscription plans, it still seems odd that after all these years TrueNAS Core (aka FreeNAS) has still opted to overlook this.

Review of TrueNAS – Conclusion & Verdict

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that when it comes to TrueNAS is a fantastically capable software for managing your storage. It even manages to swerve the downfall of being ‘too enterprise’ but arriving as an open-source free software platform to be enjoyed by businesses and storage enthusiasts. There is no avoiding that it IS quite a technical mountainous learning curve if you are arriving at it from a position of zero storage or network experience, but the last few big TrueNAS system updates have gone a long way to update some UI elements to be more intuitive, software wide help notes available at all times and the community support is as on-point at it has ever been. If you are a home user looking for a hurdles setup or a day-1 deployable system for your small business, then TrueNAS may be too big a jump for you and you would be better off with a traditional off-the-shelf NAS system. However, if you have the know-how, you have the willingness to get your hands dirty and already have the hardware in mind/in-house, then TrueNAS stands in a class of it’s own and thanks to some very unique architecture choices that are almost utterly unique to this platform, it’s pretty unparalleled in its scope.

Remember, you can head back over to part 1 and part 2 of my TrueNAS review below:

Part I of the TrueNAS Review Can be found HERE

Part II of the TrueNAS Review is HERE

Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) FULL Review of TrueNAS is available HERE. Thanks for reading!

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Choosing between these two incredibly popular platforms for secure storage, accessing and sharing your data is not easy! With Synology and DSM, you have a premium hardware+software platform that easily emulates entire operating system levels of features, with an incredibly user-friendly design, initiative controls and a wide range of included applications and services with their own mobile applications. In TrueNAS you have an open-source and largely free to download service that allows you to create a detailed and completely customizable storage system, built on one of the most popular file systems in the storage community, a wide degree of 3rd party support and ease of integration thanks to the hardware being DIY and widely customizable. Both NAS software platforms are used by home and business users alike, but with one of them being paid and the other being free, there are plenty of arguments as to why one NAS software might be better suited to your needs than the other. So today I want to compare Synology DSM 7 and TrueNAS Core, breakdown each of their individual pros and cons, how they differ and ultimately help you decide if you should choose TrueNAS or Synology for your own private server. Let’s begin.

• Part II of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (06/04/22 – Storage Management, Access & Sharing)
• Part III of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (08/04/22 – Security, Apps, Add ons and the Conclusion)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Design & Navigation

Although the majority of NAS systems can be accessed via 3rd party software in your home or business, the majority of users still opt for controlling their NAS system via the browser-based GUI that these systems arrive with. In the case of both Synology and TrueNAS, navigation via all common web browsers is possible and supported on the popular operating systems out there. However, both brands take a notable different approach on how they allow the connect end-user (admin or general user) to interact with the NAS. Synology uses the DSM (Diskstation Manager) platform currently in it’s 7th version and it is widely regarded as one of the most user-friendly user interfaces out therefore managing your NAS. Styled on the Mac OS (with a little windows and Android settings in places) you are given the feeling of accessing a complete operating system via your web browser.

Navigation of DSM is pretty intuitive and the desktop/wallpaper can be customized, alongside the user control options and start menu largely being where you would expect them to be. This opens out into a greater range of software and system control options, presented as icons.

The arrangement of the tools and applications that the system arrives with (as well as those you choose to add later from the app center) are all presented here and you can choose to drag and drop these onto the desktop if you so choose. It feels incredibly straightforward and easy to use.

TrueNAS has a little bit more of a technical stance and whereas Synology has opted for emulating common domestic OS’ and making it chewable-easy-user-friendly, TrueNAS Core (version 12 for this comparison) favours providing the end-user with a tremendous amount of information and control in it’s GUI. TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS) is a platform that, despite its open-source and free availability, does not scrimp on the control and services that it offers in terms of managing your storage. The primary screen of the TrueNAS Core GUI presents lots of details about your storage, network, system hardware health and attempts to fit all this into a single screen (something that will eventually overspill as more services and storage targets are added over time). It can be quite overwhelming at first glance, but you cannot deny that TrueNAS is providing you with much more information at initial access than DSM.

Of course, this larger array of information, options and configuration choices so early on leads to quite a high learning curve requirement from the GUI of TrueNAS in your initial use. The display and theme customization of the GUI can be reached from the top right of the screen as you might intuitively expect. As with the desire by the designers of TrueNAS to allow practically all controls and tools to be accessible from that initial screen, all the options to navigate system management, changing settings, adding services and accessing 3rd party applications you choose to install are ALL listed in a breadcrumb style list of options on the left-hand side of the screen (each branching out into their subcategories.

Now, unlike the Synology DSM approach of trying to emulate an operating system, the GUI of TrueNAS is much more comparable to WordPress and control panels of web servers and switches. It is a greater degree more technical and whilst trying to find a middle ground between the accessibility of tools and customization, it can be quite daunting. To access the tools and applications that you install from the community pool of apps, you need to head into the add-on area and you can access their own respective GUI from there. This is still customizable and you can make additions to the primary GUI window of TrueNAS, but it is not something that you are going to click with immediately unless you have greater experience of more factual GUIs

Another quality of life design choice in DSM7 from Synology that is worth highlighting is the inclusion of a search functionality built into the main window of the GUI. This allows a user who is looking for a specific setting, service, tool or file to search the system quickly and easily. This is a small extra that is absent on TrueNAS but clearly something that has a place in modern software GUIs and OS’ (as this is all too often how most people navigate their platforms – gone are the so, so precise days of the Windows XP, Vista and 7 ‘Start’ menu – sigh). I am very surprised that this is not something available on TrueNAS as it would hugely counter the menu-overload that the GUI can cause at times for the less experienced.

However, when it comes to the areas where most users (especially the admins and techies) WANT more details and info at their fingertips, TrueNAS is largely unbeatable and one prime example of this is in the resource monitor and reports on how the system is performing. The TrueNAS platform provides a frankly insane amount of both live and historical information in the drive media, the pools, the interfaces, the system hardware, EVERYTHING! this information can be broken down into completely bespoke reports with numerous X/Y access variables. This is done incredibly quickly and all this is provided in the free TrueNAS Core and Scale, not just the premium TrueNAS Enterprise platform.

DSM 7 from Synology on the other hand is a little lighter on the details. You have a very barebones activity monitor on the initial GUI login via your browser in the bottom right corner (intentionally, to not overwhelm the user) which can be opened out easily into the dedicated Resource monitor. This monitor DOES provide a good amount of information on the system hardware, network and storage, but it is a little bit tame and limited when compared against the resource monitoring of TrueNAS. Likewise, you CAN enable historical information, but this is disabled by default and even then the level of information is still a little more limited by comparison to TrueNAS.

Now it is worth mentioning that Synology DOES have a much, MUCH more analytical and detailed system health monitoring service available in the form of Active Insight, that allows you to really, REALLY breakdown the health of your system+storage (as well as multiple other NAS systems in a single GUI) and produce some staggering detailed reports to be generated in the GUI or emailed to system admins/managers. However Active Insight is a subscription service and not available by default with your Synology NAS purchase, so although it IS available, the fact that this is an additional subscription locked model will put some users off a little.

Overall the user-friendly design, ease of use and intuitive design of Synology DSM genuinely cannot be understated, making it considerably more appealing to newer users and those who want a clear pathway toward their intended system setting, service or application. TrueNAS Core on the other hand is a significant degree more technical in its approach and can be both complex to navigate for the less novice user and intimidating to those fearful of making a miss-step when managing the system. This ends up meaning that the move overwhelming TrueNAS GUI can be a gold mine of control and information compared to DSM 7 for those that are willing to put the time in to learn. Whereas Synology DSM is considerably easier to navigate, but the extent to which it can be adapted and controlled via the GUI is also much less customizable.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Users & Customization

As soon you have established your TrueNAS or Synology NAS system, you are likely going to start customizing the system to your own specific network and requirements. Most of the time this means that you will want to create several users, groups or system identities for applications to access your storage and in turn grant those accounts with their own range of storage access privileges, system powers and security settings. Both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core allow you to do this, but once again the way in which they do this and the extent to which this can be approached differ noticeably on these platforms. Synology has an option in its control panel to allow you to create multiple user accounts, then give those individual accounts access to pre-defined folders and storage, as well as system application access, quotas and even rules on password validity. This is then further built on with similarly approached group structures with those same customization options, but also allows you to move one or more users in between groups to adapt their access/quotas as they move (useful for company staff and their teams).

TrueNAS offers a very similar level of creation and control in user and group creation, squeezing the window-by-window creation that DSM uses in its user-creator windows into a single window – which as you might expect is a great deal more informative BUT is another bit of detail overload at times once your system and structure increases in complexity over the years). In the case of both TrueNAS and Synology DSM 7, these user accounts each allows the owner to access the NAS in a separate/parallel access login via the GUI and connected services, as well as having security and access rules in place that can block malicious access as needed. These rules and access rights can be adapted on the fly by the admin easily on both DSM and TrueNAS.

One thing that is absent in TrueNAS (which is available to a degree in TrueNAS Scale however) but IS available on DSM is the option to create bulk accounts quickly, as well as upload an existing CSV of user accounts to the NAS. For those that are migrating from an existing database and want to move their user data over (and then move these users into groups), this is going to be a useful extra option. Not something for the long term, but a nice initial service nonetheless.

Both systems allow you to adapt the admin powers of existing users quickly, but it is also worth highlighting that the Synology NAS platform allows you to change a user’s credentials and access temporarily higher in a semi-automated ‘delegation’ option in the user control UI. TrueNAS has a similar setting to this, but lacks the timed management and ease of switching on the fly in how it is presented in DSM.

The design of the GUI in your web browser on both TrueNAS and Synology DSM are both a little rigid in just how much you can adapt what you can see and change to your liking. Both platforms allow you to change elements of the colours on screen and user login avatar to a point, however, the TrueNAS platform provides a much wider degree of choice of customization, thanks to its theme creator. This allows you to choose between a range of present colour/icon themes, as well as create your own colour pallet, font scale/detail and adapt the icons to your liking. Its only a few minor extras, but it is something that no other NAS platforms account for in their customization.

The Synology customisation in its GUI is a lot more limited, however, with the wallpaper, text sizing and icon changes being the only real options. That really surprises me, given the operating system vibe that DSM provides in the web browser GUI.

Overall, this is another case of Synology DSM being more user-friendly than the TrueNAS platform, but both platforms provide a similar level of user creation and customization. That said, the Synology DSM platform is pretty rigid in how you can customize the GUI in terms of fonts, icons and structure (only really offering the wallpaper and icon changes really) compared with the custom theme creation built into TrueNAS. That sad, bulk user creation and the option to import existing CSVs of users onto DSM are an often overlooked but huge time saving extra that I was surprised was not available on TrueNAS Core (but available on SCALE sort of). Overall, I think more complex user creation is going to run better on the TrueNAS platform, but fairly straightforward and larger-scale user creation is going to be much faster and easier on Synology DSM.

• Part II of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (06/04/22 – Storage Management, Access & Sharing)
• Part III of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (08/04/22 – Security, Apps, Add ons and the Conclusion)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

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This is the 3rd and final part of my full comparison of Synology NAS DSM 7 and TrueNAS Core 12. If you missed the earlier chapters/parts, you can find them in the links below:

• Part I of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (04/04/22 – Design, GUI and Customization)
• Part II of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (06/04/22 – Storage Management, Access & Sharing)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

Now, if you read through my details on file/folder management on TrueNAS and Synology DSM, then you might have a good idea how this is going to go down when comparing these two platforms. However, it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as it might seem. Unsurprisingly, the range of first-party tools and applications is greater on the Synology DSM platform and graduating slightly from the SaaS apps mentioned earlier, Synology also offers a range of business and enterprise-class tools for backups, hybrid cloud synchronization and management tools for a wider array of systems in multiple locations in their CMS services. Now, TrueNAS supplies a lot of the wider area, multi-site services in their TrueNAS Command and TrueNAS Enterprise services (subscription/premium based) but regardless of all this, the range of applications in the 1st and 3rd party support are overall still larger on the Synology DSM NAS platform, with a wide array of applications immediately available and signed/trusted by the brand in the app center.

TrueNAS Core (indeed, the bulk of the TrueNAS platforms really) are much more community contributed and that results in far fewer first-party premium applications being available (with many elements that Synology offers as standalone applications being rolled into the general services of TrueNAS). Nevertheless, TrueNAS does arrive with a large range of third party applications available in the add-on center that are pre-configured for faster deployment in the TrueNAS environment. However, many TrueNAS/FreeNAS purest will choose to go full custom and homebrew and TrueNAS has tremendous flexibility in this direction. Allowing you to create custom containers (know as JAILS) that you can install community apps safely and then run very, very bespoke applications and services on your TrueNAS remotely.

Now, as proprietary, closed and (dare I say it) stuffy as Synology is, it is also worth mentioning that there actually is a surprisingly active homebrew scene on the DSM platform that, although Synology does not really support formally, do not detur. This community comprises of two main areas, the GitHub modifying crowd who will create custom tools (typically modified from existing Linux or windows applications/tools) and then modify them into Synology deployable .spk installation files or SSH command groups. The other marginally more accessible group (at least to the average user) is the Synocommunity app repository which is far more comparable to the office app center in appearance and installation. As mentioned, although Synology does not really support this, they also do not really stop users from pursuing this, adding an option in the settings menu that allows access to unsupported apps, uncertified applications and adding third party application repositories.

As mentioned, unlike the wider design of TrueNAS to make itself easier to be accessed by existing 3rd party network applications and services, Synology DSM focused ALOT more on those first-party applications and provides a wide variety of tools that are genuinely stand out – not just good as they are, but they really do rival enterprise and premium business tool. A couple of big examples of that are Synology Surveillance Station and Synology Active Backup. The Surveillance Station application is a web browser (and desktop/mobile client) supported video surveillance platform that allows you to add multiple cameras to your network environment and create a hugely customizable and secure surveillance environment. With the support of thousands of IP cameras that you can pick up for as little as $30 all the way up to enterprise AXIS cameras, the platform supports a vast variety of features. These include; Pan tilt Zoom control, Watermarking, Privacy masks, eMaps, Browser control/views, simultaneous archive+livefeed views, IP speaker control, intelligent recording patterns and more. It is a genuinely enterprise platform for your security, just do remember that the bulk of Synology NAS hardware only arrives with support of 2 cameras by default and adding more cameras costs an extra $30-50 (prices vary based on bulk packs) per camera. Although TrueNAS supports numerous surveillance platforms already (with at least one supported as an app in the add-on center and others able to point their storage recordings at the TrueNAS system) these will likely have their own subscription payments attached.

The other big, big enterprise application that the Synology DSM platform includes is Active Backup Suite, a single portal, multi-client backup management tool. Now, this isn’t to be confused with Synology Hyper Backup (with does manage backups, but in a far lower level and client way), which is designed to backup much more high profile storage and devices. These can range from local PCs and clients tools, to virtual machine hypervisors such as VMware and Hyper V and SaaS cloud services in Office365 and Google Workspace. This is provided licence free and is comparable (favourably too) against other enterprise-grade hybrid backup tools for businesses that cost thousands of pounds a year. It is quite a resource-hungry tool and I would not really recommend it for a more affordable Synology NAS, but it’s a real deal-breaker. Once again, there IS support of third party applications that provide these services on the TrueNAS app center, but they almost certainly have their own price plans attached.

Now, this has all been rather one-sided up to this point and it makes it sound as if TrueNAS does not have any applications. It really, really does, but they typically fall into those two categories of ‘3rd party supported’ or ‘integrated into TrueNAS natively’. TrueNAS takes the arguable mature decision to ashew the idea of 1st party applications in favour of these being existing services from within their software. Everything from iSCSI support to the individual file-sharing protocols being default on/off settings on day 1, TrueNAS has a lot of native software services built-in from the start and they can be enabled easily. The lack of 1st party applications available for first-party hardware clients (mobile clients and desktop clients) is noticeable, but as long as you are thinking about the TrueNAS system as an additional storage system to your setup and not its own independent system, then you will likely never even notice.

One big factor for more business geared users who are considering TrueNAS is how each NAS system approaches the subject of virtual machine deployment. The NAS hardware certainly serves as a base to host multiple VMs, but the need for a dedicated and competent hypervisor to host and mouth them all will make all the difference. In the case of TrueNAS, virtual machine creation and deployment is noticeably easier to do than on the face of it and straight away from the initial GUI, you can create a flexible virtual machine hardware system, customizable from the ground up.

Now, Synology also supports the ability to create a virtual machine, but they do so by installing the Synology Virtual machine manager software. The Synology VMM platform is a professional grade virtual machine platform that is included with your Synology NAS hardware purchase in DSM7 and allows you to create virtual machines quickly and easily. This hypervisor platform genuinely can rival the likes of VMware in its ease of use and even includes the means to convert/adapt existing Virtual machine images from other 3rd platforms into its own more compatible structure within a few clicks. Overall, the virtual machine support on DSM is a little broader than TrueNAS, but TrueNAS core is significantly more customizable in its hardware variables, as well as allowing more options during the creation of a new virtual machine environment on day 1.

When it comes to optional upgrades and add-ons to the NAS system, you cannot really fault the options that Synology’s DSM platform offers. Yes, Synology DSM is a paid platform vs the free-to-download open-source structure of TrueNAS, but even then, you can see where a lot of that money has been reinvested into DSM. Synology is remarkably keen to replace the core 3rd party applications that most users feature in their network environment, creating a closed Ecosystem, etc that provides all those applications under a first-party banner. The TrueNAS platform on the other hand provides virtual machine deployment options in its primary system software and is even the tiniest pinch more customizable in how you can build your Virtual Machine environment. This is also improved on a hardware level when you bear in mind that TrueNAS is hugely free in its hardware build and it allows end-users to build a powerful computer base for TrueNAS to then divide into different VMs as needed. Synology has some relatively powerful server-grade hardware at their enterprise level, as well as active-active servers with dual CPU setups that build with Intel Xeon Silver processors, but the hardware is still a fixed specification and aside from improving memory modules and adding caching, the scalability to the hardware on the NAS for multiple VM deployments will always be greater on TrueNAS in the long run. Ultimately, Synology still largely wins the battle of 1st party applications, add-ons and 3rd party hardware with their recent hardware, but the margin between the TrueNAS configuration and flexibility vs the Synology fixed but straightforward deployment is certainly worthy of note.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Security

As you might expect from software that has been developed at a time when data security concerns have never been higher, both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core are among the most secure platforms that you can store your personal or commercial data on. As bold a claim as that sounds, these two NAS platforms have been the least affected by ransomware, malware and exploited vulnerabilities over the years, with the only notable event being back in 2014 with Synolocker. Indeed, both brands have their very own Security Advisory pages that publish any found vulnerabilities and gives status updates on how they are being dealt with, with TrueNAS HERE and Synology HERE. All that said, both platforms are architecturally very different in how communication between services, tools and applications can communicate inside the system, as well as how security management is presented to the end-user. Moreso than arranging your storage, the Security settings and recommended setup for an individual user is going to be of huge concern on day one. Of the two brands, unsurprisingly, Synology has presented this in a much more user-friendly fashion, with the inclusion of a security advisory panel that can be run any time or on a schedule. This tool checks a wide variety of settings that can range from password strength, to active users, to ports, app controls, redundancy, backups and more. It is a really useful tool to those that do not fully understand the intricacies of keeping their system secure on a tech level and is something that really surprises me is absent on TrueNAS.

