3. Introduction
Open source NAS (Network Attached Storage)
based on an embedded version of FreeBSD
(nanoBSD) and released under 2-clause BSD
license
Enterprise-grade appliance (TrueNAS) is also
available in 2U/4U form factors with tiered
professional support
4. Releases
8.0 was released in May, 2011 with a focus on
NAS core functionality (redesign of .7x which was
EOL'd in 2011)
8.2.0 introduced the original Plugins architecture
for installing additional software (July 20, 2012)
8.3.0 introduced ZFSv28 (October 26, 2012)
8.3.1 introduced full disk encryption (March 20,
2013)
9.1.0 is latest release (August 1, 2013)
5. Core Features
Create UFS or ZFS volumes (ZFS recommended)
Import existing UFS/ZFS RAID/z volumes
Import existing UFS, DOS, NTFS, EXT2/3
volumes
Create shares using Appletalk, NFS, and SMB
protocols
Configure access through FTP/SFTP, SSH, and
iSCSI
6. Core Features
Integration with OpenLDAP, Active Directory
Automated, secure replication via rsync/ssh
Automated ZFS snapshots and scrubs
Front-ends to cron, sysctls, loader.conf
Reporting graphs, scheduled S.M.A.R.T. tests,
automated alerts, UPS
7. Core Features
Link aggregation, failover, and VLAN support
DDNS, SNMP, and TFTP support
Control panel to stop/start and view the status of
services
Supports OSX Time Machine and Windows
Shadow Copies
8. Core Features
OS is installed on USB stick/CF and is separate
from data on storage disks
Upgrades keep a backup of the old OS, allowing
for rollback
Administrative GUI accessed through a web
browser; 8.2 added a web shell for command line
operations
PDF of Users Guide published with each software
release
9. ZFS
128-bit filesystem designed to be “self-healing”
with checksums to provide data integrity
Snapshots (point in time) only store what has
changed since the last snapshot (COW)
Scheduled scrubs verify integrity of disks and data
Deduplication saves space (removes duplicate
data)
Datasets have properties (quotas, compression)
10. ZFS
RAIDZ* levels designed to overcome hardware
RAID limitations
RAIDZ1: equivalent to RAID5
RAIDZ2: double-parity solution similar to RAID6
RAIDZ3: triple-parity solution
Caveats: resilvering takes time and can stress
disks
11. What's New in 9.1.0
Based on 9.1-STABLE:
Latest drivers and bug fixes
Adds newest ZFS feature flags, including LZ4
compression
Same ABI (Application Binary Interface) as PC-
BSD PBIs (over 1100) means that there is more
software available for installation
12. What's New in 9.1.0
Volume Manager:
UFS and ZFS now have separate managers
How to extend a ZFS pool or add log/cache
devices is more intuitive
Easier to manage a large amount of disks
Estimated size of ZFS pool is displayed for
selected RAIDZ* layout and GUI will not let you
create an unsupported layout
14. Plugins Easier to Use
Users no longer have to first configure a jail as the
Plugins mechanism automaticaly creates and
uses a default jail
New integrated AppCafe browser lists available
FreeNAS PBIs, simply highlight the app and click
its Install button
Appcafe.org (launching soon) will make it easy to
find PC-BSD, pfSense, and FreeNAS PBIs
16. Jails for Advanced Users
Users who want more control over software
installations now have a choice of what type and
how many jails to create and can install software
using FreeNAS PBIs, PC-BSD PBIs, FreeBSD
pkgng packages, or FreeBSD ports
The only required parameter when creating a jail
is the name, however users can choose to
configure other items such as the IPv4 and/or
IPv6 address(es), MAC address, and whether or
not to use vimage
28. What's New in 9.1.0
zilstat utility added for testing dedicated ZIL:
http://www.richardelling.com/Home/scripts-and-
programs-1/zilstat
Easy-RSA has been added to the base, making
it easier to create and manage RSA keys for
use with OpenVPN
