# TrueNAS Reviews **Vendor:** iXsystems **Category:** [Storage Systems Hardware](https://www.g2.com/categories/storage-systems) **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 167 ## About TrueNAS TrueNAS, the world's most deployed storage software, is a universal data platform that allows users to easily adopt a modern, open source approach to store and protect their growing data. TrueNAS harnesses the power of the legendary ZFS file system to provide unified storage (File, Block Object, and Apps) with the reliability and performance demanded by virtualization, backup, and many other data-heavy workloads. The TrueNAS CORE edition (formerly FreeNAS) is based on FreeBSD for unified scale-up storage. The TrueNAS SCALE edition is based on Debian Linux for either scale-up or scale-out solutions, and offers Linux Containers, VMs (KVM), and scale-out ZFS storage capabilities. Both versions are free to use and work well on a variety of hardware. Join the millions already using TrueNAS, including the majority of Fortune 500 companies, and experience why TrueNAS is so highly rated for yourself. ## TrueNAS Reviews ### 1. Reliable NAS with Robust Data Integrity **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** James H. | Desktop Support Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I use trueNAS as a home file server and network attached storage. I also like how it allows me to run a Plex Media Server for our family's home video storage and to access our music library while driving, which lets me listen to music ad-free. It's free and uses a file system that is incredibly resilient, surviving power outages without corrupting any files. I've been using it since 2022 with no real issues. The OpenZFS file system, with its copy-on-write architecture and end-to-end checksums, ensures data integrity and reliability, automatically detecting and repairing errors. I've experienced fewer issues with trueNAS compared to Windows Server 2021. The initial setup was incredibly simple for me, although I am more tech-savvy than most. I also appreciate that trueNAS requires much less maintenance compared to Ubuntu Server, which I used before switching. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** My only real frustration with trueNAS was the change from the BSD kernel to the Linux kernel. I love the Linux kernel, but there is no easy upgrade path if you used older versions of trueNAS like trueNAS Core to the current version. I wish they would provide a simple and easy upgrade path, but fortunately they use the same file system so you don't lose any files necessarily. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use trueNAS for a simple and reliable Plex Media Server and as an easy-to-access network drive at home. Its file system is incredibly resilient, handling power outages without data corruption. ### 2. Easy Setup, Powerful WebGUI—TrueNAS Makes Storage Management Effortless **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Luis F. | SysAdmin, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 04, 2026 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** The most impressive part of TrueNAS is the barrier to entry. It was incredibly easy to install and configure. Once the initial boot is done, you rarely have to touch the physical hardware again. Everything is handled through the WebGUI, which is clean, intuitive, and surprisingly powerful. Managing disks, pools, and permissions feels modern rather than a chore. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** So far I have come to like using TrueNAS **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use both of my instances primarily for in-home cloud storage via SMB (Server Message Block). Whether I’m on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device, accessing my files is instantaneous. It bridges the gap between having a "server" and having a drive that just works like it's plugged directly into my computer. ### 3. An excellent NAS solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Francesco P. | Senior Storage Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Boasting long experience and a solid foundation, this new Linux-based version, unlike the Freebsd-based TrueNAS Core, stands out for users who want both robust storage and versatile applications. Also in this version we have the ZFS file system, renowned for its data integrity, self-healing capabilities and integrated features such as snapshots and replication, an excellent solution for data security. The interface is similar to that of TrueNAS Core, navigating the interface is intuitive. From here you can manage pools, data sets and shares and install apps. In this version we find a catalog of TrueNAS SCALE apps. There are a rich selection of pre-configured apps, simplifying deployment for common use cases such as web servers and development environments. This product is excellent for the home for those who want to take care of and have a guarantee on the security of the data they are archiving and gives the possibility of experimenting or creating a real home laboratory for all your needs. Simply put with the flexibility this system offers if you want a NAS solution that goes beyond simple file serving, TrueNAS Scale is the perfect solution. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Given the support and how the various problems are addressed even for the free versions, to date I don't see any problems for which I shouldn't recommend this product. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** pool otimizations ### 4. Best NAS Operating System **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Pedro Andres R. | Solution Responsable Sales, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 26, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Many things! ZFS, its management interface, the fact that it has CORE and SCALE. Simple to implement. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Support is only for 5YR max, without the option to extended support. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** ZFS Snapshots offer GREAT protection! The ability to have Immutable Snapshots is awesome. ### 5. A great system for NAS and not-NAS needs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Davi S. | Técnico de infraestrutura, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** This is a very interesting NAS system to work with, specially for its flexibility. It has lots of options to connect with, including AFP, NFS, SMB/CIFS, iSCSI, and many others. The plugin ecossystem, although it does not have many plugins available, does have very interesting options to choose from, including CI/CD tools, home entertainment softwares, and other neat apps that could move your appliance away from being a simple NAS box. I've had some issues with it's NFS server, but all in all, it is a very good addition for your office, home lab, or anything else you might require a robust storage system to back. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Not much to talk about here. I'm yet to test the SCALE version (I'm still using CORE 13.0), but so far, the only real issue is that the UI is not very easy to use. But I'm sure this might have evolved in newer versions. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having a centralized storage for all of our systems, and for common data. ### 6. A stable solution for NAS **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Allan W. | President and CEO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Easy to deploy. I prefer ZFS to the other options on open system OSs. The web GUI is good for simply administrating the storage. With Scale, it is a solution that scales beyond a single host. I like the ability to perform tasks from the GUI or CLI. It is easy to deploy. The most complicated task is planning your disk layout to form the pool(s). A developmental host is good to have to explore the many deployment options. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** The web GUI seems a bit limited in administrating the ZFS pool(s). I find I have to go to the CLI to get the job done. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Having a central place to manage data within the network. It's straight-forward to perform backups. ### 7. TrueNAS Core is excellent for home use **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** - ZFS filesystem with builtin self checks and weekly scrubbing - Disk errors are automatically detected and I am notified about them - Pool management that beautifully handles disk loss, disk replacement, and intermittent issues - Configuration is relatively easy except for user rights management **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** - User rights management could be easier to configure - Android push notifications could be nice if disks fail - No support for home directories within a shared filesystem - ARM version could be interesting for lower power systems **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm trialing TrueNAS Core for my do-it-yourself home NAS. The NAS serves files for myself and my family, nothing spectacular just the usual home and school stuff. Configuration was a bit difficult regarding user rights, but after that was done it worked beautifully so far. I'm also thinking about trying out TrueNAS Scale, but I would like to get some experience in Kubernetes first. TrueNAS Core is excellent for home or small office use, where you only need to manage a few disks and pools. Samba and ZFS share is more than enough for such a home NAS. No idea if it would be suitable for a larger enterprise use, for my programming job it would not be appropriate for Docker Swarm and Kubernetes volumes. I have no experience with TrueNAS Scale so I can not comment on that. ### 8. My Truenas Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ruben C. | Discord Server Helper for Rally Coding, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Truenas has been the best OS for file, but not only that, it has been incredible, during the years I've worked with it... For more than 3 years, installation is peace of cake, and really really easy to use and to integrate with coming from other OSes... I use it daily and Custer Support is top notch, whenever I had any issues I knew that I could open a ticket and it would be solved as quickly as possible, I love it **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I wouldn't change a thing in truenas it has a lot of features that I rely on on a day to day basis **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Centralized Data and it has been incredible ### 9. TrueNAS Scale 23.10.1 **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I really love the ZFS. Ialso love all the almost 900 apps that are available. I use it for Plex and Nextcloud. I use if for many other things but the first two are the main reason I began with TrueNAS. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I found learning TrueNAS was a bit of a learning curve and the forums tend to assume you are already versed in many of the areas dealing with TrueNAS. that didnt matter much as the community is very helpful if you let them know where your at. so if you can install a program to an operating system, you can install and learn to use TrueNAS. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Im not a business , just a home user. I have friends and family that benefit from my TrueNAS set up. ### 10. Best NAS software for home use **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rob N. | Application Integration Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I like the amount of apps that are available. When one adds the Truechart repository, there are hundreds of apps available. The configuration options are endless and the speed and responsiveness of the software is truly amazing. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** It does require some technical knowledge and a lot of web searching to figure out things like permissions and mounting storage inside app containers, for example. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It replaces my Netgear ReadyNAS and it totally outperformed it from the start. It is very flexible and functionality is easily expanded with the ability to install hundreds of apps. ### 11. Easy and reliable **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Program Development | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 14, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** In our company we use TrueNAS Scale as a network shared storage solution for our offices. It is easy to configure and reliable. It allows us to work comfortably and keep our backups secure. At our headquarters, more than 40 employees work against the same TrueNAS server and we have not registered any incident for months. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Some configurations are not clear and it is necessary to refer to the forums for more information. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It allows our company to share files on the network quickly and securely, in addition to offering a private cloud where we can make our backups. ### 12. Great solution on a budget **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ivan A. | Inside Sales Representative, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Using it for home use, large offline storge, off-site backups. Great solution for hobbyists or small businesses **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** You need to dive in and sort out the setup and the interface, which can be a little daunting. There isn't a polished plug-and-play GUI **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Storage, backups, network share, production server ### 13. TrueNAS Scale, a user review. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I use TrueNAS Scale at my own since a stable release of 2 year ago, it fits perfectly my needs, it is very reliable and ongoing through the various releases demostrates a great effort to make always a better product each time. I use the containerization and it is excellent for my purposes as the NAS feature also are. It's great product that works really. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** None in my honest opinion, I shall be back if some doubts arise. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it as development enviroment for containerization, NAS and local storage for containers' data. ### 14. Production stability, versatile and actually free **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Soubinan Jean-Jaurès K. | Consultant DevOps, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** It is free Production ready and ultra stable Easy to operate Greate community Community driven Great support Versatile **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Not totally focused on storage Trie to do non-storage related stuffs **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Centralized storage solution ### 15. Solid and dependable even as a home user **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brian F. | Web Content Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** ZFS integration, UI is nice to use, easy to set up, Community support is awesome, I use it daily **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Resilvering takes forever! No customer support **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** My own problems ### 16. Mature and extendible NAS OS **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dennis Y. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** ability to extend with apps from catalogs **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** no docker compose feature allowed by the UI **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** housing network drive - SMB share. and business critical apps like Nextcloud, WordPress, InvoiceNinja ### 17. Truenas is the turnkey solution for nfs/smb sharing for me. Very solid and well **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cedric H. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Truenas delivers very powerful tools in a very simple UI **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** It's based in ZFS, so you should have the exact same disks in a setup, and can't easy expand a storage **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Very solid and effortless file sharing softearr ### 18. The only viable OSfor a NAS is TrueNas Scale **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Will be building a NAS with TrueNas Scale in the near future. This is the only viable OS i've found. There are some Quality of life improvements I'd like to see in it but overall its stable and performant. It also supports docker containers, which Core does not. As ZFS + ECC memory are a must for data integrity, i wish ECC was more mainstream today (thanks to intel for that). It is starting to come around now but it should have been already. The NAS will be a cornerstone to the HomeLab setup i'm building. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Needs some Quality of life improvements and UI tweaks **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Mass storage with redunancy and performance. ### 19. Excellent Software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jorge C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Very easy to use and reliable. Nothing in the market like this product. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Almost nothing. Sometime integrations and implementation are difficult. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Replacing HHD and the whole hardware. ### 20. Has solved my big data needs to perfection **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christian Buchhave M. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** The relatively easy setup of a system of this complexity is truly awesome **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Dashboard page can sometimes be a little tedious to get to show the disk info **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** having HA access to my data at all times, and have data redundancy easy at hand ### 21. Really good NAS software (and hardware) **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steve K. | CSO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** It's free as in beer, with commercially supported plans and hardware, it's well supported and the open source version is kept up to date, works on lots of hardware and many plugins/addins. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** nothing much can be a bit of learning curve compared to some pre-built commercial system. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great file storage ### 22. TrueNAS is the best **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** You can put the free version on any hardware and runs really well even on the older hardware. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I cannot create storage tiers for hybrid storage. most often we require performance with high capacity without breaking the bank. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Providing a Veeam Cloud Repository to backup clients' Microsoft 365 data. ### 23. TrueNAS - the ultimate NAS-solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Networking | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 05, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS is easy to use and it's really powerful. TrueNAS is easy to get up and running on almost any hardware. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS might be a bit difficult for new users but they have good documentations and tutorials for that. TrueNAS has also big and friendly community that can help with problems, **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS helps me to access my important files from any device, from anywhere. ### 24. Easy to setup, secure, reliable storage solution with modern standards. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Günter G. | VP of Engineering, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** It just works. Based on a secure distribution with native ZFS support. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** S3 is not built-in but requires running minio. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Backup storage solution. ### 25. Simple yet sophisticated **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** It's easy to use very well done and well-made and it has great support and plus it's very easy to use! **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I can't really find much bad to say except that it's really great to use, the only thing I would like to see is more backup integration from different providers **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Finding a better backup solution that is robust and can be easily deployed and set up ### 26. TrueNAS SCALE is fantastic! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mohammed E. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2024 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueCHART community and the deployement of new services is so easy **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** OpenZFS use a lot of ram. but it's okay. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm using it for my homelab. ### 27. Awesome NAS software for the low price of free **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** How fully featured and easy to use it is while still being free. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Nothing really, haven't had any issues with it so far. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It makes it easy for me to manage a large pool of drives as network storage, thus letting me have a more centralized storage solution. ### 28. Powerful and user friendly **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter D. | Seasonal Worker, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 07, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I am brand new to hosting my own data solutions but using trueNAS was incredibly intuitive. I now host my own NAS which I intend to use to back up documents, photos and video. At the same time, I can also host game servers as plugins in order to play hosted games with my friends online without paying a monthly subscription fee. I still have a lot to learn, but the documentation has been great so far and there are a lot of users willing to help on forums that I now frequent. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I think what I dislike is mostly attributed to my inexperience with this kind of software. I don't fully understand the capabilities or implications of certain options that are made available, and I am proceeding with caution but also learning along the way. I would love a step by step guide to common end user goals instead of multiple videos about certain features. I think documentation like this would really help cut down on the amount of time it takes users to get a basic trueNAS system online. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am constantly running out of storage space on my PC and with some more HDD purchases on the horizon I will be able to finish my ideal safe and secure file storage solution. I have had to put the brakes on my photography passion in order to eliminate the risk of having to choose from deleting or keeping old photos in order to download new ones from my camera. ### 29. Great value, unbeatable data integrity, flexible storage and simple management **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Walt R. | System Administrator II, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Data integrity guaranteed by ZFS can't be touched. Outstanding value of TruNAS appliances vs the competition, which have proved quite reliable. We've received excellent tech support in the 4 years we've deployed them. The flexibility of file and block storage has proved useful. Near SSD performance with inexpensive SATA disks in our use cases saved us a lot of money. As long as the working set is in memory, it is faster than all-flash storage. All-flash systems are less expensive than competing spinning disk offerings from Tier 1 providers. We have more TruNAS systems than any other and had fewer problems than with Pure or EMC systems. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** No practical ZFS deduplication yet. The X series appliances have some annoying quirks. When it comes to redundant power and we've had issues where we had to replace the chassis to correct a false alarm for power redundancy. We never actually lost redundancy, but the chassis reported a PSU failure for one bay no matter what supply was installed. The other issue is that there is no way to power off the system cleanly from the chassis or web UI. If you shut down the system in the GUI the system fails over to the standby controller. This requires a bit of a dance to perform a clean shutdown. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use TruNAS for primary block storage in remote sites, dedicated SMB storage for Video and Publishing creative staff, archival storage and backup targets for Veeam in our main data center and disaster recovery sites. The data integrity of ZFS combined with the unbeatable cost of cheap and deep storage makes TruNAS a no-brainer for these use cases. ### 30. What can I say - it just works! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mason L. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 26, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS is shockingly easy to use for something that may seem complicated. The official guides plus community guides really helped me set up my NAS in exactly the way it needed to be set up. And this was coming from very little experience in the network storage space. Even a total newcomer who is comfortable with tech can set up TrueNAS and customize it to their needs. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS has no downsides in the way that I use it, although there may be some for advanced users. But if it's good enough for Linus Tech Tips, then I think it's probably a good choice for many users. There have been a few things that caught me off guard. For example, they implemented a change that required a user account to connect to the network drive, instead of using the root account. But a quick online search showed me that the community had already discussed it. It was an important detail that I had to find out by running into the issue, but I am glad to see that security is always top-of-mind at TrueNAS. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am a video editor for various companies and YouTube channels, and I work from home. TrueNAS gives me a way to have backups of my projects stored in a separate machine, in case my production system fails or gets corrupted. It has also been an incredible learning experience and I feel more accomplished knowing how to set up and use TrueNAS, and I have been able to write about TrueNAS and recommend it to clients. ### 31. TrueNAS Core is the best implementation of an Open Source storage server. **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nick F. | Datacenter Operations Manager, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 20, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS both CORE and SCALE are both the best Open Source implementation of a storage server. ZFS is by far the greatest filesystem ever developed and competes handily with it's competition in both feature sets and stability. TrueNAS is easy to use and stable. I have deployed systems which have been online for years. With periodic scheduled scrubs and SMART tests, built-in alerting, single pane of glass management and visibility with TrueCommand, I have never lost data with TrueNAS. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** ZFS deduplication leaves alot to be desired. TrueNAS CORE lacks fibre channel support. TrueNAS SCALE lacks fibre channel support and the maturity and features to compete as a replacement of a hypervisor at "scale". SCALE lacks the stability and performance to compete with CORE as a dedicated storage server. IXSystems hardware solutions are fantastic from an engineering standpoint but are not always competitive with the "big three" from a cost perspective. IXSystems does not sell enterprise licenses for non-first party hardware, leaving desirable feature sets exclusive to their solutions. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have used TrueNAS to solve a host of issues. We use TrueNAS as an iSCSI target for workloads such as video surveillance and VDI. For this workload we have been able to bring new life to existing hardware we already own in order to extend it's useful life longer than we otherwise would be able to. TrueNAS, both CORE and SCALE, have a wide breadth of hardware support. This is something becoming decreasingly common, with major hypervisor players end-of-lifing hardware long before it's useful life has ended. We also use TrueNAS for it's filesharing capabilities. With immutable snapshots and replication, we are able to have warm backups on multiple hardware nodes for important datasets. This is an very easily implemented layer in our backup and DR policies. TrueNAS leverages ZFS which is a COW file system, making snapshots simple and TrueNAS layers on an easy to expose Volume Shadow Copy feature in Windows. ### 32. Generally a great experience, but let down by a lack of polish in areas **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chris R. | IT Systems Administrator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 20, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I don't know of an easier way to set up ZFS storage with a clean and relatively easy management UI. In general day to day use it's a very smooth experience. Getting a set of disks into a ZFS pool and hosting a share is quick and pretty understandable and the UI is attractive. Additional virtualization and containerization features make it a great option for many additional use cases. For a home NAS or a small/medium business after a flexible and affordable NAS solution using off-the-shelf hardware I don't believe there is a better option. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Bugs appear often and regressions happen regularly and can be slow to get fixed. When it works the middleware is great but when it doesn't it's often for reasons that make you question how thoroughly the releases are tested. These are often very low impact bugs but I think just a little more polish is deserved for an otherwise great product. Some features beyond storage often don't feel fleshed out or complete - OpenVPN server and client were very exciting inclusions, however set up for the server is painfully obtuse and the client is near unusable except in specific use cases. Trying to connect to protonVPN via the UI, for example is basically impossible as far as I can tell, as it doesn't use a client certificate, but had they just allowed you to upload a .ovpn config there's no reason why it couldn't work, except to dress up the process in their UI. The only usable documentation for these features seems to be provided in forum posts by the community. Apps are the same with TrueNAS SCALE - it's cumbersome and can be buggy and vastly overcomplicated. SCALE is relatively immature so this is to be expected and, when it works it's great, but often the UI can make it harder to troubleshoot issues and not all the functionality is explained and thoroughly documented. There seems to be no way to easily back up container configurations and my apps have just disappeared multiple times, even after release. I would not trust these features in a business setting. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** We required a storage platform that was flexible and affordable while being easy to manage and automate backup/replication tasks. Nothing else gives us the flexiblity of easily creating and managing redundant pools of HDDs and SSDs along with linux and windows fileshares, iSCSI block storage for hypervisors. Easy management of snapshots and replication to other servers ensure the data is safe, and automated cloud sync to cloud storage makes it even easier to trust our data is secure. TrueNAS gives you a lot of ### 33. Simple. Robust. Beautiful. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rick A. | Network Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Ease of use. The best thing by far is how easy it is to setup and get going. Even someone not used to FreeBSD can their NAS spun up, ZFS pool created and shared. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Some of the more advanced config or throubleshooting still needs to be done via CLI. Thats fine, but something like replacing a drive in a pool should be more straight forward. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS solves the problem of storage, specifically Network Attached Storage as their name implies. Instead of having to have a full blown OS running on dedicated hardware, TrueNAS makes it easy to get a NAS setup on pretty much anything. Right now I'm using it on a VM through Windows Hyper-V and haven't had an issue. ### 34. TrueNAS helped reuse my old PC **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Software | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I use TrueNAS to set up a local NAS on my home network. As a NAS/RAID newbie, it was fairly straightforward to get it up and running and there are a number of resources available online to help you get started. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** There are several different settings/terms that I am unfamiliar with being new to the NAS/RAID field. It would be nice if TrueNAS could explain what things were and their benefits more clearly-- or even link to resources where I can find more info. Additionally, enabling a TrueNAS supported integration feels like a black box to a newbie and it would be nice if this could be simplified more or if it could be explained more as well. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS has allowed me to create a NAS on my home network and access files from a variety of different devices. In addition, with ZFS, I feel more confident that my data will be available if a device or a drive fails. ### 35. Perfect for sharing files amongst team members! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brandoni R. | Software Engineering Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** It continues to work seamlessly once it has been configured correctly. I have been running my TrueNAS instance for two years. I rarely log into the admin console because it just works. Unlike other products I have worked with in the past, it integrates intelligently with my hardware devices. Once, my motherboard went bad and I had to re-install the TrueNAS operating system on a new computer. I did not have a backup of my settings. I was worried I had lost everything. On booting the freshly installed TrueNAS operating system, it examined my existing drives and loaded their configuration automatically. I also love how it can synchronize files from the disks to the cloud. I use it to back up critical shared directories to Google Drive. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** The initial setup was challenging for me. I was new to NAS technology and was unfamiliar with the concepts. Luckily, I found some useful YouTube videos that helped me understand how to set it up. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed easy access to shared files from Windows, Linux, and macOS computers. I wanted an affordable level of redundancy that Windows did not offer without purchasing a lot of extra drives. The ZFS file system provided me with an affordable level of redundancy that was practical for my situation. ### 36. TrueNAS: Eliminate storage subscriptions! **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Christopher R. | Technical Support Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS is a great alternative to paying subscription fees to products such as Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, and Apple iCloud. Having the ability to manage data locally allows for more control. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS has a little bit of a learning curve compared to other solutions but is well worth the extra effort. Once installed, there isn't a lot of management and maintenance required. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS is saving me money long-term by being able to host cloud storage locally. This gives my entire family freedom from needing to upload to random services. ### 37. Easy to use, reliable storage solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Boomer C. | Owner, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** I love the ease of installation and the ability to install apps such as nextcloud and plex. I like the easy interface to manage truenas. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Sometimes the updates for the apps don't quite keep up with the actual updates available for the particular app in truenas core ie plex media server. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Truenas benefits me and my business by allowing us to have a reliable storage solution to be able to edit videos from as well as hosting my plex media server for business and personal use. ### 38. Best bang for the buck NAS solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brendon C. | Partner, Employment Law, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS enables a mildly-competent computer hobbyist, or an IT professional, to build a full-featured NAS solution using parts from the parts box to end up with a system more powerful than the appliances at much lower cost. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** ZFS file system cannot "grow" a volume by adding drives one at a time, which is possible with, for example, Synology's Btrfs file system. This means adding more storage requires planning the additional volume to be added, and purchasing the necessary drives all at once. Thankfully I have encountered this only once. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS solves the same problem as all of the consumer and enterprise NAS systems — shared storage in a manageable, centralized system which is secure and reliable. But it does it at a much lower cost without requiring all that much technical knowledge, or attention from the administrator once configured. ### 39. TrueNAS provides an easy way to reliably manage large data sets **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Dustin S. | Software Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 20, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS provides a easy to manage interface to ZFS and makes it available via SMB, NFS, and a variety of cloud sync utilities. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS does require a bit more knowledge about how storage works and how you need to set up your own requirements. This is the cost of having a very extensible system, though. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I need reliable, extensible storage that is larger than can fit on a single disk and can gracefully handle common hardware failures. ### 40. Enterprise-Class SSD Storage **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Zach Z. | Systems Admin, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Setup was quick and not overly complicated. They did require 48 hour notice to do an initial setup, but i didn't require much help getting it going. Full disclosure I have been using this for only a few months, later in the review it does not give the option to indicate that I bought this in 2022 not 2018. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** The Model I picked (R-10) only has 2 LAN Ports, this would be an issue for an environment with more users. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** This is storing VM Hard drives and allowing DBs to run faster than traditional HDDs, much cheaper than HP. ### 41. TrueNAS Core - Excellent software **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Andy L. | System Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 08, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Easy to install and an easy-to-follow Dashboard. Straightforward to install VMs. Great online manual (docs) which help with all aspects of setting up the system. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** What don't I like - nothing much to be honest. Software updates don't arrive that often but maybe that's because the software is so robust it doesn't need them?! **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I haven't experienced any problems that needed forwarding to TrueNAS for resolution, any issues have been of my own making!! ### 42. A solid and reliable platform that is surprisingly easy to work with. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Clean, simple interface with good documentation. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Not found any major problems with it yet. Yes, things could always be better, but let's not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. And it is good. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I primarily started using it because I needed fast, reliable back-up, and an old NAS unit that I had been using for several years was no longer up to the task. I had a well-specced PC sitting unused that met the hardware criteria, and so decided to give TrueNAS SCALE a chance. Now I'm also using my TrueNAS SCALE server to run additional services on my LAN using it's excellent container support services. ### 43. Great all in one home server solution **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Karim A. | Procesmanager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 09, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** What I like the best is that it is versatile, with the use of Jails/Containers and virtualisations. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** I think the thing that I dislike is more of a me problem. I started with Truenas Core based on FreeBSD and after a while I found out that Truenas Scale is based on Linux and instead of jails and plugins you can run containers. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using one platform for virtualisations, storage and containers. ### 44. TrueNAS - like no other **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Ryan F. | Centralized Services Adminstrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** The scalability of TrueNAS. The fact that you can use your own hardware to use the OS. The ZFS file system. File replication to other TrueNAS systems for backups! **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** There is nothing I don't like about TrueNAS, it checks off all the boxes: ZFS, Backup, Scalability, Replication, Snapshots, SMB, ShadowCopies and support. Easily the best NAS decision ever. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** Storing backups in either a iSCSI form or an SMB form while utilizing the ZFS file system. Replicating SMB backups to a hosted TrueNAS Server. Virtualizing VM's used for backup purposes. ### 45. One of the best storage systems I've used **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Raymond L. | LAN Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 20, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS is free and open source which is always a plus on the budget side. ZFS is excellent and the interface makes things much easier than rolling your own server, which you could. It also has sane defaults to prevent any major issues from arrising from forgetting to configure a scrub or SMART check. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** There is a lot of tweaking that can be done with TrueNAS and if you aren't aware of the options or how to configure them it can lead to issues or be overwhelming. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm running a pair of TrueNAS servers, the first being the primary NAS / SAN providing NFS shares to a cluster of XCP-NG servers. The second provides secondary storage in the event I need to shutdown the primary as well as storage for VM backups. ### 46. Excellent Product **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Osmar S. | Gerente de Suporte em Redes, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Dashboard, graphical interface, and ease of configuration. Dashboard, graphical interface, and ease of configuration. Dashboard, graphical interface, and ease of configuration. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** So far, nothing to point out that I don't like about the solution. So far, nothing to point out that I don't like about the solution. So far, nothing to point out that I don't like about the solution. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** It removed us from a highly critical environment, ensuring the safety of having consistent backups ready to be restored in case of incidents or disasters. ### 47. Solid storage solution **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Networking | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 03, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS is a solid solution for storage needs, its pack with solid features such as dataset snapshots, active directory integration, full file permission per dataset. the console is a standard UNIX terminal so no weird cli to fumble thru. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** no option to add small chunks of storage to pool over time, not a limit directly of TrueNas itself but as they only use 1 storage technology there is no option to enable it. However this is a very minor complaint and is really a grasp to call it a complaint. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** TrueNAS puts a simple to use web interface in front of a solid storage file system as well as adding other great features like SMB, iscisi, AFP, NSF, cloud sync and so much more. ### 48. Great hardware and software features **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Bill W. | Executive Director/Technical Fellow, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 23, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** The TrueNas Mini+ hardware is extremely compact but powerful and quiet. The TrueNas core software has a great UI for management and is loaded with well integrated features. The community support is awesome. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** Samba requires running Active Directory where I run OpenLDAP with Samba extensions to support window machines. Upgrades can be risky due to regression - for production machines you need to wait for first patch or two. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed a NAS for my homelab with 10G nics and decent CPU to run a few workloads on the unit itself. ### 49. Easy to use and very useful self-host solution for home and SMB **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Steven L. | IT Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 24, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** Nice looking and easy-to-use UI. Besides NAS storage, you can spin up some additional services to play around with and also learn about setting up the new self-host app **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** There will be maintenance costs to be expected. You will need to have some knowledge of IT and be ready with the cost of electricity and HDD failure replacement **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** A backup solution for all the important data, with the ZFS used by TRUENAS I'm able to store and load data much faster and more stable whenever my company needed the data. ### 50. TrueNAS is the best free NAS software! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matt O. | Network and Security Administrator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2022 **What do you like best about TrueNAS?** TrueNAS utilizing ZFS ensures your data is safe today and years ahead. If my hardware fails, I know I can recover in any other PC with enough drive connectors. **What do you dislike about TrueNAS?** There is a learning curve with share permissions. But that's been mostly resolved with the revamped SMB model. Set up your admin permissions then do the rest off a Windows PC. **What problems is TrueNAS solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed a way to store my data securely but didn't want to be locked into some proprietary hardware or software. TrueNAS pools I can boot on any ZFS compatible system. ## TrueNAS Discussions - [will truenas & freenas be separate again](https://www.g2.com/discussions/37933-will-truenas-freenas-be-separate-again) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Is there a way of having a centralized media transcoding plugin?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/37106-is-there-a-way-of-having-a-centralized-media-transcoding-plugin) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [Is FreeNAS a RAID software?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/is-freenas-a-raid-software) - 6 comments - [What is the difference between FreeNAS and FreeNAS?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-the-difference-between-freenas-and-freenas) - 7 comments - [What OS does FreeNAS run on?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-os-does-freenas-run-on) - 2 comments - [View TrueNAS pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/truenas/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-05-16+16%3A39%3A03+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=8c595881-a1b4-475c-9872-81271ac09893&secure%5Btoken%5D=f2de357d1308636b8264101565caf473afec9eb9aa3329ec071b76ab8edf3e20&format=llm_user) ## Top TrueNAS Alternatives - [Pure Storage FlashArray](https://www.g2.com/products/pure-storage-flasharray/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (10 reviews) - [IBM Storage FlashSystem](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-storage-flashsystem/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (229 reviews) - [HPE Nimble Storage](https://www.g2.com/products/hpe-nimble-storage/reviews) - 4.8/5.0 (15 reviews)