The TrueNAS platform on the other hand chooses the usual angle of providing a huge amount of control via a single screen (which to be fair features a lot of tips/? bubbles for guidance at times) that allows the users to choose how and what they want to allow to communicate. One useful thing to note is that by default, ALL of these communication settings and system tools that can affect your security are OFF by default. This isn’t particularly unusual (as many of these would be off on most NAS platforms), but on other NAS software such as Synology DSM or QNAP QTS, these settings and services are spread across multiple areas of the GUI control panel ad file services. Having them ALL listing in a single window so you can change settings much quicker makes a lot of sense and in terms of shutting ALL the doors in the event of a network security concern, this can save valuable time.

And whilst we are on the subject of being aware of security concerns (as well as when your system is exhibiting unusual behaviour) TrueNAS definitely provides a much better range of customizations on security alerts and notification than Synology DSM. That isn’t to say that Synology DSM doesn’t have notifications, it has lots of settings and they are be scaled as ‘light’, ‘medium’ ‘high’ and ‘custom’ for your convenience. But TrueNAS has an enormous ranging list of notification options that affect some remarkably detailed areas of system/network behaviour. They will take quite a long time to scroll and adjust if you want a truly bespoke notifications and alerts setup, but it simply has more variables than the default Synology DSM 7 NAS package. Now I say ‘default package’ because once again, Synology does have the subscription-based service Active Insight that is considerably better, can be broken down into excruciating precise detail and allows you to create custom reports that are delivered in a much more ‘human’ email format to the managers concerned. It is just a shame that this service is an additional subscription service and not one that is included with the system.

Then you have the often applauded TrueNAS Jails system that, although similar to Linux containers in the description, are much more secure and sophisticated. TrueNAS jails are contained instances of FreeBSD and they can be used to create standalone services and environments, with fully customizable levels of access to the rest of the system, your storage and users. By default, JAILS are almost completed separate from the rest of the system and in order to allow select users or services to interact with the JAIL (in either direction) is something the user needs to implement themselves which means that the chances of accidentally making an unsecured JAIL are reduced. Now, Synology DSM allows container creation for those homebrew/custom services to be added, as well as handling some 3rd party tools in its app center such as Plex Media Server (which hinges quite a lot of remote access port opening and access to your file/folder structure more than most) very securely. However, the services and tools that you install in the Synology NAS are tougher to configure on a detailed level (unless you use Putty and have some SSH knowledge, and even then it’s not guaranteed) and this makes the JAILS system of TrueNAS come out of it better.

Then you have the subject of Encryption. For those that are not aware, when it comes to encryption on a network-attached storage server, that can mean one of two areas. There is an encrypted connection that can be facilitated by an SSL certificate (both platforms support a wide range of paid/free SSL certificate options that can be applied to the system easily) OR much more often it can be referring to the data on your NAS living in a container that has encrypted lock and key architecture. This means that during the creation of your storage, you set the system to encrypt all data that is written to the disks and it can be mounted/locked with the use of an encrypted key or a downloaded digital key that was generated during setup. Now, as mentioned, both Synology NAS DSM and TrueNAS core support encryption, as well as supporting self-encrypted drives (SEDs). However, you can encrypt things to a wider degree in TrueNAS (Pools, zVols, zDevs, etc) than you can on the Synology DSM platform. Additionally, TrueNAS supports a wider range of encryption protocols and also supports an interesting ‘passphrase’ system that allows a user to lock/unlock their encrypted storage container quickly without entering a long key or keeping a digital encryption key on a local system.

Then there is the subject of security on the NAS in conjunction with connected and permitted users. We have covered that user and group account creation on Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core are quite comprehensive, but what about 2-Step authentication (also known as 2FA)? Two-step verification is the means to add an additional layer of user login verification by asking the user to provide a periodically generated code from an existing authentication tool (such as Google Authenticator on a mobile phone) that, although uses a 1 step setup algorithm, is randomly generated frequently. Now, Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core both provide this, but each has its own extra little spin on it in terms of how it is deployed. In the case of Synology, you can set up 2-step verification easily and on all associated system accounts, with numerous 3rd arty authenticator tools supported.

However, Synology go one step further and also provide their own authenticator tool for iOS and Android that allows you to keep your security in-house, as well as a few configuration options rolled in too. For companies that supply handsets to their staff, this allows them to keep continued use of Synology NAS storage to remain in a single company ecosystem. This also allows support of backing up the OTP profiles that you have created for logging into the NAS to your Synology Account. This resolves the often overlooked issue of if 1) you change phone devices and did not export your existing associated logins and more importantly 2) if you mobile phone unexpectedly fails/is lost, then you can restore the connected OTP login details very easily to a new handset.

Now Although TrueNAS does not have its own first-party authenticator application for iOS/Android (instead supporting the popular 3rd party applications out there) what TrueNAS DOES offer is an impressive range of setup customization options in its 2FA settings menu, allowing you to change the length of the code, the period of time between each refresh (VERY useful for those with accessibility difficulties and take longer to enter the access codes) and allows you to directly apply this customized code generation to SSH connections too. Although most users will likely stick with the default settings, I can definitely see particularly security-conscious users who need to distribute system access pretty widely liking this degree of flexibility.

Talking of wider access to the system, I do think it is also worth highlighting that TrueNAS is almost completely API designed. So, why is that important and related to security? Well, it is not always just going to be human users and installed applications that you might wish to access your NAS data. Alot of users are using the contents of a NAS to provide information to a remote services connection (such as web servers, external software CRM and CMS tools and security systems) and instead of supplying these services with powerful login credentials to the system (which can be a headache down the line if those account details, used in numerous smaller services, are changed for security reasons to the wider NAS system), they generate an API key to bridge the two and given that TrueNAS is massively API ready, it means that you can be quite flexible and customizable in the areas you connect. The Synology platform supports several API elements, but not to the same degree across the board as TrueNAS.

Overall, both the Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core platforms are very secure and although they take different approaches at times, they both seemingly come around to the same conclusion. On points, I would say that the TrueNAS system has the larger potential to be customized in its security setup, but (as usual) requires you to spend a greater deal of time to set it all up to your tastes/requirements. The Synology NAS DSM 7 platform on the other hand is considerably more user friendly (again, I know, I am a broken record) with options such as the security advisor to scan/change your system in line with its recommendations, as well as first-party tools in Active Insight and Secure Sign-in allowing you a much more brand supported experience. You can set up the security settings on a Synology NAS considerably faster than on a TrueNAS, but if you have a very particular idea of your network storage security setup, the TrueNAS platform provides a wider degree of flexibility there.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Conclusion and Verdict

It is so easy to just look at the TrueNAS option as the free but complex choice and the Synology DSM option as the easy but expensive one, BUT the truth is a little more complex than that. For a start, the wide variety of customization and flexibility that is inherent to TrueNAS is something that I genuinely think only higher-end business users are going to be able to fully realise. Home users who are building their own NAS from scratch and opt for TrueNAS for the software will definitely enjoy customizing their solution to their needs/network-environment, but the most long term customizations, reports and adaptive protocols of TrueNAS are much better suited to a business that needs to change as business/staff/data grows. Ironically though, those users are going to be far more attracted to a ‘turnkey’ solution (i.e a NAS solution that is pretty much good to go, right out the box) and will pay for the privilege (i.e time is money). This is where Synology steps in quite confidently, as they know they are incredibly business appealing, with a massive range of first-party apps to migrate away from Google/Microsoft services, as well as management and security tools that are largely unparallel elsewhere in the industry. TrueNAS is still a viable option for businesses that desire an instantly deployable solution and business class support with the official TrueNAS hardware provider iXsystems providing pre-populated and customizable solutions, as well as tiered support subscriptions – but this only truly appeals to users who truly understand what FreeBSD and ZFS can provide that EXT4 and BTRFS cannot.

The Synology DSM platform is incredibly impressive and available in systems (as in included with the hardware as a single purchase) for as little as £120 (such as the DS120j) and scales up rapidly in price and power. Users who have little-to-no technical knowledge, do not have time to learn a new kind of technology and/or want to migrate away from cloud and SaaS services to a whole contained ecosystem without subscription costs, should opt for Synology NAS and DSM 7. It has a few subscription/license purchases on a few services, but is still largely a one-off purchase for the most part and the majority of Synology NAS users never buy an extra or a subscription. Alternatively, if you are someone who has the time and enthusiasm, already has the technical skills under their belt, has very specific storage and network requirements and/or are looking at a solution that they plan on upgrading and improving in the years that follow, then TrueNAS Core (and indeed TrueNAS Scale with Linux for that matter) is going to be a much better choice. What it lacks vs Synology DSM in 1st party applications and ease of use, it makes up for in a truly unbeatable range of customization and configuration choices that are unavailable elsewhere. Plus, ZFSis always going to be at the top of many pro-storage user lists – just remember that TrueNAS (unless you opt for an iXsystem) is Free, but the hardware and time you will spend deploying it was where it will cost you.

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure Users who are happy with/prefer community Support Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual Users who like to fine-tune Anyone that has ever built a PC Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc Users who prefer commercial-grade support Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key) Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction Users who want simplified Warranty Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

• Part I of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (04/04/22 – Design, GUI and Customization)
• Part II of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (06/04/22 – Storage Management, Access & Sharing)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

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Want to follow specific category? Also Read...Week 44 Tech Roundup - TrueNASHow to Add Video Station and HSynology DSM 7.2.2 and KillingHexOS AMA - User Questions AnsTrueNAS on a UGREEN NAS - INSTHow to Install TrueNAS on a UGUpgrading QNAP TS-h973AX (no HWhat is HexOS? A Truly User-FrTRUENAS Without a HDMI!!Synology DSM 7.2 No Longer Sup Subscribe

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This is the 2nd part of my full comparison of Synology NAS DSM 7 and TrueNAS Core 12. If you missed the earlier chapters/parts, you can find them in the links below:

• Part I of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (04/04/22 – Design, GUI and Customization)
• Part III of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (08/04/22 – Security, Apps, Add ons and the Conclusion)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

Almost certainly one of the biggest questions most users will have when considering TrueNAS and Synology DSM for their own private NAS server is how it manages storage. From how it keeps it accessible and stable, to how it reacts and adapts to changes in stability, these two NAS platforms have chosen their intended path very early and differ in some key ways. TrueNAS utilizes ZFS as its file system of choice and although it is a little more resource-intensive (predominantly in memory) to run its range of services, it is a fantastically enterprise file system that supports native inline deduplication across the system (i.e if data is being backed up from multiple clients is the same, such as OS data or shared databases, it only stores one copy and keeps an internal index of where that data is needed/stored across users), inline compression that saves storage space and a bunch of other advantages that are unique to ZFS. Synology and it’s DSM platform is (for the most part, barring some more economical devices in their portfolio) available using the BTRFS and EXT4 file systems.

Although EXT4 has a long-established history and support by storage users, BTRFS opinion is a little more divided as it is much newer than EXT4 or ZFS. Alot of that comes down to how BTRFS is implemented by the system, but in the case of Synology and DSM it is done so quite comprehensively and on the ground level. Indeed a number of key Synology applications insist on the use of BTRFS by the system in order to run (eg Synology Virtual Machine Manager). Both BTRFS and ZFS use a checksum/background comparison system on writers in order to identify errors and auto repair them, as well as both DSM and TrueNAS supplying a faster RAID rebuild system whereby only the areas of a rebuild drive that would have had data on them are built and the rest zero’d out. They also both provide low-resource consuming snapshot creation in the background and the ability to store many, many thousands of snapshot images with customized retention policies. There are lots of other similarities and differences to go through, but for now, let’s look at how Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core display your storage in the GUI.

The Synology DSM Storage Manager GUI has received a relatively recent design change over the DSM 6.2 version and although it still continues with maintaining a high level of user-friendly design and ease of use, it features a little more graphical structure than previously. With Synology DSM only being commercially available when included with a hardware NAS purchase, it allows the graphical GUI to be a lot more specific to the NAS in a way that is not really possible in the open-source and DIY nature of TrueNAS. There are numerous options to set up a new storage pool, set up a hot spare, create your volumes, enabled intelligent caching with connected SSDs (SATA or NVMe) and there are a few extra options to allow auto RAID repairs and more. It provides all these settings whilst still maintaining a very easy to follow GUI.

The TrueNAS storage manager on the other hand, although EASILY more configurable and customizable to your needs, is also much, much more text/stat based and the configuration and creation options are built into a series of native settings menus on the side of each storage container. There are the ZFS specific details, such as adjusting and monitoring the inline compression/deduplication output, as well as the creation of volumes, data sets and further pools all being much more text-heavy. You do have a greater deal of control and flexibility in the storage manager in TrueNAS (as you expect) but it can be quite overwhelming and certainly not recommended to the novice.

Another consideration of choosing between TrueNAS and Synology DSM based NAS is how each system tackles the subject of redundancy in the storage. For those unaware, the bulk of storage systems in the world (NAS or DAS, which is direct-attached storage such as USB) that utilize more than 1x HDD/SSD media drive take advantage of something called RAID (redundant array of independent disks) which allows you to combine multiple media drives into a single pool of storage This is further bolstered by increases in performance (as multiple drives are read/written at once) and also allows safety nets for if one of the drives fails (known as redundancy). If, for example, you have 4 drives in a RAID that supports 1 drive of redundancy, it means if one drive was to malfunction, your data is still accessible and the RAID can be reverted back to normal when to install a new drive back into the system to replace the bad one. Now, this is all quite important, as TrueNAS+RAIDZ and Synology DSM+SHR+EXT4-RAID provide different benefits. Synology has its Hybrid RAID system (not available on the enterprise tiers) that allows you to mix and match drives in a way no other RAID configuration allows. In a traditional RAID, you need all HDDs or SSDs in the RAID to be the same capacity, otherwise, the redundancy and parity calculation will view all drives as the smallest available drive for stability (eg 4TB+4TB+4TB+1TB = 3TB storage in a mixed drive setup in normal RAID5). In Synology hybrid RAID you can mix the drive capacities, as it views the drives but calculates the redundancy and parity about the LARGEST available drive (so eg, 4TB+4TB+4TB+1TB = 9TB in a mixed SHR pool). This may sound silly on day 1, but after a few years of storage on your NAS, you may want to start introducing larger drives and expanding your pool of storage – so adding/mixing larger drives later will make ALOT more sense. Additionally, an SHR is much easy to expand and add more drives with an expansion enclosure than both EXT4 and ZFS.

ZFS on the TrueNAS platform does not have a flexible RAID configuration and instead, provides other advantages. RAID building (aka RAIDZ, RAIDZ2 and RAIDZ3) is much, MUCH faster to build than RAID configurations, taking minutes as opposed to hours to finish synchronizing. Additionally, along with the fast RAID repair option that both DSM and TrueNAS provide, on a RAID Z3 configuration, you can create a 3 drive redundancy setting (i.e. create a RAIDD storage pool that can withstand up to three drives failing and still allow the data to be fine and RAID recoverable). For high-level enterprise users whose data is mission-critical and particularly in much, MUCH larger RAID arrays (12-24 bays and above on the hyper-scale) 3 disk redundancy is invaluable.

Synology provides up to 2 disk redundancy in RAID6 and SHR-2, but no real triple disk redundancy (though a somewhat haphazard version can be built with an SHR on two drives and adding more drives – much less efficient), however expanding your storage pool with larger drives or more drives on TrueNAS is not really viable. In Summer 2021 there were details on the means to expand your Storage Pool on ZFS/TrueNAS, but this system involves the added drives to live parallel with the original pool in a 2nd RAID group, running side by side technically (although only a single larger pool being visible) and being much less efficient.

RAID5 example of parity
Disk 1	Disk 2	Disk 3	Disk 4
1	2	3	P
5	6	P	4
9	P	7	8
P	10	11	12

In TrueNAS, choosing what you want to do with your connected storage media is broader in scope and creating pools, caching, fusion pools (when HDD+SSDs are combined for intelligently faster storage pools), hot spares and more is surprisingly well guided to the end-user. Equally, when creating your areas o storage, if you are creating an unrecommended or unstable setup (such as mixing storage media types in a traditional RAIDZ pool, mixing capacities, using unsuitable slower media for metadata and more) the system will warn you regularly throughout the build process and will not proceed until you choose to ‘force’ this option in the storage manager.

In the case of Synology DSM and its storage manager, there is a guide option that presents the end-user with choices on what do with an available drive, but they are a little more limited in scope and choice. Additionally, in most cases the Synology if you are running a setup that is less suitable will not let you proceed (no force it option in most cases). Finally, there is the subject of NVMe SSDs and Synology NAS. Despite Synology being one of the very first commercial NAS brands that offer off-the-shelf solutions to offer NVMe SSD support on their hardware, you can ONLY use NVMe SSD media on the Synology NAS hardware and DSM as caching, not for use in traditional storage pools. This will come as a bitter blow for some who have seen the prices of PCIe Gen 3 and even Gen 4 NVMe SSD storage become much more affordable. NVMe SSD use in Synology NAS hardware for caching is certainly beneficial and something that is widely available on this platform, but the lack of choice for the user to pick whether to use it as caching or as super-fast storage is a shame.

Another area of contention around the Synology NAS platform in recent months that might have played a part in why you are reading this article, is the brand’s recent change in the compatibility and DSM services policy on hard drives and SSDs on enterprise/big-business solutions. Synology currently provides a range of high workload, performance and durability Hard drives and SSDs in their portfolio that can be used in conjunction with all their NAS hardware. This media is rather good (as well as allowing users to upgrade the firmware of this drive media from with the Synology DSM software, something NO other commercial NAS brand offers). However, things get a little disruptive when the brand stated that their 2022 and onwards enterprise releases (such as the DS3622xs+ and DS2422+) will only provide all the software services in the storage manager to their own storage media drives, with 3rd party HDD/SSDs from brand such as Western Digital and Seagate in their respective WD Red and Ironwolf ranges) having fewer drive tools available and the system stating a warning status when using these drives. This rather divisive move by the brand (although only at the enterprise level and likely as a means to emulate top tier modelling from the likes of HP, EMC and NetApp) is something that currently does not affect the bulk of the Synology hardware available though and should only be a consideration to factor in at the higher tiers.

