An often-stated adage in file system development is that “it takes 10 years for a file system to even reach beta.” This underscores not only the complexity in developing file systems but also their significance. As the file system is a cornerstone of any operating system, it’s critical to ensure that data can be kept accurate and available. Therefore, truly trusting a file system’s ability to perform its primary duty takes many years of battle testing.

From “A” for APFS to “Z” for ZFS, this is true for both open source and proprietary file systems. As ZFS surpasses its 18th year, iXsystems is proud to help contribute to the process of improvement of OpenZFS far beyond the “ten-year beta” period to ensure the continued integrity and performance.

With the latest updates to OpenZFS being among the many improvements available in TrueNAS 13.0-U6.1, this release is expected to be the last version of TrueNAS 13.0, which has been the highest-quality TrueNAS release ever. The next version of TrueNAS CORE will be TrueNAS 13.1 in Q1 2024.

Virtually Everything That Can Be Fixed in TrueNAS 13.0 is Now Fixed in 13.0-U6.1

We are very proud of the quality delivered and thankful to the community for all the bug reports to help us get here.

The previous version, TrueNAS 13.0-U5.3, proved to be the highest quality and most widely deployed release in TrueNAS history with over 65,000 active systems. Building on the Enterprise quality of prior versions, TrueNAS 13.0-U6.1 is available and is expected to be the final update of TrueNAS 13.0 for both the CORE and Enterprise appliances. This U6.1 update includes roughly 20 new bug fixes and security improvements, including OpenZFS 2.1.14 to correct a rarely-occurring upstream ZFS bug.

TrueNAS 13.0 included significant new components and delivered improved performance, scalability, and reliability when compared to the previous major version, TrueNAS 12.0. To date, over 85% of TrueNAS 12.0 users have updated to TrueNAS 13.0, including most of our larger enterprise customers. In particular, the increased speed and robustness of HA failover is extremely valuable for Enterprise use cases.

13.0 is Recommended for All 11.3 and 12.0 Users

We recommend that all TrueNAS 12.0 and TrueNAS 11.3 users update their systems to TrueNAS 13.0-U6.1 before attempting to resolve any software or performance issues. This update is also recommended to prepare for future updates to TrueNAS 13.1 in 2024.

Current TrueNAS 13.0 users can update to U6.1 directly from the TrueNAS web UI by navigating to the System -> Update page. New TrueNAS users can get started by downloading the TrueNAS CORE installation media from our site at https://www.truenas.com/download-truenas-core/.

Earlier this year, there was news on the process for maintaining and updating TrueNAS CORE Plugins. Users of plugins are recommended to review this new information.

TrueNAS CORE in 2024

TrueNAS 13.1 is planned for release in early 2024 and will maintain the same storage-focused features with updates to FreeBSD, OpenZFS, Samba, and other key components. The 13.0-U6.1 update also includes some warnings and guidance to help smooth any issues for a future transition to TrueNAS 13.1, such as handling the deprecation of the embedded S3 service, or simply migrating to TrueNAS SCALE.

When Should you Update your TrueNAS system?

Our recommendations are maintained and updated regularly on our Software Status page, which currently recommends TrueNAS 13.0-U5.3 for all users and customers for stability and security reasons. As TrueNAS 13.0-U6.1 receives further testing in more customer environments, it will become the recommended release for all TrueNAS CORE and Enterprise users within two months.

TrueNAS Enterprise appliances are used by organizations that prefer a turnkey experience, optimized hardware, professional support, and Enterprise features such as High Availability (HA), Fibre Channel, Proactive Support, and Key Management (KMIP).

TrueNAS Enterprise users will have the option to sidegrade to TrueNAS (SCALE) Enterprise 23.10 and other SCALE-based releases. These sidegrades are encouraged for use cases that specifically require the unique functionality of TrueNAS SCALE. The sidegrade process will continue to be simplified and made more robust.

TrueNAS Enterprise customers are encouraged to contact iXsystems Technical Support for a complimentary technical review and assistance before updating from 12.0 or earlier versions. If you need additional information on how TrueNAS can streamline, accelerate, and unify data management for your business, please contact us and we’ll gladly assist you.