Two nas's do i need multiple license?

[nfnhayden]

If i want to build a 2nd Nas and i buy the lifetime license, can i have multiple machines or will i need a license for every machine like windows? 

[Magnus]

Hi there! You will need one licence for each machine. 

[nfnhayden]

Would it be possible to add a temporary license for multiple machines like say 5-10 days... what if i need to upgrade a machine or i only want to move files from one machine to another raid arrays dont always swap over easily... or the off chance i just want to test hardware performance. Of a mew machine...  

[Sparkrdom]

Great point, I wouldn't want to buy another license just to transfer things to a new setup.

[Mark B]

5 hours ago, Magnus said:

Hi there! You will need one licence for each machine. 

Magnus,

So one use license at a time I am assuming? I would assume that license would be transferrable to a new server in the case of failure am I correct?

[Sparkrdom]

14 minutes ago, Mark B said:

Magnus,

So one use license at a time I am assuming? I would assume that license would be transferrable to a new server in the case of failure am I correct?

You can attach or detach a system from your account any time.

 

Edit: to clarify, currently adding and removing is done via the cloud at deck.hexos.com

Edited Sunday at 03:31 AM by Sparkrdom

[Mark B]

3 minutes ago, Sparkrdom said:

You can attach or detach a system from your account any time.

So maybe a dumb question but say I upgrade server 1 and build a blank server 2. If both servers were off of the Internet on a LAN would I be able to transfer the data locally?

 

Also another question that may be pertinent, on my local network if the Internet drops connection but my local network is still working will I still have access to my server? When uploading things can you do those locally to avoid latency?

[rphi]

Just reading through the posts:

14 hours ago, Mark B said:

So maybe a dumb question but say I upgrade server 1 and build a blank server 2. If both servers were off of the Internet on a LAN would I be able to transfer the data locally?

 

Also another question that may be pertinent, on my local network if the Internet drops connection but my local network is still working will I still have access to my server? When uploading things can you do those locally to avoid latency?

In my understanding, you would need two licenses to have two seperate working systems.

In the event of a internet failure (or just leaving them off the internet), you can admin-access your server through the TrueNAS UI/CLI (which would defeat the cause of using HexOS, but still works)

(https://hexos.com/blog/the-magic-behind-hexos) - Reliability and Access

Local UI/UX should be coming with the v1.0.

[nfnhayden]

Noone is answering this question, and i understand if i have 2 devices i need two license, but in the event i am doin maintenance or upgrading my machine, why do i need a second license to move my data to my currently managed device.... 

or is your license software only a monitoring/setup tool? Does this mean the machine will be functional regardless of my license status, Just without the HexOS ui? 

[arvinpw]

The idea of NAS is, when upgrading, you bring the existing HDD/SSD to the new hardware. So there's no data moving (imagine copying terabytes of data, will be a nightmare).

And if one of the HDD/SSD is failing, simply remove and replace it with new HDD/SSD, and the OS will rebuild your data.

Therefore, you just only need one license for 1 machine

[Theo]

9 minutes ago, arvinpw said:

The idea of NAS is, when upgrading, you bring the existing HDD/SSD to the new hardware. So there's no data moving (imagine copying terabytes of data, will be a nightmare).

And if one of the HDD/SSD is failing, simply remove and replace it with new HDD/SSD, and the OS will rebuild your data.

Therefore, you just only need one license for 1 machine

from what i'm understanding from OP is what if he wants to transfer from one build to another (new drives) during setup / transfer 'technically two servers would need to be active.

I guess the main question being asked is, will there be a grace period to allow temporary transfer. 

BUT, this assumes someone couldn't do a physical relocation, if they could then the above is negated.

I could see this being possible for people with Systems with Under 10-15TB if they had a 1gb+ connection to both systems remotely. Otherwise pointless.

Edited Sunday at 07:07 PM by Theo

[Magnus]

If you want to manage two servers at the same time, and utilise our coming buddy backup service, you will need two licenses. 
 

There are no limits right now, but we will probably enforce a grace period for disconnecting and reconnecting servers. 

[Mark B]

45 minutes ago, Magnus said:

If you want to manage two servers at the same time, and utilise our coming buddy backup service, you will need two licenses. 
 

There are no limits right now, but we will probably enforce a grace period for disconnecting and reconnecting servers. 

Could I recommend a "maintenance mode"?  Or a local transfer mode or even a "Transfer from old server" mode?

 

Basically only hex to hex transfer to allow a NIC to NIC transfer basically expanding not only the pool but also the format of the pool. While keeping majority of settings and applications and storage. Not Buddy backup but a full transfer to a differently configured pool if that makes any sense, while keeping all of the shares. 