Returning to the subject of expandability, it is worth highlighting that although the expansion of RAID pools on TrueNAS is not really straightforward or efficient currently, the open-course nature and ZFS build of it DOES make hardware migration of an existing RAIDZ Pool into a new system considerably easier than it would be on a Synology NAS in DSM. Synology only allows hardware migration of RAID Pools in the Synology hardware ecosystem to stay within that same ecosystem and hardware which is larger and running the same version of DSM. TrueNAS and ZFS on the other hand is much more open, allowing you to exchange the storage pool directly into any DiY/Custom TrueNAS server as additional pools (eg, no need to replace the existing pool, just add it as another one in another enclosure, even a DAS over USB) and is also open source by design, so it will not lock out connectivity on a software level years and years later on a foreign system. As long as a system can see/understand ZFS (internally or as an external connection), it will be able to see your RAIDZ pool.

Once again, it should come as zero surprise that the TrueNAS platform is the more detailed, technical and least user-friendly BUT it also seems to have a greater degree of options in terms of long term mounting of the storage if your TrueNAS system fails or gets upgrading. Likewise, the appeal of overall faster RAID building, rebuilding and resilvering on TrueNAS with the bonus of triple parity will comfortably win over a lot of seasoned storage managers and admin managers with the time and knowledge to craft the ultimate storage system. That said, the Synology storage manager and the advantages DSM brings to their platform cannot be overestimated. BTRFS although a little greener in the eyes of some than ZF, is way, way less resource hungry and still provides data parity checks and file self heeling. Additionally, the flexibility of Synology Hybrid RAID and how it allows you to expand your storage on the primary Synology NAS system AND when connecting expansion chassis is something that is simply not available or poorly compared on TrueNAS currently. Synology’s policy on enterprise systems and HDD/SSD compatibility might be the thing that let’s this all down, as well as SHR not being an enterprise-level service on offer (not available above the PLUS series). But regardless, both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core provide a huge level of storage capabilities.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – File & Folder Remote Management

When it comes to accessing the data on your NAS on a file and folder level, I think it would be fair to say that Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core have quite differing views on this, especially when it comes to browser level access. Having all of your data in a stable, secure and robust hardware storage server is all well and good, but what good is it all if you cannot access it and via the means that best suit your client hardware. Both systems support numerous popular file protocols and storage sharing services that allow you to view and interact with your storage in their respectively tailored ways (mapped network drives, network mounted SMBs, remote internet-accessible WebDav protocols, iSCSI Targets & LUNS and many, many more. However, after that, the distinctions between Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core in web browser access and tailored proprietary file/folder access becomes very notable. Of the two, Synology DSM is much more accessible domestically and uses less complex means. One of the most oddly glaring advantages that less technical users will appreciate that is almost completely absent on TrueNAS is a simple file/folder explorer that is accessible in the web browser. This is not just a bog-standard breadcrumb structure viewer, but is a complete file manager with the ability to copy, paste, cut, archive, compress, view images, bolt-on remote storage, share files and more. This is usable in the DSM GUI on your web browser and is remarkably responsive, as well as client applications for iOS and Android that allow you to remotely access your Synology NAS storage on a file/folder level and manage the contents as you would in Windows File Explorer or MacOS Finder natively. The fact that this is not a native and easy option in TrueNAS is very surprising and although the file/folder breadcrumb structure can be accessed in a much more basic level (as well as in a detailed fashion by 3rd party applications and services) it is a really surprising omission on TrueNAS.

This trend continues further when you realise that there are a huge range of 1st party applications on the Synology DSM platform that are included with your system (licence free, for the most part and include mobile and desktop client applications too for native client hardware connection) that allow you to access the content of the folders on your NAS via their respective formats. TrueNAS has a number of first-party services built into its architecture and although they are no exactly applications, they are services and tools that are available to manage your storage quite comprehensively. Now, DSM has a lot (but not all) of these, but also have the file/folder access options that are not on TrueNAS. Key examples of this tailored NAS access such as Photography management in the Synology Photos application. This tool (with its partner mobile and desktop client apps) allows you to view photos in tremendous detail, create smart albums using photo metadata, using AI-supported services to search photo contents quickly, share photos with customizable rules and even create a professional share space that allows professional photographers to share access to their work with clients and professional colleagues.

Alternatively, there is the Synology media suite that includes music station for managing and customising an audio server collection, Video station to provide a similar level of video file management (including transcoding and metadata scraping) that is comparable to Plex Media Server, iTunes server, DLNA Media server and others that allow you to create smart or generic media server shares and more. Although 3rd party tools to accomplish this are supported on TrueNAS (with several of these tools being accessible in the add-on center of TrueNAS), the range of first-party tools to manage media on the Synology DSM NAS platform is unquestionably better.

Then you have efforts by Synology NAS and DSM to rival the likes of Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive and more with Synology Drive. This tool, in conjunction with the Synology collaboration suite) provides you with similar tools to SaaS (software as a service) platforms such as Google Workspace and Office 365. Synology Drive gives you a one portal web browser (and mobile/desktop app) access point to your NAS and can be used to open, edit, share all your files in a tailored fashion. This is done by DSMs collaboration suite that includes Synology Chat (like Skype or WhatsApp), Synology Office (like Office 365 and Google Drive), Synology Calendar, Synology Mail, Synology Contacts and more – a whole office suite of tools. This is further bolstered with Synology Drive local client on your host OS (predominately supported on Windows platforms) to allow file pinning and file streaming services. This means you can see the contents of your NAS file/folder structure, but can choose for it to not occupy ANY space on your PC – then you can just click the option in windows file explorer to access this file and/or pin it permanently. I know I am going on a bit here, but I am just trying to briefly cover how much Synology prioritizes 1st party access to their systems. Companies making the switch to NAS from the likes of Google Drive and DropBox shared storage will be right at home with the Synology and DSM range of servers compared with TrueNAS.

But what if you really just want to use the NAS as ‘dumb’ storage and have it appear as logical storage on your host client systems? This is typically an area where I would recommend TrueNAS over Synology DSM, as this is where the more flexible and wider 3rd party service support of that platform really shines. With a huge variety of services available on TrueNAS (that are securely disabled by default I might add), there is a huge array of choices of how you want to connect with your storage and although the learning curve on setting this up continues to be steeper than with DSM, I think I can safely say that TrueNAS will be able to connect with ANY client software/hardware, whereas DSM might connect with ‘most’ or ‘alot’

Synology DO support a variety of services and protocols and many are available to be viewed, configured and actioned in the control panel>file services, however, they do prioritize iSCSI mounting services for those that want to bolt-on areas of Synology services remotely to an existing network more than most other services in DSM, with the dedicated SAN manager. From here you can create some quite detailed targets and LUNS for use in everything from bog-standard 100M networks all the way up to 10/25/40G Fibre Channel networks.

Now, I should stress, that doesn’t; mean that TrueNAS have the means to allow users to access their data natively. The range of supported services and sharing tools built into TrueNAS is pretty vast and allows very customizable, secure and unique access remotely. Rather than attempting to emulate those SaaS and PaaS 3rd party providers, TrueNAS has instead chosen to concentrate SQUARELY on the storage element of the operation and then supporting as many 3rd party tools and services it can. In this, they achieve hugely and you cannot fault the storage management of TrueNAS and how it can adapt the storage pools, shares and access to best fit a particular connecting service. That means that if you were looking at a NAS server and were already heavily invested/comfortable with your existing 3rd party file/folder manage meant software, you will likely see a greater degree of flexibility and customization in the more open-source TrueNAS storage than Synology’s DSM platform that seems too much rather prioritize it’s own services (but still supporting 3rd party tools, in an arguably more uniform way).

• Part I of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (04/04/22 – Design, GUI and Customization)
• Part III of the TrueNAS vs Synology DSM Guide is HERE (08/04/22 – Security, Apps, Add ons and the Conclusion)
• Alternatively, you can read the (LONG) Guide of Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core is available HERE.

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Choosing between these two incredibly popular platforms for secure storage, accessing and sharing your data is not easy! With Synology and DSM, you have a premium hardware+software platform that easily emulates entire operating system levels of features, with an incredibly user-friendly design, initiative controls and a wide range of included applications and services with their own mobile applications. In TrueNAS you have an open-source and largely free to download service that allows you to create a detailed and completely customizable storage system, built on one of the most popular file systems in the storage community, a wide degree of 3rd party support and ease of integration thanks to the hardware being DIY and widely customizable. Both NAS software platforms are used by home and business users alike, but with one of them being paid and the other being free, there are plenty of arguments as to why one NAS software might be better suited to your needs than the other. So today I want to compare Synology DSM 7 and TrueNAS Core, breakdown each of their individual pros and cons, how they differ and ultimately help you decide if you should choose TrueNAS or Synology for your own private server. Let’s begin.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Quick Conclusion

It is so easy to just look at the TrueNAS option as the free but complex choice and the Synology DSM option as the easy but expensive one, BUT the truth is a little more complex than that. For a start, the wide variety of customization and flexibility that is inherent to TrueNAS is something that I genuinely think only higher-end business users are going to be able to fully realise. Home users who are building their own NAS from scratch and opt for TrueNAS for the software will definitely enjoy customizing their solution to their needs/network-environment, but the most long term customizations, reports and adaptive protocols of TrueNAS are much better suited to a business that needs to change as business/staff/data grows. Ironically though, those users are going to be far more attracted to a ‘turnkey’ solution (i.e a NAS solution that is pretty much good to go, right out the box) and will pay for the privilege (i.e time is money). This is where Synology steps in quite confidently, as they know they are incredibly business appealing, with a massive range of first-party apps to migrate away from Google/Microsoft services, as well as management and security tools that are largely unparallel elsewhere in the industry. TrueNAS is still a viable option for businesses that desire an instantly deployable solution and business class support with the official TrueNAS hardware provider iXsystems providing pre-populated and customizable solutions, as well as tiered support subscriptions – but this only truly appeals to users who truly understand what FreeBSD and ZFS can provide that EXT4 and BTRFS cannot.

The Synology DSM platform is incredibly impressive and available in systems (as in included with the hardware as a single purchase) for as little as £120 (such as the DS120j) and scales up rapidly in price and power. Users who have little-to-no technical knowledge, do not have time to learn a new kind of technology and/or want to migrate away from cloud and SaaS services to a whole contained ecosystem without subscription costs, should opt for Synology NAS and DSM 7. It has a few subscription/license purchases on a few services, but is still largely a one-off purchase for the most part and the majority of Synology NAS users never buy an extra or a subscription. Alternatively, if you are someone who has the time and enthusiasm, already has the technical skills under their belt, has very specific storage and network requirements and/or are looking at a solution that they plan on upgrading and improving in the years that follow, then TrueNAS Core (and indeed TrueNAS Scale with Linux for that matter) is going to be a much better choice. What it lacks vs Synology DSM in 1st party applications and ease of use, it makes up for in a truly unbeatable range of customization and configuration choices that are unavailable elsewhere. Plus, ZFSis always going to be at the top of many pro-storage user lists – just remember that TrueNAS (unless you opt for an iXsystem) is Free, but the hardware and time you will spend deploying it was where it will cost you.

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure Users who are happy with/prefer community Support Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual Users who like to fine-tune Anyone that has ever built a PC Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc Users who prefer commercial-grade support Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key) Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction Users who want simplified Warranty Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Design & Navigation

Although the majority of NAS systems can be accessed via 3rd party software in your home or business, the majority of users still opt for controlling their NAS system via the browser-based GUI that these systems arrive with. In the case of both Synology and TrueNAS, navigation via all common web browsers is possible and supported on the popular operating systems out there. However, both brands take a notable different approach on how they allow the connect end-user (admin or general user) to interact with the NAS. Synology uses the DSM (Diskstation Manager) platform currently in it’s 7th version and it is widely regarded as one of the most user-friendly user interfaces out therefore managing your NAS. Styled on the Mac OS (with a little windows and Android settings in places) you are given the feeling of accessing a complete operating system via your web browser.

Navigation of DSM is pretty intuitive and the desktop/wallpaper can be customized, alongside the user control options and start menu largely being where you would expect them to be. This opens out into a greater range of software and system control options, presented as icons.

The arrangement of the tools and applications that the system arrives with (as well as those you choose to add later from the app center) are all presented here and you can choose to drag and drop these onto the desktop if you so choose. It feels incredibly straightforward and easy to use.

TrueNAS has a little bit more of a technical stance and whereas Synology has opted for emulating common domestic OS’ and making it chewable-easy-user-friendly, TrueNAS Core (version 12 for this comparison) favours providing the end-user with a tremendous amount of information and control in it’s GUI. TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS) is a platform that, despite its open-source and free availability, does not scrimp on the control and services that it offers in terms of managing your storage. The primary screen of the TrueNAS Core GUI presents lots of details about your storage, network, system hardware health and attempts to fit all this into a single screen (something that will eventually overspill as more services and storage targets are added over time). It can be quite overwhelming at first glance, but you cannot deny that TrueNAS is providing you with much more information at initial access than DSM.

Of course, this larger array of information, options and configuration choices so early on leads to quite a high learning curve requirement from the GUI of TrueNAS in your initial use. The display and theme customization of the GUI can be reached from the top right of the screen as you might intuitively expect. As with the desire by the designers of TrueNAS to allow practically all controls and tools to be accessible from that initial screen, all the options to navigate system management, changing settings, adding services and accessing 3rd party applications you choose to install are ALL listed in a breadcrumb style list of options on the left-hand side of the screen (each branching out into their subcategories.

Now, unlike the Synology DSM approach of trying to emulate an operating system, the GUI of TrueNAS is much more comparable to WordPress and control panels of web servers and switches. It is a greater degree more technical and whilst trying to find a middle ground between the accessibility of tools and customization, it can be quite daunting. To access the tools and applications that you install from the community pool of apps, you need to head into the add-on area and you can access their own respective GUI from there. This is still customizable and you can make additions to the primary GUI window of TrueNAS, but it is not something that you are going to click with immediately unless you have greater experience of more factual GUIs

Another quality of life design choice in DSM7 from Synology that is worth highlighting is the inclusion of a search functionality built into the main window of the GUI. This allows a user who is looking for a specific setting, service, tool or file to search the system quickly and easily. This is a small extra that is absent on TrueNAS but clearly something that has a place in modern software GUIs and OS’ (as this is all too often how most people navigate their platforms – gone are the so, so precise days of the Windows XP, Vista and 7 ‘Start’ menu – sigh). I am very surprised that this is not something available on TrueNAS as it would hugely counter the menu-overload that the GUI can cause at times for the less experienced.

However, when it comes to the areas where most users (especially the admins and techies) WANT more details and info at their fingertips, TrueNAS is largely unbeatable and one prime example of this is in the resource monitor and reports on how the system is performing. The TrueNAS platform provides a frankly insane amount of both live and historical information in the drive media, the pools, the interfaces, the system hardware, EVERYTHING! this information can be broken down into completely bespoke reports with numerous X/Y access variables. This is done incredibly quickly and all this is provided in the free TrueNAS Core and Scale, not just the premium TrueNAS Enterprise platform.

DSM 7 from Synology on the other hand is a little lighter on the details. You have a very barebones activity monitor on the initial GUI login via your browser in the bottom right corner (intentionally, to not overwhelm the user) which can be opened out easily into the dedicated Resource monitor. This monitor DOES provide a good amount of information on the system hardware, network and storage, but it is a little bit tame and limited when compared against the resource monitoring of TrueNAS. Likewise, you CAN enable historical information, but this is disabled by default and even then the level of information is still a little more limited by comparison to TrueNAS.

Now it is worth mentioning that Synology DOES have a much, MUCH more analytical and detailed system health monitoring service available in the form of Active Insight, that allows you to really, REALLY breakdown the health of your system+storage (as well as multiple other NAS systems in a single GUI) and produce some staggering detailed reports to be generated in the GUI or emailed to system admins/managers. However Active Insight is a subscription service and not available by default with your Synology NAS purchase, so although it IS available, the fact that this is an additional subscription locked model will put some users off a little.

Overall the user-friendly design, ease of use and intuitive design of Synology DSM genuinely cannot be understated, making it considerably more appealing to newer users and those who want a clear pathway toward their intended system setting, service or application. TrueNAS Core on the other hand is a significant degree more technical in its approach and can be both complex to navigate for the less novice user and intimidating to those fearful of making a miss-step when managing the system. This ends up meaning that the move overwhelming TrueNAS GUI can be a gold mine of control and information compared to DSM 7 for those that are willing to put the time in to learn. Whereas Synology DSM is considerably easier to navigate, but the extent to which it can be adapted and controlled via the GUI is also much less customizable.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Users & Customization

As soon you have established your TrueNAS or Synology NAS system, you are likely going to start customizing the system to your own specific network and requirements. Most of the time this means that you will want to create several users, groups or system identities for applications to access your storage and in turn grant those accounts with their own range of storage access privileges, system powers and security settings. Both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core allow you to do this, but once again the way in which they do this and the extent to which this can be approached differ noticeably on these platforms. Synology has an option in its control panel to allow you to create multiple user accounts, then give those individual accounts access to pre-defined folders and storage, as well as system application access, quotas and even rules on password validity. This is then further built on with similarly approached group structures with those same customization options, but also allows you to move one or more users in between groups to adapt their access/quotas as they move (useful for company staff and their teams).

TrueNAS offers a very similar level of creation and control in user and group creation, squeezing the window-by-window creation that DSM uses in its user-creator windows into a single window – which as you might expect is a great deal more informative BUT is another bit of detail overload at times once your system and structure increases in complexity over the years). In the case of both TrueNAS and Synology DSM 7, these user accounts each allows the owner to access the NAS in a separate/parallel access login via the GUI and connected services, as well as having security and access rules in place that can block malicious access as needed. These rules and access rights can be adapted on the fly by the admin easily on both DSM and TrueNAS.

One thing that is absent in TrueNAS (which is available to a degree in TrueNAS Scale however) but IS available on DSM is the option to create bulk accounts quickly, as well as upload an existing CSV of user accounts to the NAS. For those that are migrating from an existing database and want to move their user data over (and then move these users into groups), this is going to be a useful extra option. Not something for the long term, but a nice initial service nonetheless.

Both systems allow you to adapt the admin powers of existing users quickly, but it is also worth highlighting that the Synology NAS platform allows you to change a user’s credentials and access temporarily higher in a semi-automated ‘delegation’ option in the user control UI. TrueNAS has a similar setting to this, but lacks the timed management and ease of switching on the fly in how it is presented in DSM.

The design of the GUI in your web browser on both TrueNAS and Synology DSM are both a little rigid in just how much you can adapt what you can see and change to your liking. Both platforms allow you to change elements of the colours on screen and user login avatar to a point, however, the TrueNAS platform provides a much wider degree of choice of customization, thanks to its theme creator. This allows you to choose between a range of present colour/icon themes, as well as create your own colour pallet, font scale/detail and adapt the icons to your liking. Its only a few minor extras, but it is something that no other NAS platforms account for in their customization.

