Finding Out More About the HexOS NAS Software, Where it lives with TrueNAS Scale and Whether it Might Deserve Your Data
A little over a month ago, HexOS (the NAS software that has been in quiet development, first publicly addressed on LTT back in Dec 2022 and covered HERE on NC) popped it’s head up above the parapet to tell users a little more about what it is trying to be, trying to solve and how it plans to do it. Details were still pretty light on the ground and so I reached out to the guys at HexOS to ask if they would be open to a user Q&A about their product, to which they happily agreed. This article is the results of that Q&A and 3+ weeks of question collecting from numerous sources (more on that in a bit). This article represents the official responses to those questions, as well as the hour long youtube video that contains a brief setup demo of HexOS, as well as extended answers to all those questions (and a bunch of extra ones thrown in by me on the fly). Additionally, since the recent news on HexOS becoming public, other public posts have emerged by both HexOS and their partner ‘iXsystems’ (AKA TrueNAS), which you can read below:
Useful References and Links:
- TrueNAS / iXsystems Announcement About HexOS Partnership – HERE
- Recent Post on HexOS about their product – HERE
- Signup here for updates on HexOS Beta News – HERE
So, let’s get to the results of that Q&A / AMA.
HexOS User Q&A – The TL;DR:
Jonathan from HexOS provided a detailed look at the platform’s integration with TrueNAS SCALE, emphasizing its mission to simplify home server management for both casual users and content creators. HexOS aims to streamline the experience by curating applications, ensuring that users have an easy-to-navigate system that doesn’t require deep technical knowledge. However, for those who need more advanced features, the full TrueNAS SCALE web UI is just a click away, allowing users to dive deeper into customization if they choose. Remote access is handled through the HexOS Command Deck, which offers secure, straightforward management without directly interacting with user data. Backup features are robust, with options for server-to-server, OS-native agents, encrypted cloud backups, and a buddy backup feature, allowing users to store data on a friend’s HexOS server for added security. Although the HexOS UI is designed to be fully responsive and work well on mobile devices, features like a dedicated mobile app, in-system HexOS control UI, and additional client app tools are planned but will only be confirmed after the 1.0 release.
In terms of pricing, HexOS is set to offer a lifetime license option, making it a one-time purchase for users, though other pricing models are still being discussed and finalized. The platform is on track for a beta release in Q3 2024, during which a select group of users will be able to test out the system and provide feedback. One of the key strengths of HexOS is its flexibility; users can easily switch back to managing their systems directly through TrueNAS SCALE without any complicated conversions or additional steps, ensuring that they are never locked into the HexOS ecosystem if they decide they need something different. Initially, support will be offered through community-driven channels like forums and Discord, but there are longer-term plans to introduce premium support options, offering more personalized help for those who need it. These premium options, along with other post-launch developments, are part of a broader roadmap that HexOS plans to explore after the 1.0 release, ensuring that the platform continues to evolve based on user needs and feedback.
User Questions About HexOS – IMPORTANT
Below are the questions that were put to Jonathan Pannozzo, CEO of Estek and co-developer of HexOS. The Interview was conducted on Thursday 8th August 2024, and comprised questions that were provided by users on an earlier YouTube Short, recent news video, social posts, NASCompares Inner Circle and over email. Additionally, questions were submitted to HexOS 3 days before the interview, to ensure that responses could be sufficiently researched. The full interview was recorded and published on YouTube (video below, with much further detail on each question, more questions were added on-the-fly and is chapterized) and a short demonstration was also provided on how HexOS conducted an initial system setup. Thanks again to Jon for his time in answering the questions.
I really cannot stress enough HOW MUCH MORE detail the questions are answered in the video, as well as how many more questions are added by me, so I recommend you grab a coffee/beer and watch it.
The hour long recording of the call can watched here (or embedded below):
Video Chapters
00:00 – The Start 01:46 – HexOS Setup Demo 06:45 – Pool Config Recommendations? 07:21 – Compatibility and Verification? 08:44 – Why Online? 18:48 – Default Folder and Permissions? 20:13 – is HexOS REALLY an OS? 24:14 – How Much of TrueNAS Scale is Controllable? 26:06 – TrueNAS Clean Install? Scale to Hex Migration? 28:31 – How Much of TrueNAS Scale is Controllable or Fixed in HexOS? 30:04 – App Repositories? 31:08 – Remote Access and Transmission? 32:24 – Advanced Access when needed? 33:26 – How much control/freedom does HexOS have in TrueNAS Scale development? 34:47 – Containers 35:36 – Buddy Backups? 37:11 – Permission Controls and Maintenace 39:11 – Why should tech-savvy people care about HexOS? 42:21 – TrueNAS Security Updates 44:20 – Mobile client app? 45:01 – TrueNAS devs collaboration? 46:55 – Mixed Drive deployment 49:29 – Backup Agents? 51:32 – Boot drive wasted space? 55:35 – Price models and Licencing 57:37 – Support 58:18 – Leaving HexOS? 01:01:00 – Beta?
Below are each question and the official consolidated response from Jon/HexOS on each. Thanks again to users for supplying so many questions and I hope they represented the bulk of the queries that were sent. Selected user Qs (represented by their @ usernames) often represented numerous other similar questions and were chosen without prejudice…well..apart from @Eddiethewebguy’s one…
@Eddiethewebguy (consolidation of about 20 Qs)
HexOS’ name suggests that this is an Operating System, but everything upto this point suggests this is a layer on top of TrueNAS scale. Is HexOS really an OS or is it just a skin?
Unlike Microsoft, Linux makes defining an operating system more complicated. All Linux-based OSes make use of the Linux kernel. Without the kernel, it isn’t Linux. However, the kernel is used by many different platforms like Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, etc. These are typically referred to as “Distributions.” Further still, there are plenty of projects that build off of these distributions to create their own unique offerings. TrueNAS SCALE and SteamOS are both based on Debian Linux as an example. Yet while we refer to Debian as a distribution, many would also call it an OS. So when can you really call yourself an OS vs. a distribution vs. something else entirely? We think what you call it is dependent on what you’re ultimately shipping to the user to install. In our case, we’re shipping an entire OS.
And we are most definitely not a “skin”. Skins are more or less just alternative presentations of the UI/UX, but generally do not completely reimagine the product. They also don’t provide ancillary services or features separate from the original software.
We are a combination of simplified UI, automations, workflows, and managed services to make owning a home server easy. Skins don’t do that.
The main reason we call ourselves an OS is because it’s a lot easier to explain than, “well we’re actually a managed services platform for a Linux-based variant of the Debian distribution known as TrueNAS SCALE.” And to the user’s we’re targeting, these details don’t really matter.
@servern0mix
How Much of the TrueNAS SCALE Backend are we talking about? Does HexOS give me access to all the features of TrueNAS Scale, but in a most user friendly fashion?
While the entirety of TrueNAS SCALE is available to us, we are very focused on features valued by home users and content creators. It’s not in our mission to translate every feature from the SCALE webUI into HexOS. And remember, the SCALE webUI is just a click away for any missing TrueNAS features that you require.
@pent10s
How much is going to be silent-backend TrueNAS/ZFS Feature set and how much is going to be user-controlled? (eg ZFS Snapshots, Encryption)
We see snapshots being either time or event driven, but one of those events could be a manual snapshot taken by a user. Encryption in some cases will be automatic, such as when a user wants to backup data to a buddy.
@huncli88
Will applications that are available to simply download and install be curated, or will HexOS have access to the same repositories as TrueNAS Scale?
We are definitely curating applications, and non-curated apps could be loaded through the SCALE webUI, like any other advanced feature. The ability to install non-curated apps through the HexOS UI is TBD.
@Cr Vaughan Williams, Bendigo Councillor
Can HexOS be installed on an existing install of TrueNAS Scale.. Or will it need to be a clean install.
As of now, we will only apply to new installations, but a future roadmap consideration would be the ability to adopt an existing SCALE deployment
@Fanboy41
How to they plan to implement remote access?