 

Also what happens if a boot drive dies? Snapshot and replication goes out the window, ability to create a boot backup would be clutch. Maybe I'm missing it on the forums and info pages and videos online but if boot drive dies completely how can a new boot drive do anything but wipe your data. (May just be a beta restriction)

[Theo]

12 hours ago, Mark B said:

Could I recommend a "maintenance mode"?  Or a local transfer mode or even a "Transfer from old server" mode?

 

Basically only hex to hex transfer to allow a NIC to NIC transfer basically expanding not only the pool but also the format of the pool. While keeping majority of settings and applications and storage. Not Buddy backup but a full transfer to a differently configured pool if that makes any sense, while keeping all of the shares. 

 

Also what happens if a boot drive dies? Snapshot and replication goes out the window, ability to create a boot backup would be clutch. Maybe I'm missing it on the forums and info pages and videos online but if boot drive dies completely how can a new boot drive do anything but wipe your data. (May just be a beta restriction)

When you install Hex you have the ability to install it on two (or more) boot drives for redundancy, i've currently got that running atm. if that's what you're talking about?

Edited Monday at 11:12 AM by Theo

[Denilson]

I agree with others. There could be something like a 5-day grace period or a 3-day trial period. (Not sure the exact duration yet.) During this period, I should be able to setup a second NAS server on a new machine, and transfer everything from the old to the new one, and then disable the first one.

I'm asking this because I can foresee a future when I need to replace the whole machine for a hardware upgrade (new motherboard, new drives, etc.), and thus being able to temporarily run multiple machines under the same license would be a valid use-case with clear benefits to the end-user.

One could argue I could move my old drives to the new machine, but that's more dangerous. Doing so, there is a high risk of losing data, either by mistakes when installing/configuring the data, or by just hardware failures while handling the drives. Thus, even though it is technically possible to move the drives to another machine on certain cases, it's still safer to setup the new machine completely, validate it is working fine, and only then decommission the old machine. After all, reliability is important, right? That's why we are building NASes, right? Thus we need to have multiple machines under the same license during a short period of a few days (possibly up to a week).

Please consider this while planning for v1.0.

[Mark B]

10 hours ago, Theo said:

When you install Hex you have the ability to install it on two (or more) boot drives for redundancy, i've currently got that running atm. if that's what you're talking about?

So if you install it on 2 boot drives redundantly will changes and all of the settings after install be made on both images and if one of those fail will Hex let you know? And if that redundant drive does die can you replace it?

If you have a lot of data that if the boot drive dies becomes inaccessible because you had your boot die and can't replace with a new drive or transfer to a new system(yes I have had computers literally kill boot drive after boot drive before.)

 

Aside from finding someone else, setting up buddy and then transitioning over to a new system(killing your and your buddies bandwidth during xfer) I don't see any local way you can make sure you have boot redundancy, the focus just seems on the data storage. Rightfully so due to mechanical drives in most instances but to have complete redundancy have the boot duplicate to a second drive so you could spin up in the case of multiple component failure. 

2 different scenarios. 

 

1. boot drive dies, what do now. If redundant, can I build a new machine to fully xfer old boot and storage locally to create new redundancy. Or can I unplug bad drive, plugin new drive and it creates a new redundant image

 

2. Power surge kills most of server, storage drives are older or smaller then what I wanted so instead of expanding I just want to migrate data(to include my boot drive settings.) plug NIC into NIC, "install hex" reach transfer server option that literally ports over files, settings and asks you if for instance your raid type changes if you want to change it. 

 

If my data is that important then a machine upgrade after an unknown failure that replicates is sometimes warranted. Starting on a blank server would take forever depending on how built out your files, pools, users etc are setup. Also if helping family not local you could build a replacement, transfer the server in 3 clicks and a Ethernet cable, send the "broken" server back and the family member has zero downtime. 

 

Think of it almost like the millions of variations when you get a new phone. iCloud is unfeasible with data amounts, and buddy requires you actually know someone else who has Hex(nice but hard to find someone reliable or just find someone else.) if Hex isn't able to do cloud backups of the boot image then functionality to do it locally(or even transfer to a new server) would be game changing. 

[arvinpw]

On 12/2/2024 at 1:29 AM, nfnhayden said:

Noone is answering this question, and i understand if i have 2 devices i need two license, but in the event i am doin maintenance or upgrading my machine, why do i need a second license to move my data to my currently managed device.... 

or is your license software only a monitoring/setup tool? Does this mean the machine will be functional regardless of my license status, Just without the HexOS ui? 

After further looking, i think i found the answer.

Remember that HexOS just manages the TrueNAS underneath? You could just disconnect HexOS from your old machine. First, pull out the ethernet cord or shutdown to make HexOS couldn't see your machine, after that click Disconnect this server. Therefore your HexOS license is free and can be able to setup at another machine.

Meanwhile your old machine is still there, all configs and files are untouched, HexOS just no longer managed it, you could still continue using your old machine by accessing the TrueNAS UI or if like you said, want to move the entire data from old machine to new one, simply copy paste your data.

Hope this can clear out the confusion.