The Synology customisation in its GUI is a lot more limited, however, with the wallpaper, text sizing and icon changes being the only real options. That really surprises me, given the operating system vibe that DSM provides in the web browser GUI.

Overall, this is another case of Synology DSM being more user-friendly than the TrueNAS platform, but both platforms provide a similar level of user creation and customization. That said, the Synology DSM platform is pretty rigid in how you can customize the GUI in terms of fonts, icons and structure (only really offering the wallpaper and icon changes really) compared with the custom theme creation built into TrueNAS. That sad, bulk user creation and the option to import existing CSVs of users onto DSM are an often overlooked but huge time saving extra that I was surprised was not available on TrueNAS Core (but available on SCALE sort of). Overall, I think more complex user creation is going to run better on the TrueNAS platform, but fairly straightforward and larger-scale user creation is going to be much faster and easier on Synology DSM.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Storage Management

Almost certainly one of the biggest questions most users will have when considering TrueNAS and Synology DSM for their own private NAS server is how it manages storage. From how it keeps it accessible and stable, to how it reacts and adapts to changes in stability, these two NAS platforms have chosen their intended path very early and differ in some key ways. TrueNAS utilizes ZFS as its file system of choice and although it is a little more resource-intensive (predominantly in memory) to run its range of services, it is a fantastically enterprise file system that supports native inline deduplication across the system (i.e if data is being backed up from multiple clients is the same, such as OS data or shared databases, it only stores one copy and keeps an internal index of where that data is needed/stored across users), inline compression that saves storage space and a bunch of other advantages that are unique to ZFS. Synology and it’s DSM platform is (for the most part, barring some more economical devices in their portfolio) available using the BTRFS and EXT4 file systems.

Although EXT4 has a long-established history and support by storage users, BTRFS opinion is a little more divided as it is much newer than EXT4 or ZFS. Alot of that comes down to how BTRFS is implemented by the system, but in the case of Synology and DSM it is done so quite comprehensively and on the ground level. Indeed a number of key Synology applications insist on the use of BTRFS by the system in order to run (eg Synology Virtual Machine Manager). Both BTRFS and ZFS use a checksum/background comparison system on writers in order to identify errors and auto repair them, as well as both DSM and TrueNAS supplying a faster RAID rebuild system whereby only the areas of a rebuild drive that would have had data on them are built and the rest zero’d out. They also both provide low-resource consuming snapshot creation in the background and the ability to store many, many thousands of snapshot images with customized retention policies. There are lots of other similarities and differences to go through, but for now, let’s look at how Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core display your storage in the GUI.

The Synology DSM Storage Manager GUI has received a relatively recent design change over the DSM 6.2 version and although it still continues with maintaining a high level of user-friendly design and ease of use, it features a little more graphical structure than previously. With Synology DSM only being commercially available when included with a hardware NAS purchase, it allows the graphical GUI to be a lot more specific to the NAS in a way that is not really possible in the open-source and DIY nature of TrueNAS. There are numerous options to set up a new storage pool, set up a hot spare, create your volumes, enabled intelligent caching with connected SSDs (SATA or NVMe) and there are a few extra options to allow auto RAID repairs and more. It provides all these settings whilst still maintaining a very easy to follow GUI.

The TrueNAS storage manager on the other hand, although EASILY more configurable and customizable to your needs, is also much, much more text/stat based and the configuration and creation options are built into a series of native settings menus on the side of each storage container. There are the ZFS specific details, such as adjusting and monitoring the inline compression/deduplication output, as well as the creation of volumes, data sets and further pools all being much more text-heavy. You do have a greater deal of control and flexibility in the storage manager in TrueNAS (as you expect) but it can be quite overwhelming and certainly not recommended to the novice.

Another consideration of choosing between TrueNAS and Synology DSM based NAS is how each system tackles the subject of redundancy in the storage. For those unaware, the bulk of storage systems in the world (NAS or DAS, which is direct-attached storage such as USB) that utilize more than 1x HDD/SSD media drive take advantage of something called RAID (redundant array of independent disks) which allows you to combine multiple media drives into a single pool of storage This is further bolstered by increases in performance (as multiple drives are read/written at once) and also allows safety nets for if one of the drives fails (known as redundancy). If, for example, you have 4 drives in a RAID that supports 1 drive of redundancy, it means if one drive was to malfunction, your data is still accessible and the RAID can be reverted back to normal when to install a new drive back into the system to replace the bad one. Now, this is all quite important, as TrueNAS+RAIDZ and Synology DSM+SHR+EXT4-RAID provide different benefits. Synology has its Hybrid RAID system (not available on the enterprise tiers) that allows you to mix and match drives in a way no other RAID configuration allows. In a traditional RAID, you need all HDDs or SSDs in the RAID to be the same capacity, otherwise, the redundancy and parity calculation will view all drives as the smallest available drive for stability (eg 4TB+4TB+4TB+1TB = 3TB storage in a mixed drive setup in normal RAID5). In Synology hybrid RAID you can mix the drive capacities, as it views the drives but calculates the redundancy and parity about the LARGEST available drive (so eg, 4TB+4TB+4TB+1TB = 9TB in a mixed SHR pool). This may sound silly on day 1, but after a few years of storage on your NAS, you may want to start introducing larger drives and expanding your pool of storage – so adding/mixing larger drives later will make ALOT more sense. Additionally, an SHR is much easy to expand and add more drives with an expansion enclosure than both EXT4 and ZFS.

ZFS on the TrueNAS platform does not have a flexible RAID configuration and instead, provides other advantages. RAID building (aka RAIDZ, RAIDZ2 and RAIDZ3) is much, MUCH faster to build than RAID configurations, taking minutes as opposed to hours to finish synchronizing. Additionally, along with the fast RAID repair option that both DSM and TrueNAS provide, on a RAID Z3 configuration, you can create a 3 drive redundancy setting (i.e. create a RAIDD storage pool that can withstand up to three drives failing and still allow the data to be fine and RAID recoverable). For high-level enterprise users whose data is mission-critical and particularly in much, MUCH larger RAID arrays (12-24 bays and above on the hyper-scale) 3 disk redundancy is invaluable.

Synology provides up to 2 disk redundancy in RAID6 and SHR-2, but no real triple disk redundancy (though a somewhat haphazard version can be built with an SHR on two drives and adding more drives – much less efficient), however expanding your storage pool with larger drives or more drives on TrueNAS is not really viable. In Summer 2021 there were details on the means to expand your Storage Pool on ZFS/TrueNAS, but this system involves the added drives to live parallel with the original pool in a 2nd RAID group, running side by side technically (although only a single larger pool being visible) and being much less efficient.

RAID5 example of parity
Disk 1	Disk 2	Disk 3	Disk 4
1	2	3	P
5	6	P	4
9	P	7	8
P	10	11	12

In TrueNAS, choosing what you want to do with your connected storage media is broader in scope and creating pools, caching, fusion pools (when HDD+SSDs are combined for intelligently faster storage pools), hot spares and more is surprisingly well guided to the end-user. Equally, when creating your areas o storage, if you are creating an unrecommended or unstable setup (such as mixing storage media types in a traditional RAIDZ pool, mixing capacities, using unsuitable slower media for metadata and more) the system will warn you regularly throughout the build process and will not proceed until you choose to ‘force’ this option in the storage manager.

In the case of Synology DSM and its storage manager, there is a guide option that presents the end-user with choices on what do with an available drive, but they are a little more limited in scope and choice. Additionally, in most cases the Synology if you are running a setup that is less suitable will not let you proceed (no force it option in most cases). Finally, there is the subject of NVMe SSDs and Synology NAS. Despite Synology being one of the very first commercial NAS brands that offer off-the-shelf solutions to offer NVMe SSD support on their hardware, you can ONLY use NVMe SSD media on the Synology NAS hardware and DSM as caching, not for use in traditional storage pools. This will come as a bitter blow for some who have seen the prices of PCIe Gen 3 and even Gen 4 NVMe SSD storage become much more affordable. NVMe SSD use in Synology NAS hardware for caching is certainly beneficial and something that is widely available on this platform, but the lack of choice for the user to pick whether to use it as caching or as super-fast storage is a shame.

Another area of contention around the Synology NAS platform in recent months that might have played a part in why you are reading this article, is the brand’s recent change in the compatibility and DSM services policy on hard drives and SSDs on enterprise/big-business solutions. Synology currently provides a range of high workload, performance and durability Hard drives and SSDs in their portfolio that can be used in conjunction with all their NAS hardware. This media is rather good (as well as allowing users to upgrade the firmware of this drive media from with the Synology DSM software, something NO other commercial NAS brand offers). However, things get a little disruptive when the brand stated that their 2022 and onwards enterprise releases (such as the DS3622xs+ and DS2422+) will only provide all the software services in the storage manager to their own storage media drives, with 3rd party HDD/SSDs from brand such as Western Digital and Seagate in their respective WD Red and Ironwolf ranges) having fewer drive tools available and the system stating a warning status when using these drives. This rather divisive move by the brand (although only at the enterprise level and likely as a means to emulate top tier modelling from the likes of HP, EMC and NetApp) is something that currently does not affect the bulk of the Synology hardware available though and should only be a consideration to factor in at the higher tiers.

Returning to the subject of expandability, it is worth highlighting that although the expansion of RAID pools on TrueNAS is not really straightforward or efficient currently, the open-course nature and ZFS build of it DOES make hardware migration of an existing RAIDZ Pool into a new system considerably easier than it would be on a Synology NAS in DSM. Synology only allows hardware migration of RAID Pools in the Synology hardware ecosystem to stay within that same ecosystem and hardware which is larger and running the same version of DSM. TrueNAS and ZFS on the other hand is much more open, allowing you to exchange the storage pool directly into any DiY/Custom TrueNAS server as additional pools (eg, no need to replace the existing pool, just add it as another one in another enclosure, even a DAS over USB) and is also open source by design, so it will not lock out connectivity on a software level years and years later on a foreign system. As long as a system can see/understand ZFS (internally or as an external connection), it will be able to see your RAIDZ pool.

Once again, it should come as zero surprise that the TrueNAS platform is the more detailed, technical and least user-friendly BUT it also seems to have a greater degree of options in terms of long term mounting of the storage if your TrueNAS system fails or gets upgrading. Likewise, the appeal of overall faster RAID building, rebuilding and resilvering on TrueNAS with the bonus of triple parity will comfortably win over a lot of seasoned storage managers and admin managers with the time and knowledge to craft the ultimate storage system. That said, the Synology storage manager and the advantages DSM brings to their platform cannot be overestimated. BTRFS although a little greener in the eyes of some than ZF, is way, way less resource hungry and still provides data parity checks and file self heeling. Additionally, the flexibility of Synology Hybrid RAID and how it allows you to expand your storage on the primary Synology NAS system AND when connecting expansion chassis is something that is simply not available or poorly compared on TrueNAS currently. Synology’s policy on enterprise systems and HDD/SSD compatibility might be the thing that let’s this all down, as well as SHR not being an enterprise-level service on offer (not available above the PLUS series). But regardless, both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core provide a huge level of storage capabilities.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – File & Folder Remote Management

When it comes to accessing the data on your NAS on a file and folder level, I think it would be fair to say that Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core have quite differing views on this, especially when it comes to browser level access. Having all of your data in a stable, secure and robust hardware storage server is all well and good, but what good is it all if you cannot access it and via the means that best suit your client hardware. Both systems support numerous popular file protocols and storage sharing services that allow you to view and interact with your storage in their respectively tailored ways (mapped network drives, network mounted SMBs, remote internet-accessible WebDav protocols, iSCSI Targets & LUNS and many, many more. However, after that, the distinctions between Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core in web browser access and tailored proprietary file/folder access becomes very notable. Of the two, Synology DSM is much more accessible domestically and uses less complex means. One of the most oddly glaring advantages that less technical users will appreciate that is almost completely absent on TrueNAS is a simple file/folder explorer that is accessible in the web browser. This is not just a bog-standard breadcrumb structure viewer, but is a complete file manager with the ability to copy, paste, cut, archive, compress, view images, bolt-on remote storage, share files and more. This is usable in the DSM GUI on your web browser and is remarkably responsive, as well as client applications for iOS and Android that allow you to remotely access your Synology NAS storage on a file/folder level and manage the contents as you would in Windows File Explorer or MacOS Finder natively. The fact that this is not a native and easy option in TrueNAS is very surprising and although the file/folder breadcrumb structure can be accessed in a much more basic level (as well as in a detailed fashion by 3rd party applications and services) it is a really surprising omission on TrueNAS.

This trend continues further when you realise that there are a huge range of 1st party applications on the Synology DSM platform that are included with your system (licence free, for the most part and include mobile and desktop client applications too for native client hardware connection) that allow you to access the content of the folders on your NAS via their respective formats. TrueNAS has a number of first-party services built into its architecture and although they are no exactly applications, they are services and tools that are available to manage your storage quite comprehensively. Now, DSM has a lot (but not all) of these, but also have the file/folder access options that are not on TrueNAS. Key examples of this tailored NAS access such as Photography management in the Synology Photos application. This tool (with its partner mobile and desktop client apps) allows you to view photos in tremendous detail, create smart albums using photo metadata, using AI-supported services to search photo contents quickly, share photos with customizable rules and even create a professional share space that allows professional photographers to share access to their work with clients and professional colleagues.

Alternatively, there is the Synology media suite that includes music station for managing and customising an audio server collection, Video station to provide a similar level of video file management (including transcoding and metadata scraping) that is comparable to Plex Media Server, iTunes server, DLNA Media server and others that allow you to create smart or generic media server shares and more. Although 3rd party tools to accomplish this are supported on TrueNAS (with several of these tools being accessible in the add-on center of TrueNAS), the range of first-party tools to manage media on the Synology DSM NAS platform is unquestionably better.

Then you have efforts by Synology NAS and DSM to rival the likes of Google Drive, DropBox, OneDrive and more with Synology Drive. This tool, in conjunction with the Synology collaboration suite) provides you with similar tools to SaaS (software as a service) platforms such as Google Workspace and Office 365. Synology Drive gives you a one portal web browser (and mobile/desktop app) access point to your NAS and can be used to open, edit, share all your files in a tailored fashion. This is done by DSMs collaboration suite that includes Synology Chat (like Skype or WhatsApp), Synology Office (like Office 365 and Google Drive), Synology Calendar, Synology Mail, Synology Contacts and more – a whole office suite of tools. This is further bolstered with Synology Drive local client on your host OS (predominately supported on Windows platforms) to allow file pinning and file streaming services. This means you can see the contents of your NAS file/folder structure, but can choose for it to not occupy ANY space on your PC – then you can just click the option in windows file explorer to access this file and/or pin it permanently. I know I am going on a bit here, but I am just trying to briefly cover how much Synology prioritizes 1st party access to their systems. Companies making the switch to NAS from the likes of Google Drive and DropBox shared storage will be right at home with the Synology and DSM range of servers compared with TrueNAS.

But what if you really just want to use the NAS as ‘dumb’ storage and have it appear as logical storage on your host client systems? This is typically an area where I would recommend TrueNAS over Synology DSM, as this is where the more flexible and wider 3rd party service support of that platform really shines. With a huge variety of services available on TrueNAS (that are securely disabled by default I might add), there is a huge array of choices of how you want to connect with your storage and although the learning curve on setting this up continues to be steeper than with DSM, I think I can safely say that TrueNAS will be able to connect with ANY client software/hardware, whereas DSM might connect with ‘most’ or ‘alot’

Synology DO support a variety of services and protocols and many are available to be viewed, configured and actioned in the control panel>file services, however, they do prioritize iSCSI mounting services for those that want to bolt-on areas of Synology services remotely to an existing network more than most other services in DSM, with the dedicated SAN manager. From here you can create some quite detailed targets and LUNS for use in everything from bog-standard 100M networks all the way up to 10/25/40G Fibre Channel networks.

Now, I should stress, that doesn’t; mean that TrueNAS have the means to allow users to access their data natively. The range of supported services and sharing tools built into TrueNAS is pretty vast and allows very customizable, secure and unique access remotely. Rather than attempting to emulate those SaaS and PaaS 3rd party providers, TrueNAS has instead chosen to concentrate SQUARELY on the storage element of the operation and then supporting as many 3rd party tools and services it can. In this, they achieve hugely and you cannot fault the storage management of TrueNAS and how it can adapt the storage pools, shares and access to best fit a particular connecting service. That means that if you were looking at a NAS server and were already heavily invested/comfortable with your existing 3rd party file/folder manage meant software, you will likely see a greater degree of flexibility and customization in the more open-source TrueNAS storage than Synology’s DSM platform that seems too much rather prioritize it’s own services (but still supporting 3rd party tools, in an arguably more uniform way).

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – First Party Tools and Add ons

Now, if you read through my details on file/folder management on TrueNAS and Synology DSM, then you might have a good idea how this is going to go down when comparing these two platforms. However, it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as it might seem. Unsurprisingly, the range of first-party tools and applications is greater on the Synology DSM platform and graduating slightly from the SaaS apps mentioned earlier, Synology also offers a range of business and enterprise-class tools for backups, hybrid cloud synchronization and management tools for a wider array of systems in multiple locations in their CMS services. Now, TrueNAS supplies a lot of the wider area, multi-site services in their TrueNAS Command and TrueNAS Enterprise services (subscription/premium based) but regardless of all this, the range of applications in the 1st and 3rd party support are overall still larger on the Synology DSM NAS platform, with a wide array of applications immediately available and signed/trusted by the brand in the app center.

TrueNAS Core (indeed, the bulk of the TrueNAS platforms really) are much more community contributed and that results in far fewer first-party premium applications being available (with many elements that Synology offers as standalone applications being rolled into the general services of TrueNAS). Nevertheless, TrueNAS does arrive with a large range of third party applications available in the add-on center that are pre-configured for faster deployment in the TrueNAS environment. However, many TrueNAS/FreeNAS purest will choose to go full custom and homebrew and TrueNAS has tremendous flexibility in this direction. Allowing you to create custom containers (know as JAILS) that you can install community apps safely and then run very, very bespoke applications and services on your TrueNAS remotely.

Now, as proprietary, closed and (dare I say it) stuffy as Synology is, it is also worth mentioning that there actually is a surprisingly active homebrew scene on the DSM platform that, although Synology does not really support formally, do not detur. This community comprises of two main areas, the GitHub modifying crowd who will create custom tools (typically modified from existing Linux or windows applications/tools) and then modify them into Synology deployable .spk installation files or SSH command groups. The other marginally more accessible group (at least to the average user) is the Synocommunity app repository which is far more comparable to the office app center in appearance and installation. As mentioned, although Synology does not really support this, they also do not really stop users from pursuing this, adding an option in the settings menu that allows access to unsupported apps, uncertified applications and adding third party application repositories.

