Is HexOS suited for a small to medium size business?

[jonathanpublic]

Hey guys,

I understand that HexOS is targeting homelabs mostly. But I wonder how well it would work for a small enterprise use case.

Is a default installation of HexOS/TrueNAS secure enough to be used in an office with 15-20 employees without having to put in major effort hardening TrueNAS underneath?

For context we're growing out of a 4 bay Synology NAS. I'm debating between buying another Synology NAS with better networking (10gbe networking), or building a custom server and using HexOS/TrueNAS for the OS.

Is there any reason why HexOS would be a bad choice for an OS on a custom built file server for a business?

The reason why HexOS is attractive is because I have a lot of experience with hardware and building my own PC's but I don't want to have to micromanage the software. But it would still be nice to be able to get into the weeds on the TrueNAS layer should the need arise.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

FYI, I'm already a customer. I use HexOS on my home media server. So I know it's a good product. Planning on buying another license for buddy backup when it's available.

[PsychoWards]

TrueNAS was initially developed for big enterprise companies and later retrofitted to be also suitable for other groups as well. So, yes the system is more then suitable for business as well, the importance here is more the HW then the OS, to be able to handle the writes/reads for the amount of users. 

 

And HexOS is just building on top of this already rock solid OS and makes it easier to setup and manage and backup. And since you still have TrueNAS underneath, you have the flexibility to do what you want in TrueNAS if you would require some more advanced features not yet available in HexOS. 

 

Also Synology NAS are only working correctly nowadays with Synology drives which are just rebanded drives with a +10% pricetag

[Todd Miller]

14 hours ago, jonathanpublic said:

Hey guys,

I understand that HexOS is targeting homelabs mostly. But I wonder how well it would work for a small enterprise use case.

Is a default installation of HexOS/TrueNAS secure enough to be used in an office with 15-20 employees without having to put in major effort hardening TrueNAS underneath?

For context we're growing out of a 4 bay Synology NAS. I'm debating between buying another Synology NAS with better networking (10gbe networking), or building a custom server and using HexOS/TrueNAS for the OS.

Is there any reason why HexOS would be a bad choice for an OS on a custom built file server for a business?

The reason why HexOS is attractive is because I have a lot of experience with hardware and building my own PC's but I don't want to have to micromanage the software. But it would still be nice to be able to get into the weeds on the TrueNAS layer should the need arise.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

FYI, I'm already a customer. I use HexOS on my home media server. So I know it's a good product. Planning on buying another license for buddy backup when it's available.

Reach out to Eshtek directly because you don't need opinions.  You need uptime guarantees, not opinions.  And you need to establish who is supporting what?  TrueNAS issues may be hard to get support for so in effect, you are support.

[PsychoWards]

Esthek cannot guarantee any uptime, because the server is running locally not in a cloud?

Esthek has already made bug reports in the past to TrueNAS which have subsequently been fixed. 

Also your remark is exactly the same for Synology, but you didn't mention that... 

[Todd Miller]

Then @jonathanpublic there is your answer if you are considering this production.

I don't care about Synology.  I care that my NAS disconnects at least once a week.  I care that when it reconnects the dashboard loses sight of what apps I have, as seen below, though I have 15 active or in testing.  I care that I just spent a week replacing hard drives when I lost power and the NAS rebooted instead of shutting down and I have reported to support a couple weeks ago.  I care that I have had three pc repair folks have told me it's probable a TrueNAS problem because Windows, and 6 Linux distros, all shutdown as expected.  I care that someone asked a business question knowing that they will not get the kind of support a production environment deserves.  @jonp I say that if this is one of your ongoing financial opportunities, you are probably going to have some tough days ahead but it is seriously needed.  But right now nobody can call this anything but a great idea in a space that really needed great ideas.  Don't outkick your coverage until you fill in some gaps or make some relationships to fill gaps not in your best interest.

 

@jonathanpublic, all I have said here is null and void if you want to become a TrueNAS expert and are up for the challenge of becoming IT support as well.

[jonp]

Stay tuned... 😎

[jonathanpublic]

20 hours ago, jonp said:

Stay tuned... 😎

What does that mean? Lol How long should I stay tuned for? Are you guys coming out with an enterprise version or something?

[jonp]

14 hours ago, jonathanpublic said:

What does that mean? Lol How long should I stay tuned for? Are you guys coming out with an enterprise version or something?

It means we recognize the demand for what you are asking but no, we will not be creating an "enterprise" version. That's TrueNAS itself. We see an opportunity to be a stepping stone for SMBs to use before they are large enough to justify an "enterprise" product price point. 