Local DNS is an awful UX for the non-IT savvy. Depending on the device type, you may need to append “.local” to the hostname. Browsers get picky sometimes when you don’t type the “https://” first when entering a hostname, thinking you’re just entering a search term. And even if you get an SSL self-signed cert, you still have to go through that browser nag security warning when connecting via https. And let’s not forget about IP address changes and flushing of the local DNS cache. Us IT-savvy folk know how to deal with all of these challenges. We’ve been dealing with them since our first self-hosted solution when we were just wee lads. But we’re trying to bring this solution to a wider audience that doesn’t have that experience and that means solving for those problems. It’s the same reason why we use the HexOS connector. Sure we could tell users “Go open this port on your firewall and forward it to this LAN IP” but for the customers we’re going after, we’ll have lost their interest after hearing “port” and “firewall.”
Doing things this way allows us to provide updates to the underlying OS directly from TrueNAS (iX). We will provide a custom ISO that connects servers to our HexOS Command Deck and ensure that persists through OS updates from TrueNAS directly. We do intend to gatekeep the update process in our UI to give us a chance to test new releases from TrueNAS before allowing our community to update en masse, but if you wanted to be brave, you could drop to the SCALE webUI and update directly as it would pull from the same source. More than likely everything will continue to work in the HexOS UI, but “Ye be warned…”
The TrueNAS SCALE UI is always available locally.
We’re not stepping in the data path directly, just management, so your data and privacy stays local to you. In addition, if the Internet goes down, all your apps and data are still available to users on the LAN. And as a benefit to us, management traffic is incredibly lightweight compared to data, making this very scalable in our infrastructure. We’re also not ruling out providing some type of local UI in the future, though it would be severely gimped compared to anything we build on the Command Deck. Basic “replace failed drives, stop/start apps and vms, etc.” only. And it would only be available after the initial configuration was complete (likely as a Docker container). Further still, it is not an objective for us prior to 1.0.
And while I completely understand the skepticism of vendor lock-in, we have none. Users always can ditch HexOS for native TrueNAS SCALE. It is on-us to keep delivering enough value to keep our users on our platform, because there is nothing we’re doing to force them to stay, even with a hosted UI/UX for management.
@haydenlong3764
How granular will we be able to go within HexOS? I like simplicity, but if I cannot dig deep when I need to it will be more annoying than useful. From the images posted it seems like it might be “baby’s first NAS” oriented, will this be useful for people who are new to this space but still interested in tinkering?
While our priority is definitely on making things easy, the SCALE webUI and CLI are always there for most advanced user needs
@Robbieonthetube (Yes, it’s me, sue me. This was a common statement)
How much development freedom does HexOS Have? For example, a flexible RAID system comparable to Synology Hybrid RAID, or an easy migration tool for users who want to carry over from an existing 3rd party NAS environment – These are not in TrueNAS Scale, but are their plans for, or the freedom for HexOS, to develop features/functions like these?
We do not have any immediate plans to implement alternative storage solutions. We are also not limited by the SCALE API in terms of providing additional functionality. The partnership agreement between TrueNAS and HexOS doesn’t impede our development path, or limit us from building additional functionality outside of what is available in SCALE itself.
@captain_magnus
Which of these will be supported; Podman, Kubernetes, Incus?
Kubernetes is being deprecated in favor of Docker Compose, which has been public knowledge for some time now. Beyond that, all I can say is that we are working with TrueNAS and they are planning some big improvements which will be announced in the near future.
@Josef Tegnér
Is any mirror functionality planned? I.e me and my HexOS friend give eachother space on our eachothers server (for offsite backup.).
Yes! In fact this was one of Linus’ most important features that he has wanted from us. It is on our roadmap.
@snowwild3445
Application certification and maintenance, security etc – will users have functionally, yet user friendly controls of app permissions (akin to an app on a google phone, with it’s permission settings?).
Our vision for apps is to make the platform transparent to the user and the experience akin to that of a smartphone. We also want to personally curate a catalog of apps for users to be able to trust and rely upon for the long-haul. Curation to us means a lot more than just building and maintaining a container. It means integrating the actual storage/server/app workflows together. As an example, say you need an app to manage your media library like Plex. Plex needs a media library to exist. A place where you will put your media files. We don’t want to ask the user to first create that place if it doesn’t already exist. Instead, we can script the process of creating folders where necessary or mapping to existing folders if they exist. This concept also applies to upgrading your system. Say you add a dedicated GPU. Upon restarting, we can detect that new hardware and suggest possible uses (e.g. acceleration for your existing media server transcoding or attaching it to a virtual machine).
@praetorxyn
If I am capable of using TrueNAS Scale / Docker / etc. already, is there any reason for me to care about this? In other words, how would the developers pitch HexOS to tech savvy people?
One of the reasons Eric and I set out to build HexOS was so that we would have a solution we could comfortably recommend to our friends and family that aren’t IT-minded. We see a huge difference between being “tech savvy” and “IT savvy”. A tech savvy person may be able to build their own PC but not necessarily their own server. Concepts like RAID, parity, caching, etc. can be difficult to understand and most users just want something that works. While you may not be a user, if you value your own setup and want your less IT-centric friends and family to be able to gain similar values, recommend HexOS to them!
@DavidJones-pi8rl
I was originally a QNAP NAS device user then moved to unraid about 6 years ago. A key reason was the security issues seemed to keep appearing multiple times a year in the late 2010’s. How is HexOS going to balance continues feature updates versus without compromising security and ensuring user trust is kept.
We’re all too familiar with issues that multiple vendors have had and continue to have relating to timely security, bugfix, and general updates.Th is is one of the benefits of and reasons we partnered with TrueNAS. They have decades of experience and a great track record of consistently delivering timely security and maintenance updates for their platforms. And all HexOS stable releases will be based on stable TrueNAS releases, ensuring…well…stability!
@lucasmedeiros2471
Will it have its own mobile app?
The entire UI/UX has a responsive design and we do have plans for mobile apps for both iOS and Android. This is especially important to us for users that want to use their home server also as a PC.
@Spreadie
Is this a standalone overlay for Scale, or are they working with TrueNAS devs? If they are collaborating with devs, will they have any input on driver development direction?
We announced our partnership with TrueNAS at the end of July and we absolutely communicate and coordinate with them on a regular basis. While we have some influence on roadmap, we are incredibly happy with the direction of SCALE’s development and so far our requests have been few and far between. We haven’t had any need to push for any driver-specific development.
@andreas.grundler
One of the advantages of Unraid over TrueNas is that you can use hard disks of different sizes. Will there be something similar with HexOS?
We have no intention of supporting the mixing and matching of drive sizes. Doing so comes with significant sacrifices to performance and functionality. Unraid themselves seem to acknowledge this given the recent change to demote the array to optional functionality, disabled by default. We intend to publish a blog in the future to serve as a competitive analysis against other players in our space, Unraid being one. In it, we will dive much deeper into the shortcomings and flaws of the mix/match drives feature.
@DarrenReidAu
Will there be a simple backup solution with agents for all major OSes including Linux (eg, Ubuntu/Debian based distros)?
Users can expect to leverage backup functionality in three primary ways:
- Backing up data from one HexOS server to another.
- Backing up data from devices using native OS agents (Windows Backup / Time Machine)
- Backing up data to an encrypted cloud storage solution. Anything beyond those primary solutions is outside the scope of our roadmap to 1.0.
Anything beyond those primary solutions is outside the scope of our roadmap to 1.0. That said, we won’t rule out native apps for major OSes as a future roadmap item.
@fedrr
Will HexOS allow partitioning install drive not to waste whole ssd for boot pool? Or allow creation of datasets on boot pool? Or is it just using Truenas as basis that does not provide such functionality out of the box?
No plans to change how TrueNAS partitions boot devices at this time.
@jereyfmoses
How will HexOS fund itself going forward? Dontations? Licence fees? If so, any word on the pricing?
We’re not ready to confirm pricing today, but we can reveal a few details. HexOS will be sold as a lifetime subscription. This lifetime subscription would include features such as:
- The HexOS Command Deck (deck.hexos.com)
- Our setup and configuration wizard
- Anywhere management access
- Email notifications
- Folders, users, and storage management
- Apps and VMs
More detailed information on our licensing and pricing will be revealed soon.
@ma77evalet
Support Model? How will end users get support and will it arrive with free/tiered pricing? Community Support, Admins etc, free?