As mentioned, unlike the wider design of TrueNAS to make itself easier to be accessed by existing 3rd party network applications and services, Synology DSM focused ALOT more on those first-party applications and provides a wide variety of tools that are genuinely stand out – not just good as they are, but they really do rival enterprise and premium business tool. A couple of big examples of that are Synology Surveillance Station and Synology Active Backup. The Surveillance Station application is a web browser (and desktop/mobile client) supported video surveillance platform that allows you to add multiple cameras to your network environment and create a hugely customizable and secure surveillance environment. With the support of thousands of IP cameras that you can pick up for as little as $30 all the way up to enterprise AXIS cameras, the platform supports a vast variety of features. These include; Pan tilt Zoom control, Watermarking, Privacy masks, eMaps, Browser control/views, simultaneous archive+livefeed views, IP speaker control, intelligent recording patterns and more. It is a genuinely enterprise platform for your security, just do remember that the bulk of Synology NAS hardware only arrives with support of 2 cameras by default and adding more cameras costs an extra $30-50 (prices vary based on bulk packs) per camera. Although TrueNAS supports numerous surveillance platforms already (with at least one supported as an app in the add-on center and others able to point their storage recordings at the TrueNAS system) these will likely have their own subscription payments attached.

The other big, big enterprise application that the Synology DSM platform includes is Active Backup Suite, a single portal, multi-client backup management tool. Now, this isn’t to be confused with Synology Hyper Backup (with does manage backups, but in a far lower level and client way), which is designed to backup much more high profile storage and devices. These can range from local PCs and clients tools, to virtual machine hypervisors such as VMware and Hyper V and SaaS cloud services in Office365 and Google Workspace. This is provided licence free and is comparable (favourably too) against other enterprise-grade hybrid backup tools for businesses that cost thousands of pounds a year. It is quite a resource-hungry tool and I would not really recommend it for a more affordable Synology NAS, but it’s a real deal-breaker. Once again, there IS support of third party applications that provide these services on the TrueNAS app center, but they almost certainly have their own price plans attached.

Now, this has all been rather one-sided up to this point and it makes it sound as if TrueNAS does not have any applications. It really, really does, but they typically fall into those two categories of ‘3rd party supported’ or ‘integrated into TrueNAS natively’. TrueNAS takes the arguable mature decision to ashew the idea of 1st party applications in favour of these being existing services from within their software. Everything from iSCSI support to the individual file-sharing protocols being default on/off settings on day 1, TrueNAS has a lot of native software services built-in from the start and they can be enabled easily. The lack of 1st party applications available for first-party hardware clients (mobile clients and desktop clients) is noticeable, but as long as you are thinking about the TrueNAS system as an additional storage system to your setup and not its own independent system, then you will likely never even notice.

One big factor for more business geared users who are considering TrueNAS is how each NAS system approaches the subject of virtual machine deployment. The NAS hardware certainly serves as a base to host multiple VMs, but the need for a dedicated and competent hypervisor to host and mouth them all will make all the difference. In the case of TrueNAS, virtual machine creation and deployment is noticeably easier to do than on the face of it and straight away from the initial GUI, you can create a flexible virtual machine hardware system, customizable from the ground up.

Now, Synology also supports the ability to create a virtual machine, but they do so by installing the Synology Virtual machine manager software. The Synology VMM platform is a professional grade virtual machine platform that is included with your Synology NAS hardware purchase in DSM7 and allows you to create virtual machines quickly and easily. This hypervisor platform genuinely can rival the likes of VMware in its ease of use and even includes the means to convert/adapt existing Virtual machine images from other 3rd platforms into its own more compatible structure within a few clicks. Overall, the virtual machine support on DSM is a little broader than TrueNAS, but TrueNAS core is significantly more customizable in its hardware variables, as well as allowing more options during the creation of a new virtual machine environment on day 1.

When it comes to optional upgrades and add-ons to the NAS system, you cannot really fault the options that Synology’s DSM platform offers. Yes, Synology DSM is a paid platform vs the free-to-download open-source structure of TrueNAS, but even then, you can see where a lot of that money has been reinvested into DSM. Synology is remarkably keen to replace the core 3rd party applications that most users feature in their network environment, creating a closed Ecosystem, etc that provides all those applications under a first-party banner. The TrueNAS platform on the other hand provides virtual machine deployment options in its primary system software and is even the tiniest pinch more customizable in how you can build your Virtual Machine environment. This is also improved on a hardware level when you bear in mind that TrueNAS is hugely free in its hardware build and it allows end-users to build a powerful computer base for TrueNAS to then divide into different VMs as needed. Synology has some relatively powerful server-grade hardware at their enterprise level, as well as active-active servers with dual CPU setups that build with Intel Xeon Silver processors, but the hardware is still a fixed specification and aside from improving memory modules and adding caching, the scalability to the hardware on the NAS for multiple VM deployments will always be greater on TrueNAS in the long run. Ultimately, Synology still largely wins the battle of 1st party applications, add-ons and 3rd party hardware with their recent hardware, but the margin between the TrueNAS configuration and flexibility vs the Synology fixed but straightforward deployment is certainly worthy of note.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Security

As you might expect from software that has been developed at a time when data security concerns have never been higher, both Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core are among the most secure platforms that you can store your personal or commercial data on. As bold a claim as that sounds, these two NAS platforms have been the least affected by ransomware, malware and exploited vulnerabilities over the years, with the only notable event being back in 2014 with Synolocker. Indeed, both brands have their very own Security Advisory pages that publish any found vulnerabilities and gives status updates on how they are being dealt with, with TrueNAS HERE and Synology HERE. All that said, both platforms are architecturally very different in how communication between services, tools and applications can communicate inside the system, as well as how security management is presented to the end-user. Moreso than arranging your storage, the Security settings and recommended setup for an individual user is going to be of huge concern on day one. Of the two brands, unsurprisingly, Synology has presented this in a much more user-friendly fashion, with the inclusion of a security advisory panel that can be run any time or on a schedule. This tool checks a wide variety of settings that can range from password strength, to active users, to ports, app controls, redundancy, backups and more. It is a really useful tool to those that do not fully understand the intricacies of keeping their system secure on a tech level and is something that really surprises me is absent on TrueNAS.

The TrueNAS platform on the other hand chooses the usual angle of providing a huge amount of control via a single screen (which to be fair features a lot of tips/? bubbles for guidance at times) that allows the users to choose how and what they want to allow to communicate. One useful thing to note is that by default, ALL of these communication settings and system tools that can affect your security are OFF by default. This isn’t particularly unusual (as many of these would be off on most NAS platforms), but on other NAS software such as Synology DSM or QNAP QTS, these settings and services are spread across multiple areas of the GUI control panel ad file services. Having them ALL listing in a single window so you can change settings much quicker makes a lot of sense and in terms of shutting ALL the doors in the event of a network security concern, this can save valuable time.

And whilst we are on the subject of being aware of security concerns (as well as when your system is exhibiting unusual behaviour) TrueNAS definitely provides a much better range of customizations on security alerts and notification than Synology DSM. That isn’t to say that Synology DSM doesn’t have notifications, it has lots of settings and they are be scaled as ‘light’, ‘medium’ ‘high’ and ‘custom’ for your convenience. But TrueNAS has an enormous ranging list of notification options that affect some remarkably detailed areas of system/network behaviour. They will take quite a long time to scroll and adjust if you want a truly bespoke notifications and alerts setup, but it simply has more variables than the default Synology DSM 7 NAS package. Now I say ‘default package’ because once again, Synology does have the subscription-based service Active Insight that is considerably better, can be broken down into excruciating precise detail and allows you to create custom reports that are delivered in a much more ‘human’ email format to the managers concerned. It is just a shame that this service is an additional subscription service and not one that is included with the system.

Then you have the often applauded TrueNAS Jails system that, although similar to Linux containers in the description, are much more secure and sophisticated. TrueNAS jails are contained instances of FreeBSD and they can be used to create standalone services and environments, with fully customizable levels of access to the rest of the system, your storage and users. By default, JAILS are almost completed separate from the rest of the system and in order to allow select users or services to interact with the JAIL (in either direction) is something the user needs to implement themselves which means that the chances of accidentally making an unsecured JAIL are reduced. Now, Synology DSM allows container creation for those homebrew/custom services to be added, as well as handling some 3rd party tools in its app center such as Plex Media Server (which hinges quite a lot of remote access port opening and access to your file/folder structure more than most) very securely. However, the services and tools that you install in the Synology NAS are tougher to configure on a detailed level (unless you use Putty and have some SSH knowledge, and even then it’s not guaranteed) and this makes the JAILS system of TrueNAS come out of it better.

Then you have the subject of Encryption. For those that are not aware, when it comes to encryption on a network-attached storage server, that can mean one of two areas. There is an encrypted connection that can be facilitated by an SSL certificate (both platforms support a wide range of paid/free SSL certificate options that can be applied to the system easily) OR much more often it can be referring to the data on your NAS living in a container that has encrypted lock and key architecture. This means that during the creation of your storage, you set the system to encrypt all data that is written to the disks and it can be mounted/locked with the use of an encrypted key or a downloaded digital key that was generated during setup. Now, as mentioned, both Synology NAS DSM and TrueNAS core support encryption, as well as supporting self-encrypted drives (SEDs). However, you can encrypt things to a wider degree in TrueNAS (Pools, zVols, zDevs, etc) than you can on the Synology DSM platform. Additionally, TrueNAS supports a wider range of encryption protocols and also supports an interesting ‘passphrase’ system that allows a user to lock/unlock their encrypted storage container quickly without entering a long key or keeping a digital encryption key on a local system.

Then there is the subject of security on the NAS in conjunction with connected and permitted users. We have covered that user and group account creation on Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core are quite comprehensive, but what about 2-Step authentication (also known as 2FA)? Two-step verification is the means to add an additional layer of user login verification by asking the user to provide a periodically generated code from an existing authentication tool (such as Google Authenticator on a mobile phone) that, although uses a 1 step setup algorithm, is randomly generated frequently. Now, Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core both provide this, but each has its own extra little spin on it in terms of how it is deployed. In the case of Synology, you can set up 2-step verification easily and on all associated system accounts, with numerous 3rd arty authenticator tools supported.

However, Synology go one step further and also provide their own authenticator tool for iOS and Android that allows you to keep your security in-house, as well as a few configuration options rolled in too. For companies that supply handsets to their staff, this allows them to keep continued use of Synology NAS storage to remain in a single company ecosystem. This also allows support of backing up the OTP profiles that you have created for logging into the NAS to your Synology Account. This resolves the often overlooked issue of if 1) you change phone devices and did not export your existing associated logins and more importantly 2) if you mobile phone unexpectedly fails/is lost, then you can restore the connected OTP login details very easily to a new handset.

Now Although TrueNAS does not have its own first-party authenticator application for iOS/Android (instead supporting the popular 3rd party applications out there) what TrueNAS DOES offer is an impressive range of setup customization options in its 2FA settings menu, allowing you to change the length of the code, the period of time between each refresh (VERY useful for those with accessibility difficulties and take longer to enter the access codes) and allows you to directly apply this customized code generation to SSH connections too. Although most users will likely stick with the default settings, I can definitely see particularly security-conscious users who need to distribute system access pretty widely liking this degree of flexibility.

Talking of wider access to the system, I do think it is also worth highlighting that TrueNAS is almost completely API designed. So, why is that important and related to security? Well, it is not always just going to be human users and installed applications that you might wish to access your NAS data. Alot of users are using the contents of a NAS to provide information to a remote services connection (such as web servers, external software CRM and CMS tools and security systems) and instead of supplying these services with powerful login credentials to the system (which can be a headache down the line if those account details, used in numerous smaller services, are changed for security reasons to the wider NAS system), they generate an API key to bridge the two and given that TrueNAS is massively API ready, it means that you can be quite flexible and customizable in the areas you connect. The Synology platform supports several API elements, but not to the same degree across the board as TrueNAS.

Overall, both the Synology DSM and TrueNAS Core platforms are very secure and although they take different approaches at times, they both seemingly come around to the same conclusion. On points, I would say that the TrueNAS system has the larger potential to be customized in its security setup, but (as usual) requires you to spend a greater deal of time to set it all up to your tastes/requirements. The Synology NAS DSM 7 platform on the other hand is considerably more user friendly (again, I know, I am a broken record) with options such as the security advisor to scan/change your system in line with its recommendations, as well as first-party tools in Active Insight and Secure Sign-in allowing you a much more brand supported experience. You can set up the security settings on a Synology NAS considerably faster than on a TrueNAS, but if you have a very particular idea of your network storage security setup, the TrueNAS platform provides a wider degree of flexibility there.

Synology DSM 7 vs TrueNAS Core – Conclusion and Verdict

It is so easy to just look at the TrueNAS option as the free but complex choice and the Synology DSM option as the easy but expensive one, BUT the truth is a little more complex than that. For a start, the wide variety of customization and flexibility that is inherent to TrueNAS is something that I genuinely think only higher-end business users are going to be able to fully realise. Home users who are building their own NAS from scratch and opt for TrueNAS for the software will definitely enjoy customizing their solution to their needs/network-environment, but the most long term customizations, reports and adaptive protocols of TrueNAS are much better suited to a business that needs to change as business/staff/data grows. Ironically though, those users are going to be far more attracted to a ‘turnkey’ solution (i.e a NAS solution that is pretty much good to go, right out the box) and will pay for the privilege (i.e time is money). This is where Synology steps in quite confidently, as they know they are incredibly business appealing, with a massive range of first-party apps to migrate away from Google/Microsoft services, as well as management and security tools that are largely unparallel elsewhere in the industry. TrueNAS is still a viable option for businesses that desire an instantly deployable solution and business class support with the official TrueNAS hardware provider iXsystems providing pre-populated and customizable solutions, as well as tiered support subscriptions – but this only truly appeals to users who truly understand what FreeBSD and ZFS can provide that EXT4 and BTRFS cannot.

The Synology DSM platform is incredibly impressive and available in systems (as in included with the hardware as a single purchase) for as little as £120 (such as the DS120j) and scales up rapidly in price and power. Users who have little-to-no technical knowledge, do not have time to learn a new kind of technology and/or want to migrate away from cloud and SaaS services to a whole contained ecosystem without subscription costs, should opt for Synology NAS and DSM 7. It has a few subscription/license purchases on a few services, but is still largely a one-off purchase for the most part and the majority of Synology NAS users never buy an extra or a subscription. Alternatively, if you are someone who has the time and enthusiasm, already has the technical skills under their belt, has very specific storage and network requirements and/or are looking at a solution that they plan on upgrading and improving in the years that follow, then TrueNAS Core (and indeed TrueNAS Scale with Linux for that matter) is going to be a much better choice. What it lacks vs Synology DSM in 1st party applications and ease of use, it makes up for in a truly unbeatable range of customization and configuration choices that are unavailable elsewhere. Plus, ZFSis always going to be at the top of many pro-storage user lists – just remember that TrueNAS (unless you opt for an iXsystem) is Free, but the hardware and time you will spend deploying it was where it will cost you.

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure Users who are happy with/prefer community Support Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual Users who like to fine-tune Anyone that has ever built a PC Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc Users who prefer commercial-grade support Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key) Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction Users who want simplified Warranty Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

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Have you been considering a NAS for a few years, but looked at the price tag that off the shelf featured solutions from Synology or QNAP and thought “wow, that seems rather expensive for THAT hardware”? Or are you someone that wants a NAS, but also has an old PC system or components around that could go towards building one? Or perhaps you are a user who wants a NAS, but HAS the budget, HAS the hardware, but also HAS the technical knowledge to understand EXACTLY the system setup, services and storage configuration you need? If you fall into one of those three categories, then there is a good chance that you have considered TrueNAS (formally FreeNAS). The community supported and highly customizable ZFS storage platform that is available for free and along with regular updates has adapted over recent years towards diversifying different kinds of users, their setup’s and their requirements of TrueNAS. Today I want to review the TrueNAS software. In order to do this, I have been supplied with a Mini X+ 5 HDD/2 SSD Desktop system (hardware review on that soon) by iXsystems, a company with established ties with TrueNAS and the platform’s official enterprise hardware solution partner. This review is going to be conducted a little different than my normal NAS server reviews. Unlike a review of a new piece of NAS hardware, TrueNAS is a software platform that is significantly more flexible in it’s installation (ultimately available in one form or another on a custom PC build or even much smaller shuttle case builds). Equally, unlike many who have reviewed TrueNAS and it’s previous versions or recent splinters (e.g. FreeNAS, Core, Scale, Enterprise, etc), today’s review is going to be a fresh look at this platform, what it does better than Linux NAS systems like Synology or QNAP, what is does worse and ultimately help users who are thinking of moving towards the steeper learning curve of custom-built TrueNAS. What TrueNAS lacks in the ease and simplicity of traditional NAS drives, it can more than makeup for it in its sheer scope and potential to be more powerful, efficient and flexible overall. So, let me guide you through my highlights of 30 aggregate hours of use with TrueNAS.

TrueNAS Review Disclaimer – As mentioned in my introduction, my review of TrueNAS today was made on an iXsystem Mini X+, an 8-Core Intel-based system that featured 32GB of DDR4 memory, as well as arriving with 2x 10GbE ports, PCIe Upgradability and mixed storage media support. The system arrived with 5x WD Red Drives and 2x 2.5″ SSDs. This hardware does not impact the bulk of this review as TrueNAS is available as an open-source download that can be installed onto a custom PC, flashed server etc. However, the iXsystem Mini X+ arrives with TrueNAS Core and a few smaller extra bits that are exclusive to this more complete hardware+software package. Where appropriate, I will highlight it, however, the bulk of the features, settings and stand out areas of attention below can be applied to the free, standalone version of this platform. Additionally, there are references to enterprise features and TrueNAS Command (a wider remote deployment monitoring and management portal tool) that may be exclusive to that platform. Finally, my personal background is largely focused on traditional turn-key NAS solutions and therefore I decided to present this review on how things are done differently to NAS brands such as Synology and QNAP.

Review of TrueNAS – Quick Conclusion

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that when it comes to TrueNAS is a fantastically capable software for managing your storage. It even manages to swerve the downfall of being ‘too enterprise’ but arriving as an open source free software platform to be enjoyed by businesses and storage enthusiasts. There is no avoiding that it IS quite a technical mountainous learning curve if you are arriving at it from a position of zero storage or network experience, but the last few big TrueNAS system updates have gone a long way to update some UI elements to be more intuitive, software wide help notes available at all times and the community support is as on-point at it has ever been. If you are a home users looking for a hurdles setup or a day-1 deployable system for your small business, then TrueNAS may be too big a jump for you and you would be better off with a traditional off-the-shelf NAS system. However, if you have the know-how, you have the willingness to get your hands dirty and already have the hardware in mind/in-house, then TrueNAS stands in a class of it’s own and thanks to some very unique architecture choices that are almost utterly unique to this platform, it’s pretty unparalleled in its scope.

