FreeNAS is a lightweight Linux distribution for NAS (Network Attached Storage). You can build your own file server with many capabilities with FreeNAS. The new FreeNAS 9.3 comes with many changes, new features and bug fixes. The first thing is that starting FreeNAS 9.3, it only available in 64 bit edition. So there is no more 32 bit version you can download. Also, FreeNAS is now only available in ISO format. You can burn this ISO to a CD or simply create a FreeNAS LiveUSB with the ISO file.
On the previous FreeNAS version, you still be able to format your disk to UFS file system but now, FreeNAS 9.3 only uses ZFS only. But don’t worry, its backward compatibility lets us to import any UFS formatted disk to ZFS pool easily.
- FreeNAS® is now 64-bit only.
- FreeNAS® is now ZFS only. This means that the “UFS Volume Manager” has been removed and disks can no longer be formatted with UFS. However, for backwards compatibility, existing UFS-formatted disks can still be
- imported using “Import Disk” so that their contents can be copied to a ZFS pool.
- There is now only one type of installation file, .iso. This file can be either burned to CD or written to a USB flash drive. This is an installer file as new versions of FreeNAS® must be installed using a menu-driven installer.
- FreeNAS® now formats the device holding the operating system with ZFS and uses the GRUB boot loader. This provides support for multiple boot environments, allowing you to easily recover from a failed upgrade, system update, or configuration.
- The new installer provides the option to select multiple devices, meaning that you can now mirror the boot device.
- The administrative GUI can now be accessed over IPv6.
- NFSv4 support, which includes Kerberized NFS support, has been added.
- The system logger has been replaced by syslog-ng.
- A configuration wizard has been added. On a fresh install, this wizard will run after the root password is set, making it easy to quickly create a volume and share(s). Users who prefer to manually create their volumes and shares can exit the wizard and create these as usual. The wizard can be re-run at a later time by selecting Wizard from the graphical tree menu.
- The ability to manage boot environments has been added to System ‣ Boot.
- The ability to manage rc.conf variables has been added to System ‣ Tunables.
- The ability to check for updates and perform upgrades has been added to System ‣ Update.
- The ability to import or create an internal or interm
For more complete list, please visit the official FreeNAS 9.3 what’s new page. To download, you can visit this download page.