Free support for HexOS will be obtainable through community channels such as our forums and discord server which will be launching soon. Longer-term we do have plans to offer premium support options, but we’re not ready to reveal details at this time and these options would not launch until sometime after our 1.0 release.
@LordApophis100
Will there be an upgrade path to vanilla Scale if a user “outgrows” HexOS and wants more control/advanced features?
Users can disconnect from HexOS at any time they want and continue managing their system through TrueNAS SCALE directly, no upgrade or conversion required. That said, many TrueNAS SCALE features can be used in conjunction with HexOS, though there may be some limitations. If you disconnect from HexOS, you still have to cancel your subscription to Turbo should you have one.
@martyn334
ETA on any beta?
We’re still on target to get our first test users in Q3. More details on the beta are also coming soon.
Thank you once again for Jonathan’s time for the interview and we look forward to seeing the beta launch. You can sign up for news of the HexOS beta via the page below (takes you to Hexos.com):
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If LTT is involved I avoid it
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Gonna be interesting to see their price model, lets not forget that the average joe or jane, can get 1T of storage from $6 -> $10 a month, from the usual big tech storage providers 🙂
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Even Synology doesn’t require internet connection, hard pass.
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Only hosted UI? Now I lost the interest in it. Making changed to the server when the internet is down is not the issue. What if the Hexos developer just disappears? What then? How can I export my pools so I can save my data? No way I will use a NAS SW that requires connection to the internet. There are so many examples of Cloud connected devices becoming paperweights just because the online services stopped working. The only thing I can accept is a license check once a month.
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56:00 “Sorry, I’m driving in to a VPN-tunnel”
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Thing is, them keeping k8s is kind of a turn off since I’ve had so many issues with k8s than with docker-compose with stability and deployment issues on scale. Importing a zfs pool also I think should be a thing if you setup someone’s nas on zfs via truenas scale or something and need to give them an easier method to manage their nas (hexOS). There is also no info about setting up a cache drive for this. Will there be options during setup to get that going to help those people who may want cache.
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so we have to trust that HexOS never gets compromised and never is hacked of which they can then infect every new install since it requires online and gives full access to HexOS’s remote server.
or internet goes down, the HexOS has something happen and now you have to reinstall the OS to get your stuff that needs the NAS or data on it to run but doesn’t need the internet. this company talks all about privacy and then builds an OS that is the complete opposite.
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Great video, but what a terrible software. I’ll gladly stick with OMV since it’s just Debian under the hood and I actually have control over it.
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I see John getting mad depending on the question
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A lot of containerization? Perhaps they’re going to take inspiration from Qubes. This will be interesting to see.
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They want an only UI so they can make it a subscription service. No thx.
If they go under, and then my personal server is hosed. Again. No thx
They will also be a major target for hackers. Again. No thx.
There are 100s of reasons this is a bad idea. But like they said. Their target isnt the tech savy. They are targeting idiots.
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Jones Donald Brown Lisa Davis Edward
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If 80% of their customers are 14:20 “oh noes, nasty HTTPS certificate warning!” , they made the right decisions.
But if this 80% are 18:20 “I need GPU passthrough in this docker VM..” , they can start working on the local UI right now 🙂
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I’m not thrilled about having access to my NAS be dependent on a third-party. I get that the HexOS mission is user friendliness, but my concern is HexOS announcing one day they are going out of business and will be shutting down their servers. The UI looks amazing, I just don’t know if it is the right NAS OS for me.
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Thanks for this interview! I look forward to where this goes live. I’m a developer and honestly I don’t want to deal with figuring out NAS I have other things I prefer to spend my time on. Just wish this was already out since I’d like to build it out now, but again I don’t want to figure it out.
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Thanks for the interview. I stuck with truenas for quite some time, but the learning curve amd tinkering took the toll. I am looking forward to this, hope to return to truenas.
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Holy shit an online only UI. What an absolute brain dead decision to make on a product like this. I was really pumped for this until I heard this.
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En el momento en que vi el bolso kislux , supe que tenía que tenerlo.
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As a target user, having a truenas setup and having a hard time with backup setup and Plex / samba permissions and stuff. I am very excited for this !
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I really need to start setting up my NAS and can’t wait any longer for beta access. If I set up a TrueNAS server can I migrate later to HexOS?
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I really love your taste and style always so chic. My faves would be the kislux leather backpack and the Swarovski pave diamond ring so gorg. Thank you for your recommendations.
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RND on HexOS be like; We want a way to remote support our non-tech savvy friends that want a NAS, always forced to be online… We, the other 99% that tinker ourself goes “Wtf did you just say?”
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I often do not understand what‘s the reason for some ideas… Most hobby homelab users don‘t like such dependencies, so sorry bro, I am out here.
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I am sorry Linus I think you lost your money this time as this reads like a bad investment. To have to connect to your own NAS via some online hosted service is a no go for me and I think many others and just removes the purpose of having a NAS. Him explaining why they went this route and making up dumb excuses gives me bad vibes about future monetization. Also it looks ugly AF. What a disaster.
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I don’t get all the complaints. My takeaway is that HexOS is a UI hosted webpage making API calls to TrueNAS scale – that’s it.
It doesn’t sound like they are adding any additional capability/functionality that doesn’t already exist in TrueNAS (the caveat being for people that don’t understand what they are configuring its making some recommendations), even the remote management is nothing more than a port forward, an ssl from letsencyrpt (no need to use self signed ssl) and a DDNS service.
TLDR:
Want local UI? Use TrueNAS local original UI, heck don’t even install the HexOS (90% TrueNAS iso) zero benefit.
Have no idea what a NAS is or how to use one? Go HexOS and deal with a few caveats with internet outages etc, HexOS going bust etc. sounds like the TrueNAS UI is there and you’ll have a learning curve not a complete loss of all your data or management.
———
To be clear, I’m an IT professional in a enterprise IT environment, I’m not advocating for anything like this nor would I ever use anything like this but equally I’m not their target audience and what this guy from HexOS probably failed to really hon in on was this is nothing more than TrueNAS with a “user-friendly” front end.
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Yeah can’t wait till they get hacked and every connected NAS is toast and all those analytics they’ve been collecting are utilized for further nefarious means. No thanks.
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I was really excited for this project, however main driver for people doing self-hosting: Privacy. I dont want some cloud hosted UI. I mean its a small project, much love, but als small projects means higher risks for vulnerabilties. Thus I would just feel bad to have an open flank which can be attacked permanently. So yes, the same could happen with hacked Updates for TrueNAS, however these are due maybe 4-6 times a year and nor permanently. I would have gone the other way round: Have a local UI, and make it a paid hosted version for the ones who need it. I might consider this on my third or fourth nas in a separate DMZ for PLEX (aka data which can be encrypted)
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@28:00 So I manage a TrueNAS scale server for a church I attend. While I am comfortable administrating TrueNAS it might be easier for me to teach others how to administer HexOS. This is one example of where being able to import an existing truenas scale config into HexOS would be beneficial.
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No thanks
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This representative can’t even define what an operating system is, when the definition of it is very much clear. He’s calling a UI an OS, it’s like calling KDE an OS when it’s clearly not. HexOS has no foundation to run indipendently of Truenas therefore it is NOT an operating system, therefore he’s lying straight up. It was also never clarified if they’re gonna keep up with Truenas with updates. Instead he went on saying they’ll follow “stable releases” which we all know means being behind with updates. I’ll keep this thing at arms lenghts at a minimum!
Thanks for the Q&A, it really showed what kind of project this is.
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Thx for the Video Guys! Really helped making the point for staying on Unraid for me 😀
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So I’ve watched all of the video, it looks like a few of my own questions weren’t answered (I didn’t submit any, don’t have Twitter), but I am curious. @hexos_jon if you can I’d love to know the answer to my questions because I’m in the process of selecting my OS for a NAS I plan to build by end of the year for Plex, video editing, & storage/backup of personal media. Gonna be picking up a lot of stuff on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
1. Will there be complete privacy of the data on the drives even with the online management UI or would you need to encrypt your drives to keep data private?