FEATURES - 9/10

SECURITY - 10/10

EASE OF USE - 6/10

FLEXIBILITY - 9/10

DESIGN - 8/10

8.4

PROS

Who is TrueNAS for:

Those with unique storage requirements in terms of workflow or data structure
Users who are happy with/prefer community Support

Those Who Prefer an analytic GUI

Though who demand performance and happy to tweak things till they get it

Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on hardware, not software

Those with a dedicated IT Team/Individual

Users who like to fine-tune

Anyone that has ever built a PC

Anyone that prefers the power and customization of PC Gaming

Users who prefer a smaller but more concise number of plugins

CONS

Who is TrueNAS NOT for:

Those who want to purchase a complete hardware/software solution to replace Google/DropBox etc
Users who prefer commercial-grade support

Those Who Prefer a graphic GUI

Users who want a 1st party ecosystem of hardware, software, add-ons and tools

Those who would rather spend their allocated budget on software/services, not hardware

The less tech-savvy that want the system to arrive ready to go (turn-key)

Users who want a system to do X thing X way without friction

Users who want simplified Warranty

Users who prefer Console Gaming as it is much more convenient and easy to deploy and enjoy

Users who prefer a wider variety of plugins

Review of TrueNAS – GUI & Deployment

First-time deployment of TrueNAS (after the initial installation of the software on the hardware system which will vary based on whether you have opted for an iXsystem solution or a custom build) is very straightforward. Once the system is booted, connected to your network and initialized, finding the device is possible via truenas.local. or obtaining it’s address from your switch or using an IP Scanner.

So, the first thing that I want to discuss about TrueNAS is the design. Finding a very interesting middle ground between providing all the configuration options in a single screen, whilst still not overwhelming the end-user, getting it pretty close to nailing it.

Alot More Hints and Tips than I was Expecting!

The first thing I was very surprised by in the design and deployment of the TrueNAS GUI was the sheer number of hints and information ‘i’s around every single screen. As TrueNAS and FreeNAS before it are built on FreeBSD, although there I expected a GUI, I did think it would still be rather command-line heavy still. However, not only are the controls of TrueNAS almost all displayed in a clearly visible GUI, but also I struggled to find a single option or choice that didn’t have a tip or guidance suggestion. This was a particular surprise as one of the biggest hurdles for most users considering moving from a turn-key NAS solution towards TrueNAS (custom or an iXsystem) is that intimidating climb up the steeper learning curve. It was a genuine and extremely welcome surprise to see how much guidance was available to even small and insignificant choices in the storage system setup where available.

Presentation of Storage and Resource Use is VERY Clear

Another thing that I fully expected to be present, but not to this level, was how the information on your storage areas (Pools, data sets, individual drives, etc) and the monitoring of your resources were displayed both analytically AND clearly. Of course, I expected TrueNAS to have the means to assess the system hardware health and status, but like most of my early personal experience with FreeNAS, UnRAID and FreeBSD years before, I thought this information would be available less in the GUI and more in command retrieval. However, the resource monitor and storage status (both, when delving into the system deeper and just via the initial splash screen of the GUI) provide an excellent level of information and in the case of the former, can be broken into a report form. Getting the presentation of storage on a GUI that can suit both the novice and the veteran techie is a tremendously tough line to balance and although there are a few areas where TrueNAS tends to ‘info-dump’ you a little, this area was no one of them.

Sharing Tab and its Breadcrumbs (WebDav, iSCSI, SMB, etc) Are More Intuative than Most

Another part of the TrueNAS graphical user interface that sets it apart a little from off the shelf NAS hardware+software is how the menu bar is displayed. With most NAS brands having their GUI comparable to popular operating system desktops (primarily Windows, MacOS or Android for the most part), TrueNAS’ GUI is a little bit more comparable to WordPress for the most part. The bulk of the config and service options are all located on the left-hand side of the screen and although there is only a handful at first glance, each one breaks down into subcategories quite quickly. The responsiveness of this menu system is particularly impressive and it’s easy to forget that you are accessing a remote system. Although the bulk of the tabs and options are where you would hope, one particular stand out example of things being done in a different and better way than most brands in the sharing tab/menu. Although most NAS brand software and GUI have tabs dedicated to sharing files (as well as contextual menus on files and folders), once you start breaking down into different sharing protocols, things get a little distance out and you end up having to keep multiple windows open to create and manage your cross-platform sharing environment. TrueNAS on the other hand has bulked these all together into the single tab and allows navigation through and between considerably more intuitive. Equally, the customization and configuration of shares and you delve deeper (although increasing the learning curve) are significantly more diverse to allow tweaking and improvements based on your setup.

Live Reports of System & Processes are Very Detailed and Quick to Navigate

Much like the Storage Presentation and Resource Use, getting reports of historical system information and active processes are much more detailed on the TrueNAS platform than I have seen from many NAS brands. TrueNAS uses Graphite for metric gathering and visualizations. Some general settings can be found in System > Reporting. Once again, it’s a fine line to have information regarding the server be presented in a fashion that is digestible to less storage-experienced users without potentially dumbing things down a little. Luckily these do still seem to present all the information that either tier of user is going to need and is done so by the information being broken down into sections that in turn can be delved deeper into by degrees. The UX of TrueNAS has clearly been thought about a lot and although many FreeNAS veterans might have disliked the changes in some areas towards making it simplified in places, there are still options for drilling down into system heath and history quite significantly.

Lots of Theme Customizations and a Theme Maker

A very surprisingly detail of TrueNAS is how much the GUI can be customized. Most NAS brands and their software allow the end-user (i.e that current user of many that have access credentials) to change minor details. The Wallpaper, their login icon and time/date display and pretty much the full range of choices. Given the fact most off-the-shelf NAS solutions are designed with being more user-friendly and attempting to de-mystified network storage for average users, I was VERY surprised that it was TrueNAS that had a greater degree of customization available in how the GUI is displayed. Colour schemes, logo changes, scaling, icon replacements, fonts, accents and changes to the top bar. There is a comparatively large amount of choice and customization compared with turn-key NAS solutions from Synology and QNAP and leans very well into the already established idea that TrueNAS is designed around custom builds.

No Avoiding That it is Still Very Stat and Tech Heavy some less experienced Users

As much as I like the GUI fo TrueNAS and how it has melded the controls very well to remain accessible to the experienced and inexperienced user, it has to be said that this is not done 50/50 and although there are hints, guides and recommendations by the system through all choices, it is still a very tech-heavy product and although the basic/top-layer decisions are user friendly, it isn’t going to be long before the full pages fo customization and configuration choices presented in the TrueNAS GUI are going to be a little overwhelming for those that are more used to these tougher decisions being hidden behind presets or set up behind a scaled option of security. In a few other areas of TrueNAS, this is addressed with an ‘advanced’ tab or mode option that until pressed will hide these tougher elements of the setup unless needed. Sadly this is not a system-wide design choice in the GUI and the TrueNAS UX is something that can demand accelerated learning. Alot of this might be solved with ‘easy’ ‘intermediate’ or ‘expert’ table opens on the bulk of pages, but as it stands it can sometimes be a bit of a ‘cannot see the wood because of all the trees’ situation when looking for a specific option in a menu, as there are 10-15 choices/boxes on the screen. The TrueNAS UI in the latest version IS very good and considerably more user-friendly than I thought it would be, but I would still be reluctant to call it novice-friendly.

No Search Functionality at the Home Screen

This was something that, despite the arguably higher skill level that TrueNAS commands in it’s user base, I was still surprised was absent – A search feature from the main GUI. It would not be a commonly used feature, however, I have met plenty of less experienced users or those in a rush looking for a specific option/service/setting that would appreciate a search functionality to be available. There ARE a few services and options in the menus that feature search functionality, but they are generally always limited to that specific function and not system-wide.

Review of TrueNAS – Storage

Realistically, THIS is the thing that is going to be paramount to most users of TrueNAS, Storage! But simply storing data is not enough, it is about how well it stores it, how customizable it is to different user environments, how secure it is in terms of backups and redundancy, how robust it is and the maintenance of that storage moving forward. TrueNAS arrives with ZFS (zettabyte File System), an enterprise-ready open source file system, RAID controller, and volume manager with unprecedented flexibility and an uncompromising commitment to data integrity. It eliminates most, if not all of the shortcomings that veteran storage professionals claim are apparent in ‘EXT4’ or the much newer ‘BTRFS’ file systems from brands such as Synology and QNAP NAS devices. Alongside the widest support of ZFS currently available in the market, TrueNAS also is one of the most scalable solutions available in the world (in part thanks to that freedom in building the hardware architecture being available and the open-source design of the platform allowing migration being considerably more seamless as you change out hardware over time. ZFS also brings big advantages in deduplication and compression techniques that improve how much data is being written to the system, whilst simultaneously simplifying the internal pathways of the system to larger bulks of users. In recent years, turnkey solutions from Synology and QNAP (as well as more affordable brands such as Asustorand Terraamster) have provided a degree of duplication on their platforms (QNAP seemingly extending this more than most) but ZFS has most of the architecture for these processes natively built into it and although you WILL need to bulk up on your hardware (16GB memory recommended in most cases if you want both for example), it still allows TrueNAS to stand out. Here are the elements of TrueNAS storage that stood out for me.

Exceptionally High Level of Access Control Options and Configuration of Data Sets

If there are two areas of consistency throughout TrueNAS storage that need to be highlighted above all others, it would be control and security. At practically every tier of the system’s internal storage management, you are able to apply numerous measures of bespoke user choice protection. More than the fact that standard elements of encryption, ACL and storage segmentation are available here, but more the sheer depth of it. You are able to assign extremely rigid access controls to your storage pools, zDevs, zVols and data sets from the ground up, as well as the branch these security measures into select user and group access (which can be changed by a superuser on the fly with ease). Along with that, ACL support is extremely wide-ranging, giving you the means to create areas of storage that are completely inaccessible (in either direction) by the greater system that ensure that storage can be created quickly, but without opening doors to your mission-critical storage. This bespoke control extends quite heavily to the configuration of Access Control Levels, as access Control List (ACL) is a set of account permissions associated with a dataset and applied to directories or files within that dataset. ACLs are typically used to manage user interactions with shared datasets and are created when a dataset is added to a pool. TrueNAS seemingly allows a create degree of control on this than most NAS systems on the market right now.

Excellent level of support of SED Media and Encryption levels in General

Then with Security, TrueNAS covers this in a few key areas. First off, several methods/protocols of encryption are supported by the system (giving the end-user a choice at the setup level) and generally ‘choosing’ your encryption method is not something offered by most brands to this extent (or at all in many cases). Next, there is the fact that encryption can be applied at every level of thes storage is required. When we look at some other NAS brands that included encryption, they tend to include encryption at the shard folder or volume level (pool level is supported with the use of encrypted drive media). TrueNAS is one of the very few several software on the market that provides native and configurable encryption at every level (storage pool, volumes, data sets, etc) and along with support of key management, there are additional failsafe options available that also passphrase support too. Finally, you have the support of self-encrypted drives (SEDs) in the system that can be fully utilized and that additional encryption be afforded to the greater storage system with the others. In short, you can create a fantastically encrypted storage system to an unparalleled degree in trueNAS. Again, not too shabby for an open-source bit of software!

Unrecommended Storage Configuration Choices Need to be ‘Forced’ to be actioned

One issue that will inevitably come to providing software that is highly customizable is giving the end-user too much rope to hang themselves with! Once you make your way past the rudimentary aspects of storage, the end-user can start putting together the building blocks of their storage inefficiently (or worse still dangerously) and run the risk of creating a basis for their storage for years to come that is inherently flawed. Balancing that line of allowing complete control and customization, whilst stopping a user from doing the wrong thing is a tough line to tread (QNAP have been walking this one as best they can for years too). TrueNAS has addressed this with a (very) soft lock system. When building your storage, if you are configuring the resources in a less than optimal/safe way, the system will give you a warning on the screen that details the potential downside/detrimental effect of your action. This warning can then be closed/dismissed and in order to continue, the ‘continue’ option will be joined with a button ‘force’. This is TrueNAS’ middle ground to allow creative freedom, whilst letting the end-user know that the action they are performing has a layer of risk attacked. For example, you are configuring a RAIDZ2 (think RAID 6) and you are using 8 disks that are not all uniform in capacity, but you do not care/want to proceed anyway. This is where the system would present you with a warning to ‘force’ through. The same thing when you build pools without redundancy or use differing media interface types outside of a fusion pool or cache setup. It is by no means a perfect solution, but at least TrueNAS have clearly understood that they need to steer things a bit at times.

Copy on Write Architecture is an additional Layer of File Level Error Recovery

An interesting architectural advantage of TrueNAS utilizing ZFS is the support of CoW (Copy on Write). This is a system of checksum built data health that involves a brief period of two actions of write occurring on any data being sent to the TrueNAS serve, which are then compared for consistency and then a single final, verified version of that data resides. ZFS does not change the location of data until a write is completed and verified. This ensures that your data isn’t lost during an interrupted task such as a power outage. ZFS uses a 256-bit hash of the data in a file system block, known as a checksum. This checksum ensures data integrity during writes. The way it handles and tests writes means that each write is tested, eliminating storage degradation such as bitrot. It also eliminates the write hole which allows for silent data corruption within RAID. Similar methods of data health and verification are utilized in other storage technology (such as ECC memory and in the write actions of BTRFS) but not to this extent and in such a widespread way. Writes do not overwrite data in place; instead, a modified copy of the block is written to a new location, and metadata is updated to point at the new location.

Support of RAIDZ Means that Initial Building is Faster and Recovery More Precise

One of the long understood advantages of ZFS that TrueNAS provides immediately (perhaps to the jealousy of EXT4 and BRTFS system users) is the utility of RAIDZ. RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is the ability to combine multiple media drives into a single storage pool that provides some/all of the benefits of increased storage performance, storage performance and redundancy (eg a safety net to still access/recover your data in the event of a drive failure). RAID and RAIDZ are similar on the face of it (with support of striping and mirroring), but it is a lot of difference in the larger arrays in terms of building, writing and recovery. RAIDZ has some interesting benefits, the first and most obvious is that a RAIDZ compared with a RAID5 takes minutes, not hours to build! Additionally, RAIDZ has a better understanding of empty blocks and that becomes beneficial in the event of a RAID rebuild, as in the event a drive fails and you introduce a new HDD/SSD, RAIDZ will ONLY need to rebuild the areas onto the replacement disk that data original resided on (using parity data from the other present disks) and then just zero’ing the rest of the disk. Similar systems like this have arrived from Synology on their platform for after RAID recovery (still using TBRFS) but still not as fluid and native as in ZFS. Striped VDEV’s, Mirrored VDEV’s and Striped Mirrored VDEV’s are essentially the same as RAID0, RAID1 and RAID10 accordingly with one difference; automatic checksumming prevents silent data corruption that might be undetected by most hardware RAID cards. ZFS uses the additional checksum level to detect silent data corruption when the data block is damaged, but the hard drive does not flag it as bad.

• RAIDZ (sometimes explicitly specified as RAIDZ1) is approximately the same as RAID5 (single parity)
• RAIDZ2 is approximately the same as RAID6 (dual parity)

RAID5 places blocks in a regular pattern. You only need to know the block number (address) to determine which disk stores the block, at what address, and where the corresponding parity block is. Also, with N disks, exactly one parity block is stored for every N-1 data blocks.

In RAIDZ, ZFS first compresses each recordsize block of data. Then, it distributes compressed data across the disks, along with a parity block. So, one needs to consult filesystem metadata for each file to determine where the file records are and where the corresponding parities are. For example, if data compresses to only one sector, ZFS will store one sector of data along with one sector of parity. Therefore, there is no fixed proportion of parity to the data. Moreover, sometimes padding is inserted to better align blocks on disks (denoted by X in the above example), which may increase overhead. However, we have still not touched on two more core advantages of ZFS and it’s RAID management…

3 Disk Redundancy is Available and Should Get More Kudos!

TRIPLE DISK PARITY! Now, if you don’t know what that is, then you can be forgiven for wondering why I have put that in capital letters. However, those that know, love it. In short, RAIDZ3 is the 3 disk fault-tolerance storage pool configuration that is largely unavailable conventionally in any other RAID configuration, requiring at least 5 disks (again, HDD or SSD) it means that you can withstand 3 drives failing. Now, if that sounds like tremendous overkill, then let me share a fun fact with you! Most drive failures that I have witnessed (and I welcome commentors to contribute on this) do NOT stem from poor treatment of a single drive, dropping an enclosure or poor individual handling. No, the bulk of drive failures I have witnessed have stemmed from three causes (looking at logs and SMART info):

• Inherent fault at the point of manufacture or in the logistics chain that has developed over time
• Overworked system hitting RAID arrays harder than intended 24×7 etc, or just designed drive workloads being exceeded in general
• Critical larger system failure in the middle of a widespread write action (eg power failure as all drives are engaged for writing)

Now, in THOSE three examples, the key factor to keep in mind is that in none of them is an HDD or SSD on its own. At manufacture in bulk, in transit in crates of 20x at a time or in larger setup RAID array – the things that harm the storage media is hitting several at once. Even if you ignore the degenerative factors of exceeding workloads and system critical failure damage, there is no avoiding that when you buy multiple HDD/SSD from a single e-retailer (eTailer?), they do NOT provide you with multiple drive with each drive from a different crate/carton. No, that would be spectacularly inefficient for any retailer. No, you have to accept that there is a % chance that as soon as 1 drive fails that (without identifying to cause) that another drive in the array could fail for the same reason soon. So a double disk redundancy such as RAIDZ2 or RAID 6 would give you extra time – but how much time? Who known. But if your data is mission-critical and you weigh up the cost of another HDD in a custom build design such as TrueNAS, a triple parity RAID system starts to make a lot of sense.

ZFS ReSilvering Often Overlooked Safety Net

Another wildly overlooked and misunderstood advantage of ZFS and TrueNAS’ utility of it is in the support of Re-silvering. For those unaware, resilvering is when a drive that WAS part of the RAID array is disconnected and reconnected in a brief window that allows the system to identify that the drive belongs in the original pool and re-embraces it quickly. In practical terms, imagine your system suffers a very brief SATA/Controller board malfunction and a drive is dismounted (software level). Alternatively (and something surprisingly more command than you might think) an HDD in a tray/bay of the NAS might be accidentally physically ejected. Resilvering would allow the system to KNOW that the drive is part of the set and reintroduce it. In EXT4 or BTRFS, that brief disconnection would result in the RAID pool changing to a degraded status and the end-user would be forced to 1) endure a slower system as data is being exchanged with the pool in this parity-reading state as 2) the system wipes the former HDD/SSD to re-write all the data it had already and 3) unnecessary stress is placed on the system resources throughout. In ZFS and TrueNAS, the system would SEE that the recently ejected/dismounted drive is part fo the pool, verify that it has the data in place and then re-introduce the drive. the time this takes is largely based on how long the drive was disconnected (and data written in the interim) but it can genuinely take seconds or minutes – unlike the hours to days that a RAID recovery from a degraded state would take.

