I’m planning on replacing an existing old Windows file server with a TrueNAS Scale server in our small business (50 devices). I played around with Core a couple of years ago, so am somewhat familiar with it.
While reading through the docs, something in the SMB documentation stopped me in my tracks:
“As of SCALE 22.12 (Bluefin) and later, TrueNAS does not support SMB client operating systems that are labeled by their vendor as End of Life or End of Support. This means MS-DOS (including Windows 98) clients, among others, cannot connect to TrueNAS SCALE SMB servers.”
Granted, this is in a red box titled “SMB 1 Protocol Deprecation”, but the paragraph is worded more generically.
Does this mean that after October 2025, Windows 10 will no longer be able to connect to the NAS? If so, this is a SERIOUS non starter because we have a number industrial CNC machines that need to connect whose manufacturers will not/can not upgrade to Windows 11. Thoughts anyone?
Yes, I fully understand that Windows 10 doesn’t use SMB 1 (unless configured to do so). I also understand that SMB is just a protocol. If the paragraph had read “SMB Clients that have reached EOL…”, then I get it - they would be referring to the protocol. However, the texts reads, “SMB client operating systems that have reached EOL…”. That has me concerned.
If Windows 10 has required updates AFTER the EOL point, I would not expect TrueNAS to provide support, at least for non Enterprise customers. I don’t know when Enterprise customers are getting cut of by Microsoft for Windows 10 and updates. I would expect you to be perfectly fine until after that point.
If you have a problem under Windows 10 and an update in Windows 11 fixes the problem after Windows 10 EOL, the advice is upgrade to Windows 11
It would be the same as pointing out an error in TrueNAS 23.10. Not supported, upgrade your system to one of the currently supported releases.
I’m guessing that you didn’t read my entire post. We have half a dozen CNC routers valued at over $250K each that run on Windows 10. We just got rid of two that were running Window NT. The manufacturers will not change the operating systems in these machines because it often means changing lots of other controller hardware/software and it just isn’t worth it (to them or to us) if the machine still does the job it was built for. This is not like just replacing your $1000 desktop PC.
If the wording in that box concerns you, run the SMB shares “unsupported”.
As long as Microsoft doesn’t break compatibility in some funky way, it will continue to work as before. If TrueNAS were to change something that breaks the feature for unsupported OSes then don’t update to that TrueNAS version. Stay on the one that works for your environment. So far this hasn’t happened.
someone files a bug ticket because TrueNAS can’t join a domain with Server 2003 domain controllers. Sorry, that’s EOL and we’re not going to expose insecure options to support your bad life choices
Someone files a bug ticket because on upgrade from FreeNAS 9.10, their client software for their CNC mill can no longer connect to SMB shares because it uses Windows 98. Sorry, that relies on some parts of the SMB1 protocol that have been removed or would require significant TrueNAS changes. You’ll have to figure out some other way of addressing the issue.
Someone files a bug ticket because they’re using a version of MacOS with known SMB client issues that cause the problem in question. Sorry, you’ll need to either upgrade MacOS, or buy a new client that supports a non-EOL OS version.
It’s important to realize that most people here are community members without support entitlement to begin with
You may be missing a bigger picture here & @awalkerix, etc. please correct me if I’m wrong.
SMB1 has been deprecated for almost a decade and MS stopped shipping a SMB1-using client with its OS’ for the last three years or so. Windows 10-running machines can use SMB1 to connect to servers but it usually takes extra steps to enable SMB1.
By default, TrueNAS hasn’t shipped with SMB1/NTLM enabled for years either. IIRC, enabling SMB1/NTLM was discouraged by an warning! message. By now, iXsystems might have decided not to allow the use of SMB1/NTLM in its latest releases at all.
But, NOTHING prevents your windows 10 CNCs from connecting to your NAS running the latest edition of TrueNAS using the SMB2 or 3 protocol, which they would want to use by default anyway.
Given the importance of SMB as an protocol and the ubiquity of Windows 10 machines, declared support or not, I reckon both MS and iXsystems have an incentive to keep them compatible with each other. Recent changes at MS resulting in issues with CORE machines that then got an update illustrates same.
So,
No. As outlined above. I would worry less about maintaining SMB1 compatibility and more about maintaining decent operational security by banning SMB1 from any mission-critical networks in your enterprise. Unless you never send new make files to the CNC routers, there will always be an avenue to infect them.
The good news is that since you’re air-gapping those systems because they’re unsupportable and presumably insecure, you can just leave a storage system inside that environment too.
The way I see it, probably the next major disruption for SMB support will be deprecation of NTLM authentication. We’ll probably support NTLMv2 authentication for the foreseeable future because of legacy clients. I seriously doubt any major change will happen in the next decade that will break support for Windows 10 clients, but vendors can’t go about making promises that your EOL Windows version will just keep working forever. Once the OS vendor 100% stops support, then the clock is ticking. Even if the OS keeps working, perhaps other changes in hardware will make it increasingly difficult to maintain Windows 10 clients (this has been the case with old CNC mill owners I’ve talked to in the past). That said, if people are still hacking together stuff to work with Windows 98, I think Windows 10 will probably keep you running till close to retirement
Deprecation of SMB1 was a major, necessary, and breaking change. SMB2 → SMB3.11 was about adding features (anecdotally I’ve heard the SMB2 → SMB3 naming change was actually marketing-driven rather than for any technical reason). If you look at the protocol docs it’s still MS-SMB2.
There seems to be a misconception that I am concerned about losing SMB 1. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I was thrilled when we finally got rid of the last Windows NT controlled CNC because it meant I could finally turn off SMB 1 on all the devices that needed to connect to it.
Our CNCs are not air-gapped. They are connected to our network as that is how we send jobs to them as well as how the manufacturers remote in for support. They do, however, have all updates completely turned off. (Yes, that is possible if you know where to go in the policy editor.) We found out the hard way during the installation of a new CNC where they forgot to turn off updates. While the tech was installing the machine, Windows updated and basically bricked the machine. Had to waste a day while a new SSD was flown in to fix it.
So, the only reason I included SMB in the title of this thread was because that section of the docs is where I found the generically worded statement that operating systems (not SMB, but operating systems) that have reached EOL would not be able to connect to Scale.
While I don’t discount the opinions of the community, I appreciate hearing from a member of TrueNAS’s staff. I can breathe a little easier now. It’s one thing to be a knowlegable enthusiast running a tricked out NAS serving up movies and music to their home network (and I love you!), but quite another to be the sole I.T. guy in a small business trying to keep up with technology while making sure that everything runs flawlessly within the constraints of a very tight budget. Thank you all for your input!