2. Will Da Vinci Resolve (free & Studio) or other video editing programs be supported?
3. Will you be able to configure 1 SSD be the boot drive, 1 be an L2 Arc cache/scratch drive, and then be able to configure the HDDs with a RAID pool+parity drive setup?
4. Is there a way to lower the power profiles to an optimal minimum if you’re using hardware that ordinarily would suck up a lot of power to help lower the overall cost of running an always on NAS or will that just be something you bite the bullet on with your own hardware choices? (For example, I have a spare 3080 I intend to use for Plex transcoding & for video editing/processing to offload things from my gaming PC which currently basically pulls double duty, is there a way to use HexOS power profiles or something similar to help lower the power draw of the GPU?)
I’ve been torn between TrueNAS & Unraid because TrueNAS seems/feels way too overwhelming to me and yet seems to have features I like while Unraid has to use a USB drive to boot which I really hate as a concept but seems slightly more user friendly when it comes to navigating how to setup stuff. HexOS coming along just as I’m gathering hardware & trying to learn what steps to take feels quite lucky, but I’m a bit nervous because of how new it is. Watching this video has helped me feel less nervous, but I’m still concerned even with your previous Unraid experience because new can easily mean new/unique bugs. I snagged a Plex lifetime license and have gotten far more than my money’s worth by multiple orders of magnitude over the last few years since I got it, so I don’t mind paying a lifetime license fee (though free is nicer since TrueNAS is typically funded by its enterprise clients). Just please don’t make the lifetime license something like $300-$400 if you can, that’s a major chunk of change for a lot of people. 🙂
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I think its great the OS focuses on it being easier for the end user. Allowing a outside connection on Unraid was a massive learning curve for me and its easy for something to break along the chain. That being said not allowing mixed disks seems to go against this ease of use. So its not going to really please either group, which places it in a harsh middle ground. Id be tempted to juat pick one side or the other.
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While I get the thinking of the hosted OS management rather than the local OS management I believe the reasoning to be highly flawed.
The home user will generally *not* have the resources to deal with multiple failure. They rarely have 2 disk redundancy let alone hot spares for storage. So if I’m “here” now and the internet is down, it stops me putting back my redundancy. I need go out while that happens you can be losing *ALL* of your data.
The priority, as I hear it, *ISN’T* maximising data protection, it’s on being easier, and makes this a 100% no go. Ask the question… does the user want to prioritise their data and set up or that its a bit easier.
I think it’s asking for trouble.
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Nothing that linus is involved in woll ever enter my house. That guy should be in jail. Asshole bully
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Thank you! Brilliant video. Just what I was looking for. Have a UGREEN Dxp6800 pro and the Ugreen software just isn’t cutting it. Was thinking of learning TrueNAS but the learning curve seems to be steep. Almost went with Unraid until I heard about HexOS. May be the best of both worlds. A well tested OS with a simple shell to provide the basic functionality eg setting up a Plex server and backing up documents and photos. I’m in ????
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I sort of agree with your answers given justifying your focus on a hosted UI at the expense of a local one,
But, the number of times that Unifi, Plex, HomeAssistant, etc. have their hosted connection break for whatever reason temporarily is non-trivial. It’s never an issue though because I can fall back to the local UI and not miss a beat. HexOS not being able to do that feels lacking.
I’m still critical of the project overall, but most of that comes down app support. In my experience recommending NAS’s, the appeal of the non-FreeNAS/TrueNAS operating systems like Synology, Unraid, CasaOS, UmbrelOS, OMV, etc. comes from their native app support being robust enough to spark interest for some use beyond “this is a place to backup your data”. Will be interested to try out your beta when it launches regardless.
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Wow, thanks for doing the interview. I stopped at 12 minutes in though, a web UI is precisely the reason I no longer use PLEX. What is the purpose of self hosting if my services still rely on internet access? I live in an area that can lose internet access from time to time, self hosting insulates me from that. Looks like this one is off the table, I’ll stick with TrueNAS. Thanks!
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Really great videos. Now, I m getting a F4-424 PRO, i would like to ask you about capacity:
-what are the max capacity for the nvme M.2 ssd, and what generations should it be, I m seeing to buy, gen3,4,5 and capacities from 500GB to 8TB each. What would be the largest capacity m2ssd that would be compatible/recommended for the F4-424 PRO?
-Now, for the HDDs the compatibility is max 22tb for each HDD right?,
-lastly are there some brands for HDDs and M2.SSDs better than others, which are the best ones?
Thank you so much, and congratulations for the really best channel about NAS
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oo my question got answered 😛 still not too sure on it >.<
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i head from this lady that now no longer are you necessarily keeping those private files in some file cabinet thats locked in the basement of the house. its on your laptop and its then therefore up here in this cloud that exists above us, Right?
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So, a home server OS to self host that has an online gui? What a world we live in.
Guess I’ll still use CasaOS on my Ubuntu Server machine and OMV in my NAS
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My main concern with hexOS is what happens when my server is full? – With unRAID, Synology SHR or even a Drobo (RIP) I could just pull out the smallest drive and put in a new larger one and make use of that new space. With this being ZFS I would have to just keep adding drives? moving my server to a newer and larger chassis each time I run out of slots? – What if I start off with 4 x 10TB drives because that’s within my budget, 5 years go by now the 20TB drives are affordable, I can’t just pull out the 10TB drives and replace them? – This is what I think home users want, shove in any sized drive and use it. Having to only buy the same sized disks to me feels limited and too enterprise-like. There’s a reason unRAID is still unbelievably popular today and its this flexibility.
Also at 48:00 he mentions unRAID now has the array be a part of a pool and deactivated by default in unRAID 7 and he thinks this is indicative of them moving away from mixed drives. This is not at all true, if you speak to the unRAID folks this is all about providing flexibility. They want to be able to allow users to have multiple unRAID arrays (thus it becoming like any other pool which is not limited in how many you can have) and they have it disabled by default because they don’t want to force users to need to make an array just to use VM’s and Dockers, expanding the use of unRAID so it’s not storage-first in its focus.
He shouldn’t be talking about the unRAID project if he doesn’t understand what they’re doing and why since he left them and is obviously very busy with hexOS to be able to keep up with unRAID properly.
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He’s got it backwards at the “why online?” portion. A local UI is far more important than a hosted UI. His reasons were not very good. There’s a reason they want it hosted that they are not saying, in my opinion.
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Personally, I’m not too upset about the host UI if I can still directly access the trueNAS local UI. I do mostly agree with the sentiment that it would probably not be needed the majority of the time. With tech, I usually know enough to screw it up, and personally want a NAS OS with training wheels, so I feel like I fall in their target audience on that. I also like that it is targeting the lowest common denominator of people who would consider building or repurposing a computer as a NAS. I enjoy tinkering, but want to do that when I choose to, not because I borked a configuration or drive install as a newb in the topic.
I do have a few questions that weren’t completely answered.
If my install is on a device with ECC memory, will it detect that and notify of ECC incidents?
If I don’t have ECC, will it recommend it but let me continue without?
I have family that would allow me to keep my own NAS plugged in at their house, and I have an older (intel 6th gen) system I plan to repurpose for this. Rather than buddy back-ups, I’d like to know how will the web management handle 2 systems that are on different networks but owned by the same individual. Can I simply designate it as a back-up for the primary NAS and it recommend a set-up, will I need a curated app for it?
Will support the ability to schedule power off/on times like many “off the shelf” NAS options within the UI? This would be something I’d like as there’s not much point to my off-site backup running 24/7.
With respect to offline systems, is the configuration saved in the host UI in a way that changes made while offline could be pushed once it powers on (scheduling an update or installing an app)?
This is less important, but please tell me Plex won’t be the only curated media server application. Having a default installation profile for Jellyfin and Embry would be huge.
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26:07 It’s in the username, Bendigo Councillor. The technical wizard for city council of Bendigo, Australia is perhaps hoping to add a useable interface for the non-techie employees of the city council of Bendigo, Australia.
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Our regional internet is slow af, the only reason I’m wanting to setup an easy to use NAS for less techie family members here is because local is faster than accessing anything over the internet, locallly hosted UI is critical for that. Pings back to any service tend to time out and if our local interface has to check upstream over a slow connection then that’s adding significant lag and adding to a bottleneck for anything else that is purely cloud.
