Apparently. As I’m reading this, the HexOS UI lives entirely in the cloud; you cannot use HexOS as HexOS without their servers. And that’s going to mean there’s no way I’ll recommend this product to anyone[1], [2]–if the product’s going to absolutely depend on the cloud, you might as well just put your data there.
From a business perspective, it makes sense; if the only thing that makes the product the product runs on your servers, it’s easy for you to control (i.e., charge for) access to it. But I don’t think people who want to control their own data storage, to the point of spending money on a NAS, are going to be too keen on a system that still requires “the cloud” to control it.
Sure, I’m not their target audience–but how many of their target audience might listen to my recommendation? I don’t think the number’s big, but it isn’t zero, particularly if we assume that their real audience is “home users,” and the “content creators” thing is just to get the “influencers” using it. ↩︎
even ignoring the indelible stain of Linus’ involvement ↩︎
Probably. Easy enough to justify, little fuss to implement. The built-in “use TrueNAS” escape hatch might also convince a few skeptics to give it a try.
I share @dan’s view that the addressable market being the intersection of “people who want local storage” and “people who are okay with their storage depending on the cloud” sounds awfully niche. I’m also not entirely convinced that the new management layer is enough to convert potential buyers of Heavily-Integrated Miniature NAS boxes like Synology or QNAP who were not convinced by the TrueNAS Mini line.
The TrueNAS Minis have good hardware, and the price is broadly justified. But the HIMNAS vendors offer a lower floor in terms of price, features and quality, which I can very much see attracting uninformed users. That seems to me like a much more impactful difference than the complexity of the interface.
They can still control it using the TrueNAS GUI, locally, without any internet connection.
If they were to do as you posit, namely forgoing ownership and storing their data in the cloud, it would not be accessible in case of an internet outage. Not the same thing at all.
This whole thing reminds me a bit of Plex. I think people who use Plex are less likely to see a problem with HexOS. Plex requires an internet connection for certain core functionality and some people are fine with that.
This is interesting and interesting enough to actually give it a test to see what happens. I’m not an IT professional, I can barely spell ‘IT’ but I make due.
I will echo some of the feelings about LTT, I find his humor a bit juvenile (probably because I’m old). I do not always agree with his opinions. It would be nice if he just stuck to the review and stopped trying to be funny. I did like the results his IT person produced. That speaks a lot to TrueNAS and the system they built. But he did not do anything with HexOS, I guess that is relatively new. But I was hoping more for HexOS, that being what this thread is about. I have not followed all the links yet, need some time to get there.
Sure, but then you aren’t using HexOS any more; you’re using TrueNAS[1]. Which I already addressed, just last night. What makes HexOS, HexOS, depends entirely on their servers. There’s no reason it has to be this way–their UI could just as well run locally–other than that they (presumably) want you to pay for it.
The comparison to Plex is misplaced–Plex needs Internet access to find and load the metadata for your media. But its UI runs locally. If you don’t care about the metadata, you can use Plex 100% offline.
if you were able to manage the TrueNAS UI, as both Morgan and Jon have said in this thread, you’d have no use for HexOS ↩︎
Do you honestly think youtubers are ever going to log into their NAS UI (be it on “da cloud” or local) to do anything? Like what? These machines are going to be set it and forget it.
“Here is the eyeliner I like to use on rainy days…hold on, let me log into my NAS and run a backup…ok, to apply the eyeliner”
First, as @Stux pointed out, it’s likely that the “content creators” angle is just to get this into the hands of the “influencers,” in order to get it out to the general public–which honestly makes the whole thing seem even more slimy than it already had, but “content creators” otherwise doesn’t make any sense to me as a target market.
Second, granting that you’re right: then what’s the purpose of HexOS? Use it to set up your NAS, now it’s “set it and forget it” as you say, so cancel whatever recurring cost you have for HexOS, because you aren’t going to be using it anyway. Unless they’re counting on their users’ ignorance of this…
Beats me. $5 a month to push backup instructions? I think the whole thing is stupid. I think the UI on TrueNAS is stupid; the only time I ever use the TrueNAS UI is to restore a backup or start a jail once and a while. I’m one of those people that don’t want a UI for my toaster, fridge, vacuum, etc… To me a hammer is just a stupid hammer and should sit there until I need to pound in a nail. My fileserver is a tool, not a hobby.
I’m setting up a FreeBSD box(s) to replace a lot of stuff on my network right now. I’ll automate as much as I can to get me as close to hands-off as I can.
Management plane in the cloud - not going to fly for absolutely anyone I know personally. I’ll pass, too, thanks.
I was about to recommend this to a coworker who currently has to rely on me to manage his CORE system with jails etc. I hope the next generation of SCALE delivers the promise of “easy apps”, because that’s what I already told him about. I’m definitely not going to endorse this new thing in any way now that this was made clear.
Sadly, many many things are going cloud or semi-cloud based. Too many for my taste. I’m even mad the way cars are going. GM wants to (actually is) eliminate carplay/android auto or whatever it is called so you have to use their system. To use their system, I have to use cloud based apps. To use cloud based apps, I have to put my data there which is what I am not doing on purpose since I self host stuff. Sorry, not using their music service, their calendar, contacts, map favorites and guides, etc. The next step of course is to charge for it.
So let me get this straight… HexOS is basically TrueNAS with a different UI to make everything less complicated? While that sounds good, I fear it will backfire for the poor people who follow that path.
So we have an average Joe (like me) and then you have a drive fail on the HexOS NAS system. Does it fix the problem for you? Will it tell you to power off and swap out the correct physical drive (“Remove the third one from the left, nope, not that one you idiot, the one next to it”). Or are we going to see more people asking very basic questions, when they could read the User Guide and do it themselves. Thankfully HexOS will have it’s own forum for them to flourish to.
If feel that to install and operate TrueNAS, you do not need to be an IT professional, heck, I did it. Additionally I learned a lot in the process in order to maintain my system. Set it and forget it is just a problem we see here all the time. “Help me, I created my NAS 5 years ago and the drives are failing, oh what will I do?”.
Okay, it is late where I am and I’m just on my Soap Box (for those few who know what that really is).
Most enterprise vendors have their Management plane in the cloud for some of their products, not sure why the consumer market should be different -
Aruba
Pure Storage
HPE
Datto
TrueNAS as well
There’s a thread on Reddit where Jon provides a bit more detail about HexOS, and even mentioned they’re not rulling out providing into a local management interface in some form.
HexOS isn’t an OS (yea the name is silly IMO) but should be viewed as tool to manage TrueNAS.
Non-Techs wont know how to setup reverse proxies and letsencrypt, or understand why their CGNAT connection doesn’t let them access their server remotely, nor would they understand why it would be stupid to expose your TrueNAS web interface to the internet.
HexOS gives the everyday person ‘safe’ remote management for their home server in a nice simple package, without exposing their home server to the internet. It also makes it easier to setup your server with a wizard and inbuilt monitoring so it should be easier to configure email notifications etc.
Not sure why content creators is mentioned in the announcement post here, it’s not referenced anywhere by HexOS on their site or in Jon’s comments. Unless iX staff have insider knowledge about the launch marketing strategy, I’d ignore that. It’s not a platform built for content-creators, it’s a NAS management tool to hand-hold the average Joe setting up their first NAS.
