TrueNAS 12.0-U8 was released today and is recommended for even the most conservative users of FreeNAS, TrueNAS CORE, and TrueNAS Enterprise. It will ship by default on all new TrueNAS systems and serve as the last of the TrueNAS 12.0 updates. Users have been very positive with respect to the rock-solid quality that TrueNAS 12.0 has achieved. Going forward, TrueNAS will provide two paths to the future; TrueNAS 13.0 and TrueNAS SCALE 22.02.

TrueNAS 13.0 continues on from TrueNAS 12.0 with improved quality and reliability for general storage use-cases on both CORE and Enterprise editions.  TrueNAS 13.0 will provide major updates to FreeBSD, Samba, and OpenZFS while remaining a simple upgrade from TrueNAS 12.0. TrueNAS 13.0 is expected to get to BETA stage in February and RELEASE quality during the second quarter of 2022.

TrueNAS SCALE is an optional “sidegrade” for use-cases that require scale-out storage or more Linux capabilities (containers or VMs). TrueNAS SCALE 22.02 is in RC2 phase now and is expected to reach RELEASE quality later this month (2/22/22).

TrueNAS 12.0-U8 provides a natural path to migrate from CORE to SCALE. Users considering this migration will find supporting documentation on the new TrueNAS Upgrades page.  Migrations to TrueNAS SCALE may be more complex and require more thought than updates to TrueNAS 13.0, especially for users with plugins or VMs. 

TrueNAS 12.0: a Retrospective

While releasing TrueNAS 12.0, we created a new lifecycle model for TrueNAS CORE and Enterprise releases. The history of TrueNAS 12.0 releases has been:

TrueNAS 12.0 RELEASE was made available October 20, 2020, and included many new features and performance enhancements, along with OpenZFS 2.0 support and a major OS update to FreeBSD 12.2, which also broadened hardware compatibility.

TrueNAS 12.0-U1 was released in December, resolved the most significant bugs, and enabled features like Fusion pools and efficient scrubbing/resilvering.

TrueNAS 12.0-U2 was released in February and included bug fixes with some minor features. 

TrueNAS 12.0-U3 was released April 13, 2021, and included bug fixes with some minor features.  This release was officially ready for mission-critical users.

TrueNAS 12.0-U4 was released June 1, 2021, and included bug fixes with robustness improvements. 

TrueNAS 12.0-U5 was released August 3, 2021, and included bug fixes, python upgrades, and security improvements.  This version has been very stable and is considered the best production version, including all previous FreeNAS versions.

TrueNAS 12.0-U6 was released on October 5, 2021, and included a number of fixes, nearly a dozen improvements, and a few platform enhancements. 

TrueNAS 12.0-U7 was released on December 7, 2021, and also includes a number of fixes, nearly a dozen more improvements, and a few platform enhancements including OpenZFS 2.0.6.

TrueNAS 12.0-U8 was released on February 2, 2022, and also includes dozens of fixes and a few improvements. These include:

• • OpenZFS 2.0.7  (itself has 50+ fixes)
  • Robustness improvements for cabling JBODs

TrueCommand 2.1 is the Single-Pane-of-Glass Management Platform

TrueNAS 12.0, SCALE, and TrueNAS 13.0 include support for TrueCommand (Docker or VM) and TrueCommand Cloud, a SaaS version that includes a VPN capability for managing across private networks. TrueCommand 2.1 includes:

• Storage navigation of datasets and files across multiple NAS systems. 
• Real-time per-second statistics.
• Role-Based and Team-Based Access Controls (RBAC).
• Tracking and reporting inventory with serial numbers and support status. 
• Two-Factor Authentication and Single-Sign-On. 

TrueNAS CORE is the Best-Ever Free NAS

The improvements to TrueNAS further strengthen its position as the best-ever “free NAS” system available. In that way, TrueNAS still is and always will be FreeNAS in spirit.  For those with FreeNAS still installed on your systems, we recommend upgrading to FreeNAS 11.3-U5 first from within the web interface, and then upgrading to TrueNAS 12.0-U8 to retain roll-back options.  While it is an easy web update, we do recommend waiting to upgrade your pool until you have validated your performance and functionality.  New users will simply download TrueNAS 12.0-U8 to get started.

If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear them on the community forums, on the TrueNAS subreddit, or in response to this blog. If you need additional information on how TrueNAS can streamline, accelerate, and unify data management for your business, please contact us, or visit truenas.com and download the TrueNAS version that best fits your needs.

True Data Freedom is being delivered with each new TrueNAS release!