iXsystems has released the TrueNAS SCALE 23.10 distribution, which uses the Linux kernel and a Debian package base (previous products from this company, including TrueOS, PC-BSD, TrueNAS, and FreeNAS, were based on FreeBSD). Like TrueNAS CORE (FreeNAS), TrueNAS SCALE can be downloaded and used for free. The size of the ISO image is 1.5 GB. The source code for TrueNAS SCALE's specific build scripts, web interface, and layers is published on GitHub.
TrueNAS CORE products based on FreeBSD and TrueNAS SCALE based on Linux are developed in parallel and complement each other, utilizing a shared codebase and a typical web interface. The provision of an additional edition based on the Linux kernel stems from the desire to implement some ideas that are unattainable when using FreeBSD. Notably, this is not the first such initiative—back in 2009, the FreeNAS distribution already branched off into OpenMediaVault, which was transitioned to the Linux kernel and Debian package base.
One of the key improvements in TrueNAS SCALE is the ability to create storage that spans multiple nodes, while TrueNAS CORE (FreeNAS) is positioned as a single-server solution. In addition to increased scalability, TrueNAS SCALE also features the use of isolated containers, simplification for infrastructure management and suitability for creating software-defined infrastructures. The ZFS (OpenZFS) file system is used in TrueNAS SCALE. TrueNAS SCALE provides support for Docker containers, KVM-based virtualization, and ZFS scaling across multiple nodes using the distributed file system Gluster.
To organize access to storage, SMB, NFS, iSCSI Block Storage, S3 Object API, and Cloud Sync are supported. For secure access, connections can be made via VPN (OpenVPN). Storage can be deployed on a single node and then gradually horizontally scaled by adding additional nodes as needs grow. In addition to handling storage management tasks, nodes can also be used to provide services and run applications in containers orchestrated by the Kubernetes platform or in KVM-based virtual machines.
In the new version:
- The ability to provide access to one data array simultaneously through SMB and NFSv4 protocols has been added. Compatibility for ACLs, access rights, and locks for SMB and NFSv4 has been ensured.
- The ability to mount SMB shares from other systems (Windows, Netapp, myriad, etc.) and import data from them into TrueNAS for shared access has been added.
- Support for file synchronization between SMB/NFS servers has been added.
- Support for block cloning in ZFS has been added, allowing the creation of a copy of a file or part of it without duplicating data, using references to already existing data blocks of the original file without actual copying. The use of this mechanism has accelerated the copying of files and directories in SMB and NFS storage by up to 10 times.
- Improvements have been made to OpenZFS, Samba, and the NVMe subsystem to enhance performance and scalability. Bandwidth has increased, the limit on the number of files in directories has been raised, and the capability to work with more users has been provided.
- The interface design for working with TrueNAS applications has been changed.
- The interface for creating storage pools has been redesigned.
- The ability to use up to 1255 drives in one system and to create storage larger than 25 PB has been added.
- Many system services have been transformed into separate loadable TrueNAS applications.
- Components for generating reports have been redesigned. The backend Netdata is now involved in forming system statistics displayed on the screen with reports.
- Buttons for pausing and resuming ZFS scrub checks have been added.
- Support for ZFS dRAID (Distributed Spare RAID), a variant of RAIDZ with integrated distributed block processing for hot spare recovery, has been added.
- Recovery time after a failure in fault-tolerant configurations has been reduced by 70%.
- Updated versions of the Linux kernel 6.1.42, NVIDIA drivers 535.54.03, and OpenZFS 2.2.
Source: opennet.ru
