Welcome to my blog. Hopefully as time goes on I can provide lots of great advice for TrueNAS users everywhere. Most will gear towards TrueNAS business cases, but many will also gear towards TrueNAS home users as well.
Over the years, I’ve seen so many people and businesses in so many situations.
But there is one scenario in particular that bothers me. It bothers me because people pay money for this problem.
What’s the problem?
TrueNAS sellers – and I’m not talking about iXsystems, the makers of TrueNAS.
Why are TrueNAS vendors so problematic?
The problem: People and businesses will happily sell goods and services and not have the requisite experience to do it properly the first time. They will happily take your money without actually setting you up for success. In some cases, to the detriment of your own data. TrueNAS is not like your old-fashioned Windows Server with a giant RAID array sharing out SMB shares.
And it’s the same problem that plagues a lot of industries these days.
In fact, I’ve often found that more often than not, pre-configured systems often have serious configuration problems. Both in hardware and software. I’d bet that about 90% of pre-built systems I’ve looked at manufactured by a 3rd party are designed to fail you either by you losing your data (it’s true!) or the performance is hamstrung by inappropriate hardware, poor software configuration, and often both.
Without specifically calling out brands or models I’ve seen almost every kind of conceivable mistake that can be made when building hardware and setting up the software for TrueNAS. It’s quite disappointing to see someone buy a $15,000+ system that is “pre-configured for optimal performance” only to find it is no such thing. I’ve often gone to the forums and opened the threads that provide recommended hardware lists, and none of the recommendations are taken. Yes, specific models and brands are often called out in the forums as being recommended. But often recommendations are made for technologies to look for, and those are often completely ignored as well.
So what do you do? Often, my clients call because their TrueNAS has never performed well, they’re having serious questions about the reliability of their system, and they’re not sure if TrueNAS is for them anymore. They have assumed that buying from a big vendor that pre-installed and pre-configured TrueNAS wouldn’t make horribly bad mistakes, but the vendor did. They aren’t sure if the vendor is the problem or if TrueNAS is just not a great software package.
On top of their skepticism, they aren’t sure if its worth it to sink more money into a system that has always disappointed (sometimes for many years) or simply buy something like a Dell/HP/Synology. Who wants to throw more money into a sinking ship when they are convinced the ship shouldn’t be saved. Why not rid yourself of the problem once and for all by ridding yourself of the system, both hardware and software?
I’m here to tell you, you aren’t alone if you are in this circumstance.
I’ve had many clients, just in the last year alone, that contacted me to help make sure the system was stable and they weren’t going to lose data while they investigated alternative options. In almost every case I’ve not only helped them solve their performance and reliability problems, but I’ve also shown them how easy TrueNAS is to manage once its on proper hardware and properly configured software. This processes is usually significantly cheaper than replacing the system outright, and I’ve had so many clients that were already in the process of walking away from TrueNAS come to realize how amazing TrueNAS really is.
A few months ago I had a client that had a TrueNAS that has never worked well for them. Performance was always poor. Reliability was always questionable at best. They were investigating alternatives as they had decided TrueNAS wasn’t for them anymore. For 2 hours of my time, about $300 in parts, and one maintenance window of 2 hours to replace some hardware and make some configuration changes on their TrueNAS, they had a system that was performing better than it ever had. I expected to never hear from that client again since they made it clear they wanted to retire the TrueNAS. Except they’ve decided to keep their TrueNAS because it does everything they ever wanted.
So if you’re on the fence as to whether TrueNAS has a place in your business, give me a call and we can take a look at your system and see what is wrong and what can be fixed.
A properly managed TrueNAS system should not be expensive, and maintenance should be very minimal.
If you have a TrueNAS you want to have looked over, an hour of my time will very likely tell you everything you want to know about why your TrueNAS disappoints you. That’s it.. one hour!
So give me a call and we can schedule an appointment that is convenient for you. Especially for the first call, being in production so I can see how the TrueNAS behaves in your environment under load is most ideal. If a maintenance outage is required, those can be planned after hours or on weekends.
Best of all, we don’t charge extra for after-hours or weekend work. Please pre-schedule it when possible because after-hours is based on availability!
