iXsystems: FreeNAS 8 Beta

FreeNAS, an open source storage platform based on FreeBSD-supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems. Both home and business users can share media across an entire network.

Other features include FTP, data replication, iSCSI, and support for Apple’s Time Machine. The current FreeNAS Beta release from iXsystems, Inc. is available for testing and can be downloaded. The project welcomes community feedback to improve the product for final release.
 
FreeNAS can be installed and configured with ease using its new web interface. Users can store, access, and manage data because the data resides on the user’s private network. iXsystems has replaced the existing FreeNAS interface (based on m0n0wall) with the Python Django framework, whose modular nature easily integrates third-party software within the FreeNAS interface.  Ajax technology provided by the Dojo toolkit enhances the user experience by providing real-time feedback.
 
"The new FreeNAS makes it easier to upgrade, back up, or restore, with the system taking care of all the details.  FreeNAS makes running a NAS box simple and easy," says Warner Losh, Director of FreeBSD Development at iXsystems.
 
FreeNAS 8 Beta includes ZFS, which supports high storage capacities and integrates file systems and volume management into a single piece of software. One benefit of ZFS is System Snapshots, in which numerous snapshots of data are taken and used to restore lost or deleted files. Future versions of FreeNAS will include other ZFS benefits such as De-Duplication, which conserves disk space by sending a pointer to the location of the original file for any replicated data.

The base of the system has been upgraded to FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE. Asynchronous IO has been enabled in Samba 3.5 to increase performance over previous versions. FreeNAS now uses FreeBSD’s rc.d configuration and stores all system states in a sqlite3 database. The build process takes advantage of NanoBSD, a trimmed down version of FreeBSD with added enhancements. In previous versions, FreeNAS used many non-standard components that inhibited updates to FreeBSD. The rewrite ensures that FreeNAS can quickly and easily stay up to date with FreeBSD.