USB Storage Media is Visible and Managed in the Storage Manager

It is a very small detail but one I think is worth highlighting. Namely that USB storage media in TrueNAS is handled much differently than in other turnkey NAS solutions from Synology and QNAP. In those latter examples, USB storage is treated at arms length, visible in the file manager in the GUI of course, but then only really visible for use in the backup tools (which is still great). In TrueNAS however, USB storage media is visible, configurable and manageable directly from the storage manager. Now, obviously spreading a RAID over SATA storage media and a USB drive would be ridiculously dangerous for storage, however, there are still plenty of benefits and management advantages to having external storage visible alongside the management of the rest of the storage – aside from backup management and configuring the access privileges of the drive media, it also allows the USB drive to be managed for scheduled tasks and processes alongside the rest of the system and integrated into the reports and monitoring of the TrueNAS system. It is a small detail, but one that really stood out for me when comparing TrueNAS against Synology DSM and QNAP QTS USB media management overall.

Fusion Pools of Mixed Storage Media is Great and Rarer Than You Might Think

Another (relatively) recent addition to TrueNAS and its use of ZFS is the option to create fusion pools. A comparatively streamlined process, when you think about how technical and advanced the average options of TrueNAS can be to the end-user, fusion pools allow you to introduce mixed tiers of storage of different performance and combine them into a single visible pool, but in the background the system is sending data to the drive media that is best suited to supply it – so metadata on the SSD media, larger bulkier sequential data on the HDDs etc. ZFS sends writes to individual physical disks rather than just a RAID volume. This allows for stripe writes across RAID volumes and can perform synchronous writes to speed up performance. This model also ensures there are no long waits for file system checks. ZFS incorporates algorithms to make sure your Most Recently Used (MRU) and Most Frequently Used (MSU) data are stored in your fastest system storage media. Utilizing MRU & MSU combined with flash/NVDIMM ZILs/SLOGs and ARC/L2ARC devices, you can speed up your performance astronomically. Similar systems to this exist in QNAP’s EXT4 service ‘tiered storage’ and both they and Synology offer NVMe SSD caching services in conjunction with an existing pool/volume, but again this is done to a considerably higher and more customizable degree in TrueNAS. It just takes more time and knowhow to set up though.

Smart/Intuitive Option to Define Drive Media Use

Then there is an interesting storage setup choice that TrueNAS offers that is actually quite a bit of fresh air versus the more complex elements of it’s configuration. Namey that the system also includes an option to specifically designate a soon to be created area of storage to a task/use. So, if you have introduced one or more drives to your custom build server, you can choose whether you want this to be an independent new pool as a hot spare, to factor as additional storage redundancy, dedicated deduplication storage, designate the space for metadata (SSD recommended of course) and more. It is a surprisingly user-friendly option amidst all the complexity and a welcome addition to save time and headaches!

No Native Browser GUI Based File Manager

One missing feature of TrueNAS that really surprised me was the absence of a browser-based file manager. Now, on the face of it, many will argue that the GUI of your storage system should be reserved for system management, configuration and for troubleshooting (some even erring away from browser GUIs entirely in favour of SSHing etc directly into the system as a superuser for these tasks for pace). Equally, once you have correctly created and configured your storage (along with creating shared paths and enabling the right file access protocol in TrueNAS) you will be able to mount and access your storage in a drive, folder and file level in your native OS (arguable BETTER). However, the ease and added benefits of ALSO being able to access your system storage from time to time in even a simple file/folder level in the GUI cannot be overstated. Sure, you CAN create a very based root directly breadcrumb style breakdown in a browser tab – but with most NAS brands offering the same OS-level native file/folder access AND offering a web browser GUI file management option (with copy, paste, archive, thumbnails, sharing, editing) AND mobile applications to do the same. It is really odd that this is not a native option in TrueNAS. You COULD use 3rd party tools of course to do this, but that would be a credit to those and not TrueNAS.

RAIDZ Still Takes Longer than Traditional RAID in ReBuilding Fuller Arrays

This is a small negative in the grand scheme of things and hardly something that leaves TrueNAS/ZFS reflected too badly against EXT4 and BTRFS setups, but although ZFS Raid rebuilding IS much faster if your actual capacity used is smaller (only building the data/space used and hashing/zeroing the rest), that advantage does not help in the event of your storage pool being much fuller and in testing a RAIDZ at 90% full vs a near-identical RAID5 on 4x4TB actually took a pinch longer on the ZFS pool. Again, the difference was small and largely down to the additional checksums and verification of ZFS, but still, something to note.

Potential Defragmentation in Copy On Write Methodology

Earlier, we discussed that ZFS utilizes copy on write (CoW) in order to create a 2nd copy of the data for ensuring the integrity of the write action. Unfortunately, this can mean that TrueNAS can suffer from data fragmentation as time wears on. There are direct performance implications that stem from that fact. This can be avoided with scheduled/periodic de-fragmentation, but this can be time and resource-consuming depending on the volume of your storage. So potentially, the fuller your storage pool is with actual data, the slower it will ultimately get. Write speeds in ZFS are directly tied to the amount of adjacent free blocks there are to write to in order to maintain the CoW process. As your pool fills up, and as data fragments, there are fewer and fewer blocks that are directly adjacent to one another. A single large file may span blocks scattered all over the surface of your hard drive. Even though you would expect that file to be a sequential write, it no longer can be if your drive is full. This can be an often overlooked and direct reason for long term performance drops in some systems over time if left unchecked. I have personally not experienced this, but it has been discussed online (forums, reddit, etc) and therefore I still thought I should address this.

Still Not Especially Novice or even soft IT knowledge Friendly User

Despite the big efforts by TrueNAS to demystify the complexity of storage management in several areas of its storage area (fusion pools being partially automated mixed media pools, the suggested vDev drive drop-down, USB management in that same area and ‘force’ warning options to name but a few), there is still no avoiding that TrueNAS is CONSIDERABLY more complicated to setup your storage and is a large jump from the frank simplicity of Synology and QNAP. Some would argue that the simplicity offered by turnkey/off-the-shelf NAS solutions are incredibly restrictive and inherently limiting, but there is still a substantial learning curve to setting up your storage in TrueNAS that needs to be appreciated and understood at the outset.

Review of TrueNAS – Accounts

Given the rather technical, bespoke and detailed nature of TrueNAS, it is easy to understand why the solution is aimed at business users who want things set up in a ‘certain way’. Although turnkey solutions are easier to deploy and are generally more user-friendly, they are more often than not too rigid and inflexible for businesses to use in their larger business models. In most cases, a TrueNAS custom-built (or iXsystem) will be deployed in the center of a business and accessible from many, many company staff for backups, email, document archives, hybrid sync storage and more. Therefore it is important to review how TrueNAS handles multiple accounts, how security is afforded to these accounts and how privileges and access to more mission-critical or confidential data are managed. TrueNAS features a quick and easy means to create multiple users and/or groups for the host user network (as well as connecting these with remote access as required). Let me talk you through what stood out for me in TrueNAS when it comes to account management.

Significant Range of Security and Account Configuration Options

Creating a user account in TrueNAS is incredibly straightforward, as well as making each account as secure as possible. Each account has the standard username and password settings you would expect, but then they delve quite a bit deeper into how you want these users to access the system, their subgroups (which then allows you to create bulk protocols/privileges for all users in that group quickly) and the nature of their account. Options such as which file directories this user can interact with can be set to rear only, write or full access are fairly standard, but I like the options for locking some user accounts easily, creating unique SSH keys, creating temporary admin powers and rotational/changeable passwords are a nice extra touch. As the system is predominantly designed to be remotely accessed via 3rd party client OS’ and 3rd party client software, the more customizable user account features of user images and bespoke desktop GUI found on NAS systems such as Synology and QNAP are absent, but this is still a very easy and detailed user creation element to TrueNAS.

Good Support of Microsoft Account Authorization

It’s a relatively small extra detail, but user account security in TrueNAS also includes an option to integrate the use of Microsoft account security when accessing the storage on the server. This is applicable to any system running Windows 8 or higher (including Windows 11) and allows the authentication methods that are used in the Windows operations system to be used to further verify the identity of a connected user. This user service is not exclusive to TrueNAS of course, but it is another neat piece of third party crossover support that the software includes in its open-source architecture.

Impressively Configurable 2-Step Authentication

The fact that TrueNAS features the support of 2 step authentication (also known as 2FA – 2 Factor authentication) is not going to be a huge surprise for many, given its ubiquitous appearance on pretty much all software clients in the last few years. For those that arent aware, in brief, two-step authentication allows you to have a 2nd degree of user authentication when logging into a service/software alongside your password, as your phone will need to provide a randomly generated code every time when you log in. You need to use one of the many authentication client tools available online (with Google Authenticator being one of the most used for mobiles), but it is surprisingly easy to set up. Where 2-Step authentication in TrueNAS differs from most is the level of configuration that is on offer within the 2FA settings.

Most systems will provide you with the option to simply synchronize with the authentication tool you are using (3D generated barcode or long passkey as best suited to the end-user). TrueNAS on the other hand allows you to change the authentication interval that the randomly generated code changes (usually 30 seconds) to longer for those that need it for accessibility support, as well as change the validity period/number of attempts before a potential lockout. Then you have the option to customize the length of the one-time password (OTP) to greater than the usual default 6 digits (something I have not seen offered by any other NAS brands in 2022). Finally, there is the choice to integrate the requirements for 2-step authentication into SSH logins (command line access with an SSH client window tool such as Putty), which given the huge degree of SSH access built into the typical TrueNAS use scenario, it definitely beneficial.

No Bulk Group or User Creation Options

One small but present absence that I noted in TrueNAS was the lack of an option to create bulk users at once or to import an existing CSV or .xlsx file. This is a very minor detail of course and only applicable to users who have larger volumes of users they wish to move over to a new server from an existing setup, but I am still surprised that it is absent in TrueNAS Core. I have contacted iXsystems to enquire about this and apparently it IS an option that is available in TrueNAS Scale, but nevertheless, I am disappointed that it is not available across the whole platform.

Review of TrueNAS – Alerts & Notifications

Most users who are looking at getting a private server, although initially heavily invested in tinkering and playing with the device, will eventually want the system to just sit in the corner, be quiet and do it’s job! It’s understandable, as interesting as the software and services are, ultimately a NAS (TrueNAS or otherwise) is a tool and as soon as you have set the device up to do the thing you specifically need it to, you want to go back to doing other things and whilst your NAS carries on. However, whilst that is true, in the event something is wrong or out of the ordinary system processes are noticed internally, you want the TrueNAS to tell you ASAP! Most NAS systems have inbuilt notifications and alerts that can be pushed to select/all end users that can be tailored to preferred client devices and methods. In the case of TrueNAS there are (as you might expect) a wide, WIDE variety of settings and choices for delivering those all-important notifications and although in the case of many apps being 3rd party (therefore having their own notification and alert schemes in place as appropriate), the greater storage system, network/internet connections and user behaviour alerts are still pretty extensive in their alert options. Here is what stood out in TrueNAS for me in this area.

VERY Customizable Alerts and Notification Customization

I really cannot stress enough how diverse the range of alert configuration options that TrueNAS allows you to adapt. The window above is just a small example of the many, many windows available although it is a long, long list of options, you cannot really suggest that TrueNAS didn’t cover all the scenarios. There are even slightly more customizable ones that you can add too. The delivery of these alerts is a little less straightforward than those found in Synology/QNAP (which have proprietary client apps for mobile and desktop that allow faster alert methods) but a large number of platforms are supported in TrueNAS for notifications that include email, Slack, AWS, InfluxDB, Mattermost, Pager Duty, SNMP Trap and more. Alongside incredibly concisely built alert parameters, each one can be scaled in priority and in turn, its urgency adjusted.

TrueNAS uses a 7 tier alert priority scale and you can adjust each alert & notification variable in the wide-ranging list to your own requirements. For example, if you were running a shared storage area with a team of 10 users and 8/10 of those users were accessing the system at once (potentially bottlenecking the network in a 1GbE network, depending on the file volume/frequency), you might want the system admin/IT to know this. It isn’t a high-level alert, more of a case of being aware of the additional network load. In that case you can setup an alert of bandwidth/zdev access above a certain level/% and suitable admin to receive a level 2 notification (NOTICE) so they are aware. Alternatively, example 2, there have been several failed login attempts under a specific user account, but eventually that user has logged in successfully. This might be a cause of concern as repeated password attempts could so easily be an unauthorized individual connecting to the greater system. You can set the # of failed login attempts before an automatic lockout OR set an alert of level 3 ‘WARNING’ to alert a system admin to look into this account behaviour to access the situation. Alerts and notifications become significantly more intricate (breaking down into encryption certificates, hardware health, critical system failure, SSH/Telnet logins. etc) and this easy 7 tier alert system can be applied to all instances.

Build In Support Lines, Business Support tiers, Direct System Messaging System and Issue Reporting Mechanism in the TrueNAS GUI

As TrueNAS is an opensource and community-driven NAS platform, you would be forgiven for wondering just how much this all means when you hit a technical wall, encounter system roadblocks, need advice on a setup or just generally looking for guidance. One of the main appeals of an off the shelf/turn-key solution from brands such as Synology and QNAP is that as a paid hardwware+software solution, you feel that there will be technical support lines via live chat, email and even phone in some cases (depending on the level of solution of course) that a homebrew/DiY solution will not be able to supply. However, the support on a TrueNAS system is a little more diverse than that. If you build your own NAS system from scratch and install TrueNAS Core onto your system, you will not have access to premium/commercial level support, but you do have links in the TrueNAS GUI to community support, details online guides and access to the Jira support system that allows your query for assistance to be submitted to the community pool. There are also provisions there to check if your issue has already been documented and resolved elsewhere. These links are immediately available from within the GUI in multiple areas.

But if you are a business user, despite the TrueNAS open-source/freely available status, you may well have opted for it for it’s customization and flexibility compared with off the shelf NAS solutions. Therefore you might still want paid/commercial/enterrpise grade support. This is where the distinction between going TrueNAS DiY and pre-built TrueNAS from iXsystems becomes a little clearer, as iXsystems are the official pre-build provider of TrueNAS and with their solutions, they offer a scaled range of support options that include numerous contact methods. In addition to all the TrueNAS CORE support options that are still available, TrueNAS Enterprise customers who purchase hardware from iXsystems can receive assistance from iXsystems if an issue occurs with the system. Silver and Gold level Support customers can also enable Proactive Support on their hardware to automatically notify iXsystems if an issue occurs. Here is how those support options scale and which systems support each tier:

The level of support afforded to each tier of the iXsystem hardware portfolio is not quite as straightforward, however, as smaller-scale systems only support upto a bronze tier. Therefore on closer examination, you can only access the highest/most-involved customer support tier when you are looking at the enterprise tier hardware systems. Now, on the face of it, that makes sense in terms of priority as it is those highest volume use systems that are going to want the fastest and most responsive support. Equally, the most modest systems will be used by smaller-scale users and have smaller scale utilities in mind. Still, I know more than enough NAS users who choose more modest NAS systems from Synology and QNAP, BUT will push for extended warranties, 5year warranty enterprise storage media, choosing to allocate their storage server budget towards lengthy support periods for peace of mind/insurance. Here is how the commercial support options spread across iXsystem hardware options:

Overall, I think TrueNAS (and iXsystems) have balanced the level of support and assistance options that are available to most kinds of NAS user. It makes sense that a free-to-download software platform would not be able to provide a commercial/enterprise-grade support level without having to financially support this behind a subscription service. And they do not leverage this against the community support, opening encouraging this as an option and facilitating multiple methods of looking up similarly submitted and solved issues, streamline the community support process as much as possible and still presenting the choice to go down the paid-support route when needed. The face this support is not available in non-iXsystem TrueNAS setup’s might be a bit of a downer for some, but as mentioned multiple times in this review, the money that some users are saving in a custom/DiY solution in TrueNAS vs a turnkey/off-the-shelf solution from Synology/QNAP needs to be paid in learning how it all works. I think TrueNAS and iXsystems found the best middle ground possible here.

Larger Range of Configuration Options Can be Overwhelming and Lacks Convenient Preset Options

When I said that there are a lot of alert and notification choices built into TrueNAS, I was not kidding. Even at a casual glance, they are in the triple figures, and that is jsut on the outset. It IS true that the bulk of them are automatically set to one of the 7 pre-set alert levels by default, but if you have a slightly more secure/closed setup in mind for your system notifications, you are going to be spending hours, not minutes adjusting them all to your unique needs. The same goes if you want to run a more open setup for testing, as the TrueNAS default settings are a pinch higher than I would class as ‘casual’ in scaled alerts (better safe than sorry). Now, other turnkey solutions on the market combat this by providing various alert/notification switches BUT also arriving with security councillors/preset configuration dropdowns. In brief, I wish TrueNAS had a range of preset notification levels, perhaps set as ‘low-medium-high-business-enterprise’ that changed these settings in bulk and THEN you can go in manually where needed and change a few, allowing you to create a custom profile which you can then save as ‘CUSTOM’. Similar tiered/scaled choices exist in other areas of TrueNAS for other services that change bulk options on the fly, as well as ‘advanced’ tabs in places when you want to get your hands a little dirtier and play with options at a deeper level in the GUI. Overall though, I prefer to have too many alert/notification options that are not enough though!

Review of TrueNAS – Network Management & Security

Aside from the storage of your data, another HUGE element of managing your NAS (TrueNAS or otherwise) is how well the system manages its network connectivity. This is such an important part of the perfect storage setup that it can often be the make-or-break of a system. This is especially true in 2022 as concerns of cyber security, ransomware, malware and remote access to your home/business network are extremely current! In the last 18 months, big turnkey/off-the-shelf NAS solution providers have been affected by ransomware and remote command injection-based attacks (Deadbolt, QSnatch, Dirty CoW, Dirty Pipe and more) and this has led to a large number of users rolling up their sleeves and deciding to move towards highly customizable/configurable solutions that allow them to craft a completely unique network security setup. Using TrueNAS to do this is arguably going to be a much more technical process BUT the range of customization and unique internal separate options that the platform offers is completely unique in many places and part of that stems from TrueNAS being built on FreeBSD (rather than Linux, as most other NAS platforms are built on, though there IS a Linux kernel TrueNAS option for those that want the benefits inherent to that platform in TrueNAS Scale). This allows a greater degree of partitional design that allows incredibly unique storage setups that brute force attacks and injected code methods can not overcome beyond a certain point. Eg If you think of TrueNAS on FreeBSD as a house, every single door in the house has a unique lock (multiple unique locks per door if you choose) and having keys to even a single door is just not enough to access everything. Even command-line/back-end access can be forbidden and for many that level of native isolation to the storage, backups and snapshots is damn near irresistible! Here are the elements of TrueNAS core that stood out for me in its network management and security.

