Switching from Truenas scale to HEXos

[timvanhelsdingen]

Hey all,

I’m looking at HEXOS and thinking of giving it a try, but before I drop $199 I’ve got a few questions.

Current setup:

• TrueNAS Scale 25.04.2

• CPU: Intel Xeon Silver 4210 @ 2.20 GHz

• RAM: 64 GB

• RAIDZ2 pool: 8 drives, ~64 TB total (main archive)

• Mirror pool: 2 drives for Docker apps

Use case:
I’m a VFX artist and this NAS is my central hub:

• Stores my entire long-term project archive

• All workstation SSDs get mirrored here for backup

• Render nodes read/write directly to the NAS during jobs

• Constant file syncs via Resilio to 2 workstations + 1 backup NAS

Questions before switching:

• Will my ZFS pools import cleanly from TrueNAS?

• Will HEXOS detect my existing Docker containers, or will I have to rebuild them? (Reindexing Resilio takes forever, so I’d like to avoid that.)

• Will HEXOS mount my ZFS pools from HDDs without compatibility issues? (This is why I skipped Unraid — different ZFS version.)

I like TrueNAS and can handle technical setups, but I’d prefer something less high-maintenance that “just works,” especially for running apps. Too many Docker containers have broken after updates, so I’ve kept them to a minimum and rarely update them.

For anyone who’s migrated from TrueNAS to HEXOS — would this be a solid upgrade for my workflow?

[Mobius]

1 hour ago, timvanhelsdingen said:

Will my ZFS pools import cleanly from TrueNAS?

I used to be able to give a confident yes before but im actually not sure. I think truenas scale 25 added some new flags to zfs pools preventing being used on machines running at the latest truenas 24 (which hexos is still based on).

hexos will be getting an update sometime in q3 that should bring it up to truenas 25. once that happens it will go back to a confident yes.

ofc i can be completely wrong about 25 update to zfs feature flags breaking compatibility with older os versions or misunderstanding it. I think it was a manual update too so if you didn't update it simplifies things.

i don't have enough experience on the matter to confirm any of your other questions. hopefully someone else can chime in with more info.

1 hour ago, timvanhelsdingen said:

I like TrueNAS and can handle technical setups, but I’d prefer something less high-maintenance that “just works,” especially for running apps. Too many Docker containers have broken after updates, so I’ve kept them to a minimum and rarely update them.

For anyone who’s migrated from TrueNAS to HEXOS — would this be a solid upgrade for my workflow?

at this time a lot of hexos features have not been fully implemented. if you switch over now you will be seeing more of the same and having to deal with a lot of truenas stuff for apps because hexos only supports 2 apps for one click installs right now. Once the q3 update drops im expecting hexos to really ramp up with more 1 click install apps.

[Todd Miller]

I am definitely not a TrueNAS expert.  I'm not sure I can even say I am entry level.  So for me, HexOS had to be pretty plug and play.  Though there is a lot of talk about future state and upcoming opportunities, today your $199 will get you a pretty solid and simple frontend to the TrueNAS product and a promise of what is expected to come.  If you are pretty functional or better in TrueNas I wonder if you won't get bored with how simple the 1 click apps make adding products to your UI.  Yes as you can see above there is an expectation of more apps coming for the i click process because there has been forun pages dedicated to what apps the community wants next.  I wonder if this will mean that much to you .  The apps coming next seem to be geared towards giving folks a functional NAS with any number of apps that showcase what might be popular and  good foundation showing off what's possible.  I'm thinking it would be the third or fourth wave of apps added that you might find more interesting.  I';m not trying to talk you into or out of spending the money today outside of the fact the team has said the price is expected to go up after the official full release.  They have been very up front about that and the expectation of a monthly option.  So you may need to see what works for you. 

Overall PERSONAL OPINION: If your an IT professional (and therefore the default helpdesk for almost everyone you know) this seems to be a product you can recommend to folks where computers and networking isn't their jam.  But, if you have a very specific use case you may want to see this product mature for a little while yet.  The forums are full of examples is issues that may or may not have anything to do with HexOS.  And sooner or later the devs will have to wade through all the noise to address all questions/issues even if the answer is "That's not a HexOS issue".  Only time will tell if it is the right fit for you and if the price is right.  To each their own.