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Lost me on cloud hosted anything! Lifetime subscription is something that should be considered 1-2 years on. How will I determine value when i don’t know how long the company will last (or me for that matter).
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When your hosted UI goes away/decommissioned/is down, people lose the ability to manage their device? Hard pass.
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A cloud connected NAS that has full API access to delete my pool? NO F-ING THANKS! The only cloud connected service I have on my NAS is Plex and it only has Read access to my files and is in a container. Synology and the like being proprietary is one thing. This is a whole new level of NO THANK YOU!
Can’t wait to read the news in 1, 3, or even 10 years when HexOS gets hacked and ransomeware groups takes control of X thousands / millions of consumer NAS devices hostage. Going to be the most obvious “I told you so” ever.
I am mind blow that someone thinks that the consumer NAS community wants ANYTHING to do with the cloud. That was the whole movement in the first place lmao.
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Typical. Canada here…… I’ve heard these stories 1000x. Highjacked an open source product and trying to answer overly simplified questions and coming up with a D- at best, and that’s being generous. – saying you’re going to build your own apps in house is the death of your venture. .. lastly LTT needs a spokesman and they definitely need to deliver on a solid foundation if they’re going to be taken seriously. …. I don’t know if the rep is a typical representation of Canada as developers, but I can tell you we have the best coders this side of Swiss. …. Linus needs serious venture capital to get past this position and I have every expectation that we will not be hearing from HexOs in the very near future.
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Ui/UX is so trash. I hope they will change it
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lol. Very informative! Didn’t have to reach the 15 min mark before realising I don’t want anything to do with Hex OS :’D
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Not at all happy that this proposed product is not 100% local. Probably will not use it as a result. Will wait and see. As a hobbyist, TrueNas Scale costs me nothing beyond my own hardware. They make their money on enterprise offerings. Will HexOS cost money? That web infrastructure cannot be free, I wouldn’t think.
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In regards to the online-interface, I just fear what will happen when HexOS’s website goes down (for whatever reason)
That is why I would rather want a LAN-first NAS.
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For the target market he described, not allowing a user to add larger drives when capital becomes available is a disappointment, that matched drives requirement of truenas is a deal breaker for a lot of folks starting out.
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i’m at 11:52 so maybe there is something later on but for me, offline is a must, if offline is not possible this product is automatically out of my choice/option, anyway continuing to watch
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So just use TrueNAS Scale lol
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As an experienced self-hoster who runs unraid, truenas and proxmox, I don’t think I’m the demographic the HexOS team is looking for. But I do want to echo other comments and express that I don’t think a cloud only UI is the way to go for a product like this. I respect the fact that the team is trying to make an easy to use product but I don’t think exposing your UI like this is a wise thing for security.
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Thanks for this Q&A! it really got me more interested in HexOS than I was before! I have 2 “main” questions that came to my mind while watching the video.
I was wondering if TrueNAS/OpenZFS would benefit from this partnership, for example you were waiting for the RAID-Z Expansion, in it’s current state the old data keeps the old parity and only new data gets the new parity. I would expect that in your approach, there will be a warning or something that informs the user about it. But if in the future you develop something that helps to rebalance a pool, would it be proprietary or would it be made usable by others (Truenas/OpenZFS) (and I’m not talking about rebalancing between 2 vdevs).
I also wonder if I will be able as a TrueNAS (tech savvy) user be able to be a “backup buddy” for a friend, and/or will a friend be able to use my TrueNAS as a backup destination. (I think the latter is a bit harder to implement without an app or something that acts as a VPN). Would I be able on Truenas to set either a zfs replication or select HexOS as a cloud provider or vice versa?
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No mixed drives and non-local ui? Hard pass. I’ll go with Unraid but best of luck to HexOS.
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The online only UI is a non-starter for me. Why I want a home setup is to not be reliant upon a company to maintain a working service and take it away, steal my data, or lock it behind a paywall in the future.
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Great interview. I manage all my stuff with Docker Compose and have been planning a move to TrueNAS Scale whenever I build a NAS. I have a reverse proxy and a domain, no issue setting up remote access with Tailscale etc. I have not used TrueNAS Scale but I am confident I could learn it quickly.
Would you say HexOS would be a good fit if I decided I just didn’t want to bother with a lot of the grittier details? Though I ask this knowing myself and knowing I’d probably be getting my hands dirty anyway.
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The online webui is really a big deal breaker. I understand it might be a easier sell to a more newish users, but what about the security?. If they have a security hole in the code that now effects me also. Witch can make it easier for a bad party to come in. And the points regarding a dead drive and when the internet is down, sadly sounds like marketing speak and not how ppl really deal with a situation like that.
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Hoping they dont end up out of business before they can release a local UI because i can’t support until it’s available
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Was going to watch until I saw all the comments about hosted UI… no longer that interested. A lot of people who have their own NAS is because they DONT want to rely on another company to access and configure MY OWN DATA.
This is a dealbreaker for a TON of your early adopter audience. I can understand this being a more mainstream tool than TrueNAS… but getting off the ground in this niche market will be very difficult without the “techy family member” to suggest it.
Edit: ty NASCompares for the interview. Not a ton of coverage of this topic.
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Was going to be pretty awesome, but without a local UI – Not valid for me.
Would love to see Linus’ thoughts on this 🙂
The whole point of doing something like a NAS is to reduce your reliance on the cloud and it’s even hosted within AWS – Lovely.
There are some truly amazing NAS OS’ out there that I honestly thought this would disrupt, but it’s bringing in the complicated moving pieces of TrueNAS and all of the things it’s trying to replace.
OMV is probably the easiest of these that’s truly free and Open Source, TrueNAS Scale is an amazing piece of software and Unraid if you’re really all in on the NAS only thing.
Synology and QNAP I think are sighing huge sighs of relief – I think Linus is probably going to have a hernia 🙂
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I’m an OTR truck driver and I have a small 6 Bay NAS in my truck for local media and paperwork and general file storage. And alot of the time I have no internet or bad internet. Also since I have cellular internet I have alot of issues with double NAT and carrier grade NAT so local UI is a must 16:10
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I was excited for this, but Ill just stick with unraid.
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It looks like the intentions are pretty sincere, I do wish the best to them. I’ve used TrueNAS since 2024 (so 4 years) for business and personal, I think this has the right approach, and it’s got a nice short name too.
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Thanks @nascompares for hosting this Q&A. I fully appreciate all the comments about the hosted UI and we absolutely understand that they come from a good place. Creating a local UI option in the future to supplement the always-available TrueNAS UI/CLI is something we can do after we release our 1.0.
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If the UI is in the cloud, then you don’t own it. At any time your servers could get shutdown, or the company sold, new management, and all your storage/data is then hostage to that company. It also open vulnerabilities because we have to worry about your cloud security.
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The WAN show is going to be extra spicy this evening
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I guess I won’t be looking at HexOS at all. It’s *my* server, *my* rules. I love unraid as it is plenty simple and offers defaults, but it never “corners” you into its own decisions. You can always proceed as you wish regardless. And no local web ui = bye bye
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Was looking forward to this but after hearing about the hosted web ui, this not an option for me anymore. I don’t want to connect to ANY type of cloud. There needs to at least be an option to be local only
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“Everyone should have control over their personal data and privacy” they say and proceed with online only configuration UI 🙂
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I’m excited to try this out. The hosted vs. local thing is an interesting caveat, but I agree that in most cases you’re going to be connected to the internet anyway. My only concern is about longevity of this company and what happens if they go under.
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Many of us are working from home, this is a reality theres no working around. Overlooking this scenario is a huge downside imho.
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no mixed drives? HARD PASS. I have perfectly good 3 and 4Tb NAS drives from WD and Seagate. only recently supplemented by a few 12Tb exos drives I got on a good deal. NO WAY I’ll dumb those 3 and 4Tb drives. Its unnecessary E-waste and I’m not shitting gold either. At least now I know I dont have to waste time watching more youtube vids on this subject to see if its something I want to check out.
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Man this guys answers for Hosted vs Local UI are just pure marketing speak and non-answers.
