Member of the Board of Directors at CATALYST.Earth
Real User
Feb 19, 2021
9/10. In my configuration, up to two drives can fail and no data is lost. This did happen once (one drive was still in warranty, and was replaced at no charge). Since replacing the case with one with much better cooling for the hard drives, no disks have failed in several years.
Member of the Board of Directors; Executive at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Nov 6, 2021
I'm just an end-user. I don't have a business relationship with the company. I'd advise new users that if they can afford it and depending on their technical capability, that users go with TrueNAS, which is a box with all the stuff they need in it and all the full support. Technical support for Xsystems. That said, if they want to do it with the least possible cost, they should just make sure that their hardware is sized right and they have enough room for all the disc drives they need. They also need to make sure that you've got enough cooling to make sure everything runs cool, as the heat is the biggest killer of hardware. You need to clean it out frequently as dust is the second biggest issue, which really causes cooling problems. I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
One of the improvements in the most recent version is the support to better control the temperature of the equipment. For example, we are able to retrieve and monitor the temperature of devices easily. My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to think about what level of support is needed. FreeNAS is web-based, community support, whereas TrueNAS has more reliable support. Either way, the product is stable. The biggest lesson that I have learned is not to store a large number of snapshots. This solution allows for unlimited snapshot capability, although even for just one month, this can take a lot of storage space. If you maintain years of snapshots then, in my opinion, it is not efficient. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
FreeNAS is an operating system that can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share data over a network. FreeNAS is the simplest way to create a centralized and easily accessible place for your data. Use FreeNAS with ZFS to protect, store, backup, all of your data. FreeNAS is used everywhere, for the home, small business, and the enterprise.
9/10. In my configuration, up to two drives can fail and no data is lost. This did happen once (one drive was still in warranty, and was replaced at no charge). Since replacing the case with one with much better cooling for the hard drives, no disks have failed in several years.
I rate the solution a nine.
I'm just an end-user. I don't have a business relationship with the company. I'd advise new users that if they can afford it and depending on their technical capability, that users go with TrueNAS, which is a box with all the stuff they need in it and all the full support. Technical support for Xsystems. That said, if they want to do it with the least possible cost, they should just make sure that their hardware is sized right and they have enough room for all the disc drives they need. They also need to make sure that you've got enough cooling to make sure everything runs cool, as the heat is the biggest killer of hardware. You need to clean it out frequently as dust is the second biggest issue, which really causes cooling problems. I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
I would advise others to do their homework. I would rate FreeNAS an eight out of ten.
One of the improvements in the most recent version is the support to better control the temperature of the equipment. For example, we are able to retrieve and monitor the temperature of devices easily. My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to think about what level of support is needed. FreeNAS is web-based, community support, whereas TrueNAS has more reliable support. Either way, the product is stable. The biggest lesson that I have learned is not to store a large number of snapshots. This solution allows for unlimited snapshot capability, although even for just one month, this can take a lot of storage space. If you maintain years of snapshots then, in my opinion, it is not efficient. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
I rate this solution a nine out of ten. In the next release I would like to see an improved dashboard.
The only other alternative that I could suggest might be a Cloud backup solution