Wide Range of Connections, Services and Protocols Supported but off by Default

The first thing that struck me about the TrueNAS system is how all of the available means to interact with the system (in terms of both file protocols, internal services and external communication services) can be configured quite extensively AND are all switched OFF by default. This is going to divide opinion a little, but I really, REALLY like this! For a start, having all of these services listed in a single place means that in the event of a system lockdown (eg you think your system may be under attack and/or you want to restrict processes that can be used as attack vectors/entry points), this makes shutting these processes down (or even lowering their individual access levels to allow existing critical services to continue) CONSIDERABLY easier! Additionally, some services that are necessary to system maintenance but crucially can be resource hungry might need to be temporarily suspended by the system admin (eg SMART disk checks) to ensure that other short term but high priority services have enough horsepower. Then you have the option to suspend some/all SSH/Command level access very quickly which can often be a catch-all method of suspending an active malware attack. These configuration and system service control also can be extended to which ones are available/active at start up (for those that are concerned at the impact of a firmware update restarting the system and activating/disabling specific services). These controls are available (for the most part) in the majority of turnkey solutions and off-the-shelf NAS drives such as QNAP and Synology, however they are not presented in such a single-portal access and config fashion, which can make all the difference when changes that are required are time sensitive!

Use of the JAILS system is Smart Once You Get Your Head Around it

The term JAILS is one that is thrown around a lot when people talk about security in the TrueNAS platform and for good reason. When it comes to installing a new third party tool/service that is not native to the platform, in TrueNAS you can install these additional components as completely contained areas of the system. These JAILS are excellent for securely and safely partitioning the system and services, that way in the event of troubleshooting, giving limited access to or quickly locking down a specific application or service. In essence, TrueNAS has two options to create a jail. Unusually for the platform, they even include a Jail Wizard (a hand holding guide, not a man in a big hat) which makes it easy to quickly create a jail. ADVANCED JAIL CREATION is an alternate method, where every possible jail option is configurable. There are numerous options spread across four different primary sections. This form is recommended for advanced users with very specific requirements for a jail. Many users might query why you would use a jail system such as this to run these contained storage/services, as opposed to a virtual machine or a container (as found more often in Linux). However, as jails run the FreeBSD operating system. These jails are independent instances of FreeBSD. The jail uses the host hardware and runs on the host kernel, avoiding most of the overhead usually associated with virtualization that requires hardware to be hard-locked or provisioned. The jail installs FreeBSD software management utilities so FreeBSD packages or ports can be installed from the jail command line. This allows for FreeBSD ports to be compiled and FreeBSD packages to be installed from the command line of the jail in a way that is considerably more configurable and more hardware efficient overall. That isn’t to say that TrueNAS ignores the versatility of Linux and containers, as their newer TrueNAS SCALE (Scale-out, Convergence, Active-active, Linux, Easy – doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but covers the big advantages inherent to Linux kernel use) platform is built on Linux and takes advantage of those benefits too.

Ability to Bind the Admin GUI to a Specific IP and Port

This is a small but often overlooked setting, but when setting up your TrueNAS network interface ports, you can either leave the interfaces as dynamic and wide-ranging in access to the GUI – OR – you can craft an impressive static IP and fixed access credential to the administration GUI. Dynamic/Static IP control is widely available on most NAS systems (allowing the address of the NAS to be more fluid or fixed to ensure long term connections do not become interrupted between system/router restarts and/or updates) but the wider range of system controls and customization allow you to create incredibly closed admin control rules, thanks to authentication and white/black listing settings being used in conjunction. This is also applicable to the SSH/Command line-level access too. It is far from unique to TrueNAS BUT it is a great deal easier to build this routine on their platform than others (as well as arranging secure recovery methods).

Additional Interesting Passphrase Access Method for encryption alongside Key Use

Another unique piece of methodology by TrueNAS that (although far from new) is provided in a very interesting way on this platform is encrypted storage locking/unlocking. Alongside a very wide range of encryption options available to choose from when setting up every stage of the storage creation tiers (pool, volume, datasets, shares, etc) the TrueNAS also allows the user to create a passphrase. Now, on the face of it, I can hear a few seasons storage users saying “HOLD ON – THAT IS NO BETTER THAN A PASSWORD!”, but let’s dig a bit into this. Now, most users when they create an encrypted container (or whatever they are encrypting, run with it for a sec), the system generates an elongated key (depending on encryption algorithm of choice_), as well as the option of a downloaded key form. Now, it is ALWAYS highlight advice NOT to place this key (code or download) onto the NAS storage as that would massively undermine the whole security of the system. However, sometimes you do not have the encryption key available or just want momentary access. For that ease of access, during the setup of the encrypted setup, you are offered the chance to enter a passphrase in order to allow faster access to the encrypted storage. Now, this does not reveal the encryption key as it is not stored locally. Also, the passphrase is heavily limited in its # of entries and can be adapted to ensure that attempted bruit force hacks will lock the system down (like any other security setting). It is not going to be a system service that is widely used, however, it is still a nice additional option for faster access on the fly whilst not undermining the encryption.

Significantly Number of Options to Segment Admin/Controls Across System to Avoid a single ‘All-Power’ Control Panel if Desired

This all brings me to one of the most outstanding architectural differences that TrueNAS brings to the NAS market that a lot of turnkey solutions (by accident or design) do not fully offer, and that is the overall ability to completely remove creating a single all-power user. Now, on the face of it, I can hear some IT Admins fainting/getting angry BUT with most people’s storage business storage becoming physically spread wide BUT all connected over the internet, that is placing ALOT of power in the admin/power-users hands. There is absolutely a need in most Network/Data storage setups for a single account that can do and access EVERYTHING on a storage system, but that also means that this account, if exploited/accessed via a vulnerability, can be used to dismantle/destroy your storage system much, MUCH faster than anyone can physically disconnect individual components from the greater storage network. With the growing desire for enterprise towards hybrid storage and SD-WAN setups, interconnected storage is incredibly common and if your multi-site deployment doesn’t maintain uniform rigorously high-security standards across the board, one weak link can let the whole system down. But in the case of TrueNAS you have so many means to separate and compartmentalize the system, control access privileges to services, binding methods to users, groups and services, fixed connection rules and closed-shutter pre-emptive measures that can be adjusted to your needs (in an arguably complex setup it has to be admitted) means that you have the option in design to choose to create batches of locally powerful users instead of an all-powerful single user. Likewise, you can create multiple hierarchical rules that supersede others on the system that can create a checks and balances system of control that might well be better suited to many businesses that run in a more parallel style, all whilst the TrueNAS systems that are spread out can still communicate automatically and do their job. Again, this CAN be created to a very close degree on Synology and QNAP platforms, but you cannot truly remove the power user.

OpenVPN Support Integrated into the OS in the Available Service list

Most NAS systems in 2022 onwards have some form of support of VPN clients. This can stem significantly from brand to brand but in most cases, you find that they will select a handful of particular Virtual private network providers to provide tailored setup config options for (as well as generic setup options for others). In the case of TrueNAS, along with the support of WireGuard (which it is possible to connect your TrueNAS directly to via the WireGuard network with a few easy steps by creating some custom tunables to enable the service in the system settings menu) the system provides some great support of OpenVPN. OpenVPN (much like TrueNAS) is open source project and therefore free to use (non-commercial use, which requires the OpenVPN Access Server product which is sold by OpenVPN Inc. is not free). Within TrueNAS OpenVPN is a native service (so available from the start) and this allows much faster implementation and deployment of the VPN Server and/or Client functionality. This means TrueNAS can act as a primary VPN server to allow remote clients access to data stored on the system using a single TCP or UDP port. Alternately, TrueNAS can integrate into a private network, even when the system is in a separate physical location or only has access to publicly visible networks. OpenVPN includes several security options that, while not required in all user case scenarios, can help protect the data being sent into or out of the private network.

• Authentication Algorithm: This is used to validate packets that are sent over the network connection. Your network environment might require a specific algorithm. If no specific algorithm is required, SHA1 HMAC is a good standard algorithm to use.
• Cipher: This is an algorithm to encrypt data packets sent through the connection. While not required, choosing a Cipher can increase connection security. You might need to verify which ciphers are required for your networking environment. If there are no specific cipher requirements, AES-256-GCM is a good default choice.
• TLS Encryption: When TLS Crypt Auth Enabled is set, all TLS handshake messages are encrypted to add another layer of security. This requires a static key that is shared between OpenVPN server and clients.

OpenVPN is widely supported on the bulk of NAS providers but it is nice to see it here as a native application within TrueNAS, given that the platform is somewhat restrictive in the services it natively arrives with outside fo the app/add-on center.

Full System API Design

One thing that TrueNAS is always keen to highlight about the architecture of their platform (and for those that care for this, it IS a big design appeal of Core) is that pretty much the whole system is API designed. API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. If you are planning on connecting your server with one or more external services (more often as a database, but there are many other 3rd party client services that can communicate with a NAS) it can be somewhat of a security concern to provide login user credentials to these services so they can communicate with the system. API keys allow you to create a single access portal to a specific service to communicate with the NAS in a select and controlled fashion and without impact on the access control levels or privilege levels of your existing user groups. Remote connections with services can be made with all parts of the TrueNAS system services with API keys (rather than the administration/root login), aiding automated remote processes access without dangerously powerful credentials available to them. API keys can be generated on Synology and QNAP NAS systems, however not to the same system-wide extent thanks to the architecture of TrueNAS and that means that (once again) the platform is considerably more flexible than most – IF you have the time to craft it that way.

No Security Walkthrough? No Security Councilor?

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but yet again, the thing that might well put a lot of users off the TrueNAS platform when it comes to security and Network management is the sheer complexity and intimidating scale of the options presented to you. In most cases, I think that TrueNAS takes an understandable hard position on storage complexity – you cannot be THAT customizable and configurable and keep things easy/straightforward. However, when it comes to network and security, I think TrueNAS could stand to benefit from further security and network setup guidance. They support the usual ‘?’ tips on most pages and links to the extensive community/official guides, which are a big help. But with fewer examples of dynamic help (setup wizards being mandatorily available on all network/security setups as you find on Synology and QNAP) as well as a security councilor/single-portal being absent to see all your system security in a single window (as TrueNAS DOES provide this in the storage manager) this is where many users will pause continuously in the early setup to triple check and unless they are a network security professional, will always feel that nagging sense of doubt. A security councillor or setup wizard may seem overly simplistic for TrueNAS, but it would serve as a useful alternative for some users who want to use a pre-set setup that they can customize down the line.

Review of TrueNAS – 3rd Party Tools, Applications and VM Deployment

One element of TrueNAS that divides opinion about the platform is its first-party services. TrueNAS offers a huge number of native services, tools and storage setup options that allow you to craft a fantastically bespoke and secure storage system, but the demands from most business/enterprise-class data storage users in recent years have changed dramatically thanks to the rise of cloud platforms and turnkey NAS solutions arriving on the scene to provide SaaS and PaaS solution – namely Software as a Service and Platform as a Service. These solutions (generally hybrid cloud/bare-metal such as Synology NAS + C2 or pure cloud such as Google WorkSpace or Office 365) provide your storage AND a range of applications and tools native to the brand (i.e 1st party) that allow you to interact and utilize your data in a closed ecosystem. This starts at tailored access to formats such as images, docs, music and video and inevitably extends to virtual machine deployment, native email & accounts management and more. Now, TrueNAS does not really provide any first-party/native tools that are comparable to this but DOES provides a fantastic base of operation that allows you to integrate a HUGE number of third party SaaS and PaaS provide to integrate with their system. Let’s discuss how TrueNAS handle that 3rd party support of add-ons.

App Installation is Highly Customizable and Has Advanced Options

Thanks to that open-source architecture and large community/homebrew community available to TrueNAS, there is a wide range of options to connect your existing services and client tools with the system and TrueNAS has a plugin center immediately available from the GUI. As you might expect, it is remarkably configurable but also is not quite as intimidating as other areas of the system that require installation and setup to be refined in great detail (but it DOES have the advanced option to go down that road if you want), but for those that care about how well/secure applications will be running, there is a tremendous range of config options available that include storage location, network, privileges (limiting root access) to start with and then widen out dramatically towards who can access, how they access, what powers the tool will have, safeguards and much more. Perhaps you created your DiY TrueNAS server to serve a specific purpose and want that tool (Plex, Emby, NextCloud, Smart Home tools, etc) to have the lion share of the performance and hardware options at it’s disposal – that is incredibly scaleable and configurable in TrueNAS that is simply impossible in QNAP and Synology.

Choices of Different App Repositories and Homebrew Installations

At the outset, when viewing the available addons and tools afforded to the app center of your iXsystems NAS, you will see that there are very few tools immediately available to download and install. These tools are ones that have been better catered to the system in conjunction with iXsystems on the TrueNAS system but you are not limited to these and alongside the option to access the verified/unverified community applications list (which is significantly broader in its tools than the iXsystems list), but you also have options to install custom made plugins at the command line level (creating jails and cages quickly) and for those with the skillset, this makes the TrueNAS significantly easier to adapt towards specific 3rd party tools and custom server use. Once again, compared with the Synology or QNAP platform, although their range of 3rd party applications (and 1st party apps off course) are wider in support in their respective app centers, once you try to step outside of this portal, their system’s more closed architecture can be a real bind. Both of those turnkey platforms have their own homebrew communities in Synocommunity and QNAPClub, but you are still relying on 3rd party app crafting in a way that the TrueNAS platform otherwise allows direct homebrew tool creation and deployment more broadly.

Virtual Machine Deployment is extremely QUICK and scalable!

When it comes to hosting and deploying virtual machines, this is one of the most compelling cases for opting for TrueNAS for many users. Typically right now deployment of virtual machine infrastructure in businesses (even smaller businesses that want to deploy centralized virtual systems to their staff on a local level) fall into two categories. There is opting for subscription-based pure cloud services such as the SaaS and PaaS options mentioned earlier in the review to host virtual terminals/PCs in conjunction with a hypervisor platform such as VMware or Hyper-V OR host them on a physical/bare-metal server on-site for network/remote access. There is of course the option to combine the two via hybrid storage and the right hosting/sync tools, but this is mostly an enterprise option and we are entering the NetApp/EMC tier at this point for most hyperscale users. Now, the reason TrueNAS commands such a compelling argument for itself when it comes to Virtualization is that you have full control of the components and hardware that make up your server – something that is just not as open in choice to turnkey solutions (which by design are closed in hardware specifications and offer limited scalability). Virtual machine deployment on the TrueNAS platform is possible in several ways.

First, there is using the system’s own hypervisor level tools to deploy a VM natively which allow a number of virtual hardware emulation choices immediately, as well as configurable network and setup options that will dynamically use the system hardware (also allowing you to be flexible on how the system reserves that hardware when a VM is powered on. Alongside this, the open-source and configurable nature of TrueNAS means that pointing an existing hypervisor VM tool locally on a client system or via installation in a jail etc on the NAS itself is a great deal more frictionless than the fixed design of Virtualization Station and Synology Virttaulization Station. These tools from QNAP and Synology do an excellent job and are wide-ranging in the platforms, OS’ and existing 3rd party SaaS/PaaS provides they support in their presets, but on the whole, they are less flexible to bespoke VM deployment than TrueNAS and then further bolstered by the scalability and upgradability of TrueNAS in it’s hardware. Migrating your existing TrueNAS storage and services into a much more powerful DiY setup as the cost/efficiency/power of modern hardware arrives is much more open-ended, with most NAS provided hypervisors requiring migration to remain in the closed ecosystem (i.e you can only move your Synology VMM setuP to another Synology NAS and that brand’s choice of hardware). Virtual Machine deployment on TrueNAS is still much more of a technical affair than those of turnkey solutions and it also lacks a few of the 2-3 click deployment-ready Windows/Linux VM advantages of QNAP Virtualization Station, but it is still a fantastically customizable, highly scalable and extremely adaptable virtual machine platform.

Apps Cannot be installed in the Background

This is a remarkably minor gripe I know. But when installing multiple services via one of the means afforded TrueNAS, it is a slower process than those found in many turnkey solutions. Between the system being largely inaccessible via the GUI to a user when the system is installing an application, to a slight clunky feeling of their deployment, users who are familiar with the commercial OS design and UX of Synology and QNAP are going to find adding new and executing services dealt with a little more friction. Most of this stems from the TrueNAS platform being more ‘hands on’ in its maintenance, but ultimately being designed to be part of a larger setup silently in the background, rather than the primary interface on a regular basis.

Range of Applications Available out the Box Still Seems a Little Thin

Given the scale and years of history in the development of TrueNAS, it still seems rather odd that further development towards first-party applications and services remains comparatively short. New service support is regularly added, as are verified 3rd party applications in the add-on list, but TrueNAS proprietary applications still seem pretty thin on the ground. I understand the reasoning behind this – TrueNAS wants to focus on making the very best data storage solution it can be, leaving other tailored data specializations to those that produced popular tools, which it can then add support for in its platform. However, even simple areas such as 1st party tools for file management, local client synchronisation/backup tools that support file pinning/streaming natively in shared folders or a mobile application for allowing administrators to quickly access, configure or troubleshoot the system more conveniently would be appreciated I am sure. This is all very possible with 3rd party tools that support TrueNAS, as well as the platform themselves recommending specific tools in places. However, many might feel that with each service requiring at best a sign-up and at worse subscription plans, it still seems odd that after all these years TrueNAS Core (aka FreeNAS) has still opted to overlook this.

Review of TrueNAS – Conclusion & Verdict

It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that when it comes to TrueNAS is a fantastically capable software for managing your storage. It even manages to swerve the downfall of being ‘too enterprise’ but arriving as an open-source free software platform to be enjoyed by businesses and storage enthusiasts. There is no avoiding that it IS quite a technical mountainous learning curve if you are arriving at it from a position of zero storage or network experience, but the last few big TrueNAS system updates have gone a long way to update some UI elements to be more intuitive, software wide help notes available at all times and the community support is as on-point at it has ever been. If you are a home user looking for a hurdles setup or a day-1 deployable system for your small business, then TrueNAS may be too big a jump for you and you would be better off with a traditional off-the-shelf NAS system. However, if you have the know-how, you have the willingness to get your hands dirty and already have the hardware in mind/in-house, then TrueNAS stands in a class of it’s own and thanks to some very unique architecture choices that are almost utterly unique to this platform, it’s pretty unparalleled in its scope.

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