They are going to have to show how secure their side of things are, also the whole Plex model allows them to make this a subscription service or be like plex and revoke your access if they detect things they don’t like.
In an era of massive data breaches and user information being leaked like a sinking ship, this is not the great win they think it is.
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It’s a really strange decision to make it reliable on a webservice…
Why even own a NAS when you need a webservice for it to control it?
Looks like a really hard sell…
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Why would I login to a “hosted” central area? Seems like taking a big step back.????
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*Apologies* for my ‘shakey cam’ in the course of this Q&A. My primary camera during the recorded developed a fun framedrop periodically (likely the heat), so I had to revert to my backup camera that was mounted on the desk (rather than the wall bracket)! Still, better to have a backup than nothing at all!
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Local UI … well that’s what Linus one of your inventors wants for everything in his house … so maybe check with him soon …
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The hosted UI is a dealbreaker for me. I have very reliable fiber internet. Never fails so I’m not afraid the internet will go down. If they get hacked/attacked or go out of business I cannot manage my server.
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Please ask them if backup tasks will be multithreaded. If I have a one gig symmetrical fiber Internet connection to back blaze, I would love for that task to actually use as much as My Internet connection as possible with all the threads on my server to back up quickly.
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Can existing Truenas Users migrate to HexOS without breaking their stuff i.e pools and data ?
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1. Do you have a plan for implementing secure access to the server/files while away from the home network?
2. What is the purpose of the HexOS Command Deck? How will this be secured and why should it have continuous access to my server?
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Be careful and respectful when saying someonen’s else name… Schultz is not Schlutz!!
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I am personally mostly interested in the Docker container side of HexOS. TrueNAS has support for it build in, but it’s really annoying to use and has quite some restrictions. I personally want something similar in behavior to Portainer (usage of docker-compose files).
Will HexOS support something similar in terms of docker-compose support?
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LTT lied to their audience for over a decade and didn’t make changes till they were called out.
Why would you want to be associated with someone like this?
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I’m with @moto-rambler and if he’s put his money on it, I guarantee that this is a subscription model.
Linus’s mask has been removed. He’s a narcissist and all about $$
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I think this could have been a desirable product to me a year ago, but in that time I’ve learned that a free challenge is more enjoyable to me than a paid ride down easy street. Truenas for me.
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bankers Facebook ????????????
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So it’s essentially going to be a skinned trueness
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Any plans on a mirroring feature, so that I and a HexOS friend can give eachother space (locked down for each user) for an offsite backup?
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Can they provide any insight on how the software will be commercialised?
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How user friendly is it?
Will there be any command line needed at all?
Will I be able to use programs like jellyfin or immich outside of my local home network (away from home) without having to port forward and things like that?
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Will HexOS allow partitioning install drive not to waste whole ssd for boot pool? Or allow creation of datasets on boot pool? Or is it just using Truenas as basis that does not provide such functionality out of the box?
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What is it???
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What YouTube rules prevent you from playing the WAN show?
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How granular will we be able to go within HexOS? I like simplicity, but if I cannot dig deep when I need to it will be more annoying than useful.
From the images posted it seems like it might be “baby’s first NAS” oriented, will this be useful for people who are new to this space but still interested in tinkering?
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Will it have a DAS option through USB4?
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Is this a standalone overlay for Scale, or are they working with TrueNAS devs? If they are collaborating with devs, will they have any input on driver development direction? i.e. I know TrueNAS hates Realtec, so no Realtec NIC drivers – will this change, or is it purely down to Realtec’s stance on the open-sourcing of their drivers?
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What will virtualisation/container support look like in the beta/future? I currently use Proxmox to host a few linux containers. One for media (plex/deluge/sonarr/radarr), one for discord bots and one for occasionally hosting private game servers for friends (i.e. minecraft). I regret going with proxmox a little since I have to create/maintain/refer to documentation every time I need to change or update something. How it handles disks/mounting is a pain in the ass too.
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Fingers crossed I guess… Like most things in the world of Linux TrueNAS. FreeNAS, OMV, Unraid are a lot like putting lipstick on a pig and claiming it’s beautiful. Yes you could get intimate with a pig in makeup, but most would call that “Unnatural behaviour”.
My NAS (running in a VM) is an x86 copy of DietPi as the lightest functional Linux distro I could find, with CasaOS on top – great? No… but most importantly relatively free of the sub-surface ugliness and an idiotic lack of sensible defaults that is ‘normal’ Linux.
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Will HexOS UI follow the pattern of proprietary softwares such as Synology and Ugreen ones?
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Will it have mobile its own mobile app?
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ETA on any beta?
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Will there be a simple backup solution with agents for all major OSes including Linux (eg, Ubuntu/Debian based distros)?
After switching your Linux, yet to find partition level backup solution anywhere near the quality of Macrium Reflect. Have Synology NASes but started as non btrfs volume so can’t even use their Active Backup for Business without playing musical chairs with many TBs of data..
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One of the advantages of Unraid over TrueNas is that you can use hard disks of different sizes. Will there be something similar with HexOS?
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Does it have … or wishes:
from the beginning standards such as: FTP, NFS, SMB
simple user management (for home users <10) (TrueNAS scale horrible and >1000 clicks)
Solid write(!!) cache for fast networks and hard disk compensation
no subscription model, maximum one-time payment and not so expensive like unraid
Synchronization with OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox (like Cloudsync from Synology)
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If I am capable of using TrueNAS Scale / Docker / etc. already, is there any reason for me to care about this? In other words, how would the developers pitch HexOS to tech savvy people?
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I pray to the TrueNAS gods to bring me good luck and HexOS frontend replacements
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This is pretty much made for me, like I know a bit about NAS software and all of that but I care more about the hardware. So having something easy to set up would be great for me.
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This is something i would love myself. As is finding myself learning linux after moving away from windows, it’s a huge change and takes A LOT of time commitment to learn with such a step learning curve. As is this, if i could have a more user friendly version to springboard myself into how it works, and apply the application, I can tinker with a working product, rather than tinker for days if not weeks on a product that isn’t fully working, or breaks. Especially more so i’ve held off any backup software as when i want to back everything up, i want it done right the first time. I only have one set of hardware.
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There’s a huge question of WHO are they going to get to beta test this? If they’re targeting novices, are they going to be able to trust them to NOT store the only copies of their files on a beta version of an OS? And why would experienced users want to bother beta testing something that isn’t for them?
Especially with the reach of LTT, I can imagine a scenario where a lot of people put too much trust in a beta product and a LOT of data gets lost forever. Scary stuff.
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Lol they’re gonna charge me to use truenas.
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It sounds like it is going to be what Ubuntu is to Debian
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Yet again it’s a waste of time and money. It’s the same thing that the other ones are. Do something different for once
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Jesus, if Linus have his hand over this OS I will for sure Not invest any energy on it, leaving the video bye bye
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Wonder how long it will be updated. I mean how long term they are thinking about supporting this software. With other option they are on the market for some time now.
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The UNVR and UNVR Pro (Ubiquiti) will suggest a RAID config based on the drives you’ve installed. They ‘simplify’ it well but also provide the technical terms in the ‘finer print’ to appease both armatures and pros alike
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So the “os” is a skin for Truenas scale?
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I think it’s also important to mention HexOS isn’t even released yet and everything is solely speculation.
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So what does it do that OMV can’t?
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Backed by LTT? Let me guess, comes with a “Trust me Bro” guarantee……
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I understand about the importance of complexity especially with the NAS
My biggest disappointment with my Synology is it’s inability to differentiate between EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT permissions.
With a standard FTP server app (such as windows FTP server or Filezilla FTP server)
I can create on over arching folder schema and just give certain users access to specific subfolders
without having to give everyone access and then create a boat load of denial permissions .
Example:
Users: joe, schmo, curly, mo to give joe access to Users/joe I have to give everyone access to the entire path and deny schmo, curly, & mo to joe’s folder
Instead of just giving everyone access to the users folder and ONLY giving joe access to his folder.
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I’d love to be able to run HexOS on my Synology; I got it dirt cheap and I hate DSM.
