Download FreeNAS 8.2.0 RC 1

After four beta releases, the first release candidate of FreeNAS version 8.2.0 has now been released. With this package, a computer included in the network can be used as ‘network attached storage’, so purely for storing data. The whole is based on FreeBSD version 8.2 and provided with a clear web interface. Where the system requirements in version 7 were still very low and it could run fine on an old computer, there is slightly more extensive hardware for version 8 necessary† The complete changelog is up this page Here are the main changes in version 8.2.0:

Changes in the 8.2 branch versus 8.0.x

The 8.2 branch of FreeNAS introduces many functional changes when compared with the 8.0.x releases.

ZFS can be manipulated from the CLI, and changes for supported items tracked by FreeNAS will be reflected in the GUI. zvols, datasets, and entire volumes can be created, destroyed, or manipulated on the CLI and will be propagated to the GUI.

The GUI now supports active-passive multipath capable hardware, which targets mainly SAS drives on dual expander backplanes. Any multipath capable devices that are detected will be placed in multipath units which are then exposed to the GUI, and the parent devices will be hidden.

Plugins are now available. Third party modules can be added to FreeNAS which will persist across upgrades and can be manipulated and configured from the GUI. Documentation on using and creating plugins is available here† BitTorrent, DLNA/uPNP, and iTunes plugins are available as of this writing.

The GUI now includes a web shell, which allows you to access a root shell from within a web browser.

The “Create Volume” modal was renamed to “Volume Manager”. Extending existing pools is more intuitive than it was previously; selecting multiple disks for a storage volume is now done via a multiselect widget instead of checkboxes to improve ease of use when creating volumes.

ZFS volumes can now have periodic scrub tasks configured for them; the default is set to 35 days to be consistent with the OS default.

An autotuning script is now available — disabled by default. It sets various tunables and sysctls based on system resources and components. The predetermined values ​​are exposed through the GUI from the Sysctls and Tunables panes.

A newer web toolkit is used, which behaves better with modal dialogs and more intuitively in general when compared with older versions. It also has better browser compatibility, including compatibility with Android / iOS mobile devices!

A more responsive service state detection mechanism was added to improve FreeNAS interoperability in VM software (VMware, VirtualBox, etc).

FreeNAS 8.0 screenshot, click on the image for a larger version.