TrueNAS Core VS TrueNAS Scale August 2023

Feature Comparison

TrueNAS Core Scale
Operating System FreeBSD Linux
Open Source Yes Yes
Free Yes Yes
Containerization IOCage Custom Docker & Kubernetes
Virtualization FreeBSD Bhyve KVM My VM Tutorial
Central Management TrueCommand TrueCommand
High Availability (dual controllers) Yes, IX Systems Hardware Yes, IX Systems Hardware
Cluster / Scale Out No Still Experimental using Gluster Managed via TrueCommand
ZFS version zfs-2.1.11-1 version zfs-2.1.11-1
ZFS Snapshots Yes Yes
ZFS Encryption Yes Yes
ZFS Replication Yes to Core or Scale Yes to Core or Scale
Share Options SMB/NFS/iSCSI/S3/Rsync SMB/NFS/iSCSI/S3/Rsync (Some features being Deprecated)
Active Directory Support Yes Yes

Performance Comparison Feb 2023

I’m in the process of building my first NAS so I’ve spent every free second of the last month watching vids and reading about TrueNAS. ATM I’m stuck because I accidently ordered SMR drives even tho at one point in time I knew not to get them.

From my prospective I can’t find a definitive answer to this question. Core or Scale…

I really prefer not to try and learn on software that’s in a semi-beta stage… That, and using pfSense for quite a few years has me leaning more towards core. But… Running VM’s could have its benefits but I can already do that in VMWare workstation when I need to. Almost all of Lawrence Systems vids have been on Scale lately but I keep trying to convince myself its only for new content since Scale isn’t as played out but you’ve started to make me FOMO thinking I might be making the wrong decision.

The only things I truly care about running ATM are Next Cloud and basic storage.

Nextcloud is not that great on both Scale and Core and works best in it’s own VM. I do more scale videos because there are new things to cover. Core is very stable and my old videos are just as relevant as they have not changed the interface or really added any new features.