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This looks awesome ! I am not a savvy Linux user but I want to use a nas os on a rig I’m building and I’ve looked at a few options so far and many of them simply look intimidating. This is the first one that looks easy as a non Linux enjoyer. I know people who are in this space already are hardcore Linux lovers but I’ve tried hundreds of times to give Linux a shot and I never really fully enjoy it and find it a bit out of my realm. I like a clean and super simple gui. If you make me use a cli I just end up dipping out. I’m very very dyslexic and have a hard time spelling and also remembering commands and simple codes so I suck so bad it’s not even funny with just remembering and typing in simple commands.
Is there any other options for a nas os that will be simple ? I’ll be running 2 14tb sata drives and 2 2tb nvme drives. CPU I’ll be running is a 12400f, 16gb ddr5, z690 chipset with 2.5gb lan. Main goal is network storage and backup for both me and my wife and have a way to maybe learn about some apps and if any of them can help us in anyways. All this is super overwhelming lol.
I thought about buying a synology nas but the model I want with nvme support is out of my price range and I’ve been told all other brands are too risky and get hacked all the time.
Any advice would be very much appreciated. I have watched 2 dozen or more of your videos so far trying to learn about the features and what your thoughts are on different nas units. Thanks for all you do ❤
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You lost me at loonix
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Anything LTT put his hands on i would very much not touch, even with mittens with flower embroideries
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I would love to have this as I like to tinker on things and learn the ins and outs of more complex concepts but I haven’t found a NAS or NAS OS that, as Apple puts it (I believe), “Just works!” so I need something that I can basically just set and forget and should any problems happen I can take 20 minutes to an hour or less to set up instead of a complex potentially many day process to get things working again.
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A simple backup os would be a killer for a lot of people. If you are mad and double down on truenas, this OS is not for you. OMV and TruenasCore are the only “easy” diy solutions, and even this have a learning curve. Let’s agree to disagree and be happy there is competition.
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as a noob the most crucial thing for me is the mobile apps. It is one thing to set up the Synology NAS, install Plex, download station, photo station, etc etc, but the mobile apps allowing you to do so much from your mobile are great. I’ve often been thinking that I should just build my own, but then so many of them don’t have the mobile apps you get from Synology. Or maybe they do and I just have no idea.
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That UI is equally as bad as TrueNAS. How hard is it to just look at Synology, UmbrelOS, etc. Even Terra-Master nailed it.
It’s one thing if it’s an unfunded project – but if they are a funded company with the goal of making a good UI, they failed.
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I would love to turn old windows pc that are DDR3 to DDR4 ram supported PC turn them into a nas to reduce e waste.
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Since unraid launched an abusive pay system I’ve been searching an alternative. Hope this gets traction.
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Thanks so much for this video. I’m looking at buying a new NAS to replace my 10+ years old Microserver Gen8 running DSM through Xpenology that has been dead reliable that entire time, but I was holding out until more information became available about this OS so thanks for this initial look at it.
I get what they’re trying to do with HexOS and I think a younger version of me would’ve been all over this, but I think given my experience with DSM and my need for something hands-off, I’ll probably stick with what I know. Great that there’s more competition in this field though. Especially with these Ugreen devices for example coming on the market recently, where long term reliability and support is still an unknown.
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I think the Hex OS needs to be preconfigured and provide detailed settings, give options to fix, have secure and ready to go settings, with guide in menues for advanced folder permisions, and users, configure custom secure remote access priveleges, and focus on reliability. Truenas is awkward with connecting shares with users and permisions, and lacks native secure remote access and auto backups. I mean something like Synology OS for custom hardware is an unleashed NAS software i imagine users like me would appriciate.
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Great stuff
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Can you make a quick video with NAS suggestions for newcomers? I am looking at starting a home system for file storage and some Plex, and I am wondering if it’s a good time to go to Synology, or if I should wait a little longer to see what Ugreen does.
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opened, started watching, mispronounced Schultz and beta and immediately leaving this vid.
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I am saving to deploy something big, EOY, I’m planning a hybrid thing not just SSD and HDD pools. Before I might have considered it, but I have worked it all out on trunas, been pretty happy on a smaller scale Lab. Also this is new software, built on ture nas I guess, I’m sure this will be pretty solid or whatever, but let someone else canary it.
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If this is TrueNasScale with Docker instead of Kubernetes i’m down to try.
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OMV with casa os is a good alternative. There’s also Zima os which is still in development. All are good options
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wonder how fun it will be to migrate away once it reaches dead-end development… or only later becomes a paid only addon…
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Problem is, Linus and his team are all sacks of s. How quickly people forget. I can’t imagine any scenario where they deserve our support. Novice users can use whatever’s built into their retail NAS, and advanced users can just use TrueNAS, UnRAID, Proxmox, etc. After watching their fake (monetized) apology video tour, I swore them off forever. Plus all the stuff coming to light about his commentary on ‘science’ just is not appropriate for a tech review channel.
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Tile based skin, gotcha. Pass!
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Oh man the Plex install was what really got me when I was trying to setup my own Debian based home server. As a Windows person, im trying to move everything away from Server 2019 and the damn file permissions on Linux are NUTS… Thanks for answering my question though since its been burning a hole in my brain for months. I figured it was a file permissions issue but, again, using Debian, its not that simple either. Im going with ProxMox and TrueNAS Scale for my main OS running the machines since they seem to be the best for what I need to do. It was “fun” trying to config my own setup but also a hair pulling experience. Cheers!
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I love truenas scale, the only thing i find confusing is the permissions.
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Will it check for a confirmation code that we purchased a screwdriver from LTT? Lol jk… but curious where Louis Rossmann falls on these NAS OS.
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People keep talking about ZimaOS as it’s something special but it’s just CasaOS with a new name and CasaOS started life back in sep 26 2021 progress on ZimaOS is slow.
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I’m just not convinced that there are a lot of people outside who are willing and capable to build their own NAS but than use a very restricted OS because they are not techsavy enough.
In my view they just buy a synology or qnap
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LTT is involved? Aight ima head out.
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Honestly I’ve switched to omv after years of setting stuff up. I just needed something stupid simple… Im actually also installing cosmos cloud on top of it. I have to assume this is very similar to that. I just don’t see the benefit for me atm.
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All these linux projects with the dumb “OS” tags in them. Screams amateur to me. This project is more like “True as with HexUI”
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my question is since its based off scale is it going to be useing docker for apps or K3’s cuz scale is ditching K3’s for docker
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Interesting project. I tried TrueNAS and loved everything about it, except the user management. It was just baffling to me. I ended up using OMV instead.
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It’s the same as Symantec Beestation – making NAS for the masses. Any average user who wants a simple NAS system with all of the Geeky settings hidden from sight is completely put off by channels like this !!! Listen to how you are trying to complicate and find potential issues in everything Hex is clearly trying to simplify and it hasn’t even been released yet ! Synology and others have deliberately made NAS systems a geek fest so it serves them right that they have left a gaping hole in the market for other disruptors to take advantage of.
By the way there is one negative – I can’t stand Linus.
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If LTT’s/Linus’s name is anywhere near it, I’m staying far, far away.
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Eric SHLUTZ??? I think you mean Eric Schultz mate! lol
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No mention of OMV as an alternative to truenas scale and unraid. An up-to-date comparison of the features and limitations of these might be warranted now.
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I think the problems with NAS software is it is trying to do way too much often …. if it sticks to Network attached storage it all works much better.
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You could simplify truenas with use-cases and some user-friendly autodetection.
e.g. “Is this for streaming movies for home?” vs “Is this for editing video?” That makes a difference between selecting HDD and SSD drives. Backup hosts… “How much data is being backed up?” and “how fast is the network?” might change your drive layout from performance to capacity focused. It could make suggestions, “you’ll need 3 drives of size X to migrate the data on your current array.”
For VMs, “I automatically enabled PCI pass-through in the kernel” would be nice. Then, “I did some driver detection on your PCIE devices… would you like this graphics card/NIC/blueray writer passed through to the VM?”. Maybe some network scanning… “I found a TV but no media server, would you like one?” “I found some ubiquiti network kit, would you like me to install the manager and walk you through the install?”
Or to address some of truenas scale’s deficiencies… “click here to select a user which will always be used to run this kubernetes application, even if it updates.”