[Todd Miller]

@jonathanpublicIt means they don't really know yet.  In my opinion, I don't think they saw the popularity this product would have.  But thy also didn't see that such a large chunk of the subscribers would be newbies to a NAS.  If the majority of the folks that have already bought into this product were mid level or advanced folks that were just sick of messing with the setup of TureNAS and the 450ish apps, this forum would look completely different because the tone would be less focused on the curations.  Those folks know how to setup pools and manage datasets.  For them security is more of an annoyance that a stumbling block.  And TrueNAs moving an option from one sub menu to another probably makes sense.  But it seems that is not the main audience.  If HexOS didn't do as much of the setup as it did this would be a much quieter place.  If we are honest, HexOS is an app running on TrueNAS.  I have not heard anyone try to hide that fact.  But that creates a blurry line as to who owns what and who has to fix what.  Because of that this product cannot be a corporate production app if TrueNAS has bad drivers or has errors in startup and shutdown.  If the newer folks are going to ask @jonpto hold our hands as we setup our first few apps, request support from TrueNAS on bad drivers, figure out what apps make sense to curate and develop a pricing model that keep the product solvent as more people find gaps not related to HexOS, well it doesn't look from his profile picture like he has that many arms!  While I do say it's a problem in HexOS that causes me to disconnect every week.  And when I reconnect I find HexOS has no apps in the dashboard for a day or two.  That is what I call a danged annoyance because TrueNAS sees everything and says it is running fine.  The slap in the face for me is still if I need to shut the server down like a power outage, I can't because it just reboots.  I'm already looking at number of alternatives but honestly, they all have issues so pick your poison.

[jonp]

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

It means they don't really know yet.

We know what we want to do and are building the tooling to do it right.  It's just premature to get into the details at this point, which is why we aren't sharing much at this stage.  All in due time.

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

In my opinion, I don't think they saw the popularity this product would have.

Why would we take on investors and dedicate our lives to building something we didn't believe in?  We definitely knew this would be popular which is why we built it.

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

But thy also didn't see that such a large chunk of the subscribers would be newbies to a NAS.

We are primarily targeting NAS newbies.  The entire product is designed with that in mind.

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

If the majority of the folks that have already bought into this product were mid level or advanced folks...

That is the majority of our currently deployed users.  We have sold to an even larger audience that hasn't deployed yet for one of many reasons (waiting for certain features, waiting for hardware market to stabilize, etc.).

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

If we are honest, HexOS is an app running on TrueNAS.  I have not heard anyone try to hide that fact.  But that creates a blurry line as to who owns what and who has to fix what.

Everyone has their opinion, but we are more than a "skin" or an "app."  We are an entire replacement management solution for TrueNAS SCALE.  SCALE is the engine, but we're the UX.  I don't understand your comment about the "blurry line."  TrueNAS is responsible for building the OS, middleware, their API, and ensuring a solid and stable platform.  We are responsible for the UI/UX and everything we deliver through it.  App publishers are responsible for the apps and OS vendors for the VMs.  The "blurriest lines" are the responsibilities between app/VM OS vendors and us, but even that we take responsibility for the majority of the time (e.g. handholding all the Immich users through their database migration woes).  The ugliest part of support is when the issue is hardware-specific and typically is the result of a hardware vendor doing a poor job of keeping their drivers in lockstep with the Linux kernel, which is not a HexOS or TrueNAS problem nearly as much as it is a hardware vendor problem.

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

If the newer folks are going to ask @jonpto hold our hands as we setup our first few apps, request support from TrueNAS on bad drivers, figure out what apps make sense to curate and develop a pricing model that keep the product solvent as more people find gaps not related to HexOS, well it doesn't look from his profile picture like he has that many arms!

It's a good thing I have a great team around me to make all of this and so much more possible at the same time.

2 hours ago, Todd Miller said:

While I do say it's a problem in HexOS that causes me to disconnect every week.  And when I reconnect I find HexOS has no apps in the dashboard for a day or two.  That is what I call a danged annoyance because TrueNAS sees everything and says it is running fine.  The slap in the face for me is still if I need to shut the server down like a power outage, I can't because it just reboots.  I'm already looking at number of alternatives but honestly, they all have issues so pick your poison.

The vast majority of customers are not having this issue.  I've spoken with @mill3000 regarding your support tickets and it sounds like we've spent a lot of time trying to help as best we can, but at the end of the day, there is only so much we can do with bring-your-own-hardware.  We have been consistently improving both reliability and performance and we rarely get the disconnect issue from users nowadays and when we do, it's fixed in short order.  One of the downsides of being a software-based product is we don't control the hardware or the environment its placed within.  Sometimes the combination of components and network just doesn't work right with certain platforms.  It's unfortunately the case across the entire software-defined ecosystem.  If you want a guaranteed experience with hardware, purchasing TrueNAS gear would be best, but that comes at a premium.  I will say that we are working on a hardware advisor for both existing customers and new prospects that will help guide customers to the right gear to help avoid these kinds of pitfalls wherever possible.