TrueNAS SCALE is completing its BETA phase and the “Angelfish” version is starting to swim downriver toward its release. We are now gearing up to both complete Angelfish and start the development of the next major version, which we have codenamed “Bluefin”. The first task is to rationalize the naming system.
The naming system for TrueNAS SCALE is being improved to simplify things for developers and operational users. Each version will have both a codename (e.g Angelfish, Bluefin….Carp? Cherubfish? We’re open to suggestions from the community for the next version after Bluefin) and an official version name (e.g SCALE 22.02) prior to release. The official version name will reflect the planned general availability (GA) date where users can expect to be able to get Enterprise support and the code quality is sufficiently high. The following table shows the high-level TrueNAS SCALE version plan.
| SCALE Version | Current | Next | Future |
| Icon |  |
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| Codename | Angelfish | Bluefin | Carp? |
| Status | RC1 (Oct 26) | Nightly (soon) | Planned |
| Official name | 22.02 | 22.TBD | 23.TBD |
| Release Target | Feb 2022 | Late 2022 | 2023 |
| Key Features | Kubernetes/Apps | Clustered Kubernetes | TBD |
| KVM Hypervisor | High Availability VMs | ||
| Scale-out ZFS | Scale-out Snapshots | ||
| Clustered SMB | Many others. |
The Angelfish version will be officially called “SCALE 22.02”, since Feb 2022 is the (GA) target. Angelfish is largely defined by the feature set in SCALE 21.08. The naming of future Angelfish releases will be changed as shown in the following table.
| TrueNAS SCALE Angelfish Releases |
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| Release Number | Planned Date | Notes |
| SCALE 21.08-BETA.2 | 10/8/21 | Available and recommended |
| SCALE 22.02-RC1 | 10/26/21 | In the final QA process |
| SCALE 22.02-RC2 | December 2021 | In development – includes M-Series HA |
| SCALE 22.02.0 | February 2022 | Planned General Availability |
| SCALE 22.02.1 | April 2022 | First Update |
The October RC1 release is being renamed SCALE 22.02-RC1 because this is the official branch point between Angelfish and Bluefin. From this point, new software improvements and features would arrive in the Bluefin version. There will be publicly available Bluefin nightly releases (aka “nightlies”) for the development community and active testers to help collaborate on this next major release of TrueNAS SCALE. In some cases, bug fixes provided to Bluefin will be tested and then backported to Angelfish. This naming convention avoids any problems if both Angelfish and Bluefin have releases in the same month.
TrueNAS SCALE Angelfish completes the primary goals of TrueNAS SCALE (SCALE as an acronym equals Scale-out, Convergence, Active-active, Linux, Easy) for many, but not all, use cases. The SCALE Bluefin version will take this to the next level and add many new features, including Kubernetes clustering and scale-out ZFS snapshots/replication.
Bluefin nightlies will start before the end of the year, and we will finalize the list of major features early in 2022. Bluefin will stay as nightlies until it reaches BETA. At that point, we will give it an official version name and a target GA date. You’ll see information in jira.ixsytems.com and can expect us to blog about it more in early 2022.
The good news is that none of these changes impact the schedule. TrueNAS SCALE 22.02-RC1 was frozen a week ago and is halfway through its QA cycle. It’s looking good for its release on October 26. The quality is another major step from SCALE 21.08 which now has almost 4,000 users, the most of any previous TrueNAS or FreeNAS BETA release.
We want to thank the community for the tremendous support in bringing TrueNAS SCALE to life. The assistance in finding and resolving bugs has been invaluable. It’s also been awesome to collaborate with many developers who have contributed major enhancements. Please keep reporting bugs and making suggestions as we finish this initial GA release together!
Who Should Use TrueNAS SCALE?
At this BETA and RC stage of its Software Development Lifecycle, TrueNAS SCALE is primarily for developers, testers, tech-savvy enthusiasts, and early adopters. For Linux developers, there are many opportunities to contribute to the Open Source TrueNAS SCALE project, and we have a vibrant Discord Community for contributors. It is a well-coordinated and managed environment to collaborate in developing the best open hyperconverged infrastructure as a collective. For more information, see this community post.
For larger commercial users with scale-out needs, iXsystems has a formal BETA program to support specific deployments and applications before they complete testing and enter the production phase. Please contact your iXsystems Account Representative or email us at info@iXsystems.com if you are interested in joining the BETA program.
Production users with standard NAS (NFS, SMB, iSCSI, S3) requirements are still advised to use TrueNAS CORE and Enterprise, which have a hundred times more data under management and over ten years of operation and stability. TrueNAS SCALE has inherited some of that maturity and the automated testing but has not completed its software quality lifecycle.
If you have any additional questions or need advice on a new project, please email us at info@iXsystems.com. We are standing by to help.