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TrueNAS has already a decent UI for its backend. Maybe it is not too easy but it is not too hard either.
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Interesting. I’m gonna check this out. I’m a big fan of Unraid. My adoption hinges on docker and VM support. IMO a major strength of Unraid is its implementation of virtualization
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Some aspects of truenas are abominably awful. Potentially this may be a fantastic option. Especially if it works like gl.inet’s GUI works on top of openwrt in the router world (with the option of going into the full openwrt GUI for advanced features).
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I do want to hear more about this. Maybe it is what I need.
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An OS that needs user knowledge. That fits Linus to a T.
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I would rather have Windows 11 as a daily driver than have anything to do with LTT or the hot pile of garbage that is the user interface and permissions/user setup of Truenas.
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what kind of person will have the knowledge to build a hardware NAS but be so stupid to need a 0 level OS??? yes there are people that cant put gas in their car, but they didnt build the car to start with.
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I was looking forward to this but with truenas moving to docker compose this year I don’t feel the need to switch
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LI = wankers facebook LMAO. So true. Does anyone give a %^@#%^ about someone ‘sharing their thoughts’ on LI ??
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Now bring it beautiful compact case as Synology ds620slim
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Will the OS harrass me and gaslight me? If not, no buy.
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It’s funny how a UI can suddenly be a whole new OS? We don’t talk about Gnome OS or KDE OS when we are talking about which DE we are running. Call it HexUI or something.
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As with many things I always have to ask, “Who is this even for?”
Seriously. If we’re talking about an “accessible” and “simplified” NAS and then throwing a UI on top of something like TrueNAS, then throwing in features like VMs and containerized Apps into the mix then you’ve already lost your target audience in favor of the competition. It’s already trying trying to do too many things at once, outside of basic NAS functionality.
Then you have in the screenshots and specs of this utterly ridiculous example environment in their marketing. An AMD R7 7700X with 32GB of RAM and a friggin’ RTX 4070 ti 12GB and 10GBe NIC? WTAF?!? Exactly what “enthusiast” is running this kind of setup on a dedicated box and then looking for streamlined “simplicity” and “accessibility” in their NAS environment? If you’ve committed to that kind of setup, you’re already committed to and looking for the kind of complexity, scalability, and feature rich environment of actual TrueNAS Scale or UnRAID.
Also for that kind of money, you’re waaaay into upper tier Synology territory. The price of Ryzen and RTX alone would already bag you a 12 Bay Synology DX1215II. Trow in a chassis, mobo, the 32GB RAM and NIC and you’re most of the way into some serious storage territory too.
Again. Who is this for? Someone with the money and tech knowledge to build a dedicated custom gaming level rig, yet can’t figure out UnRAID, TrueNAS, OMV, Ubuntu Server, or a host of other similar new and old solutions (already saturating the market) over a weekend? I’m just not seeing it.
Look, I love the idea of competition, innovation, and choice, but this seems more like solution in search of an audience, rather a solution to an actual problem or gap in the market.
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Ummm … I think its Eric Shultz, not Shluts.
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can’t wait to test it
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If it’s backed by LTT, no thanks.
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If it is not Debianbased, there is no reason to take it seriously, Truenas is not worth the time and so the money…
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Lol! Hadn’t heard W4nkers Facebook before, but it’s nice to hear I’m not alone in not liking it. ????
In my opinion it really looks like photoshopped images since the image where the ethernet jacks was shown said 10Gbit on one and 2,5Gbit on the other, but it still said 8.5 Mbit/s on both. Correct me if I’m wrong.
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As former truenas and currently Unraid user I can only say that I am not looking any further for other nas os. Unraid simply has it all with easy to set up manner
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So HexOS is a wrapper around TrueNAS and TrueNAS is a monitoring wrapper around Netdata, which again HexOS pulls the metrics from.
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I lost all interest when I saw that HexOS is based on TrueNAS.
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I came here just to downvote, from the title alone.
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As result of this association with LTT, I have created and sent a circular to all of our associates to not purchase this product and that we will not be doing business with anyone that does not choose to comply.
I will NOT allow LTT in my companies nor associates. Ever. LTT is a terrible company for which one of high moral stance must take a stand.
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I realize funding is important and needed here, but doesn’t this being LTT-backed erode perception of a quality OS (based on LTT history)? Is this just a skin, kinda like buying a screwdriver and slapping your logo on it. I’d be very cautious about trusting critical data here until long term support is proven. Maybe viable in 2029 or so.
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When is this out?
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Honestly not a bad idea for those who want what TrueNas offers but don’t need the whole kit. I’ll stick with Truenas personally but I can see this as a viable option instead of unraid for some depending on price.
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I think the hardest part of truejas scale is just the steep beginning lvl learning curve, it plateau very quickly the that first spike is really scary. Also people really aren’t a fan of only being able to expand pool in chunks. At my work it baffled people that u couldn’t just add a drive so I had to explain to them how raid worked
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I think the hardest part of truejas scale is just the steep beginning lvl learning curve, it plateau very quickly the that first spike is really scary. Also people really aren’t a fan of only being able to expand pool in chunks. At my work it baffled people what. Could just add a drive
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So… All this time for a truenas setup wizard?
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Meeh
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Anything backed by ltt automatically makes me pause and reconsider if it’s really a good product. Since it’s been shown that ltt’s attention to detail is lacking due to deadlines that are way too short, and it would seem to leak into all their investments.
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How is calling LinkedIn “Wankers Facebook” relevant to anything? Makes you sound like a complete tosser.
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So it’s a custom GUI that hides all the advanced features and stuff that a novice user wouldn’t normally need to use and adds in some scripting and wizards to make setup easy? I dig the idea. Especially setting up the remote backup stuff. Rolling your own remote backup setup isn’t the hardest thing in the world but definitely outside the normal reach of a large percentage of the normal PC user space so automating that process could be a very popular option!
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I would potentially be the part of the target audience, but I’m happy with Unraid as a newbie user and Docker support is important for me.
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Seems like a simplified skin
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LTT backed?? Best avoid that dumpsterfire
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Most snobbish and elitist comment section I’ve seen!
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You lost me at “Linus/LTT”.
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What I want is file permissions that work properly and it simple. TrueNAS sucks for users and permissions.
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I used to like Truenas Scale until they removed docker. Unless you run it in a vm, which defeats the purpose. k3s is huge hassle for little gains for home lab. I hope HexOS doesn’t go down that path, but I have a feeling they will have to unless they are continuing development completely separate. I do like their goal though. Most OS’s are gibberish to people and don’t need to be.
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I have had many challenging experiences with ZFS (SSD) (instability/corruption/performance lower than expected). It would be beneficial to support MDADM with BTRFS on top.
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Not enough info. Also never be the beta. I will wait. Also how much will it cost? True nas is not free and licening it sounds pretty expensive. Do i have to pay for truenas then hex skin? I hope its not a subscription.
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Is the software as corrupt as LTT’s personality? I wouldn’t run it if it were the only NAS OS on the planet.
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Still look promising than ugreen nas OS ????
If it is a fancy skin/theme for truenas
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I went from WD ex2 ultra two bay to a ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 running Truenas scale so I have an SSD for OS and four H/Drive in raid 5 and all good.
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Looks like it’s just an overlay for TrueNAS that just sets specific switches for TrueNAS automatically. Basically preset templates. Until it’s on my test server, that’s all I can make of it.
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fraud
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so it sound like a skin over truenas
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As a TrueNAS Scale user, which really is not hard to learn. I really don’t see the value in a second hand version of Scale.
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Linus talked about that Backups are too hard for novice users and he wants to build a system where you can easily make backups to frieds/family outside of your network and having that secured so your friends cannot access your backups (and of course they can backup to your nas).
That would be the killer feature for me .. backups, especially external, are quite hard to plan and most don’t talk about that.
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Looks promising! Would be very welcome in this arena, I do believe.
A user-friendly “shell” that would benefit DIY and home-users would significantly help those adapting and “rolling their own”, building their homelabs.
Watchout Synology, here they come! (evil grin)
I myself would be interested (somewhat) repurposing my older (QNAP) hardware, if that is a possibility in their arena…
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