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Oct 12, 2018 This article goes over how to setup FreeNAS 11 and configure it. These are the basic steps so you can have a reliable network storage at your house. In this article you are going to learn how to install FreeNAS 11.1 in an easy to follow step-by-step tutorial. Also, you learn how to create your first volume and share.
The FreeNAS team released FreeNAS 11.0. The new release is significant for a few reasons. The new release marks the first since the fiasco of what was the FreeNAS (10) Corral release and then un-release. FreeNAS is popular among STH readers as it offers a FreeBSD-based ZFS storage platform with a web GUI.
![Setup Setup](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125509764/601797231.png)
Features of FreeNAS 11
FreeNAS 11 brings many of the features we liked in FreeNAS Corral to the popular NAS OS. The first major change is that it is now based on FreeBSD 11 which means you get better hardware support and many kernel enhancements out of the box.
For virtual machines, bhyve has been brought back from FreeNAS Corral, or added from FreeNAS 9.10. Jails are present. The major new feature is the S3 compatible object storage. This can be handy for many users although we still recommend using S3 over FreeNAS if you are setting up public downloads.
FreeNAS is also debuting its third GUI option for this year. Users can still use the original 9.10-like UI. The Corral UI is out which we knew. The new GUI is a beta feature that you can select from the login screen. We suspect the team is going to use this UI going forward, but since it is a beta feature it can change. It is expected this will move out of beta with FreeNAS 11.1.
Our advice, if this is not a test system, hold off on this release. FreeNAS Corral was similarly brought to a stable branch then quickly pulled. We understand that decision, an iXsystems joined the discussion on the STH forums on why. Although we would not predict a repeat, we also are much more cautious using FreeNAS.
You can read about FreeNAS 11 release here. You can download the new version here. We like that FreeNAS is moving the versioning forward beyond 10/Corral with this release as it is much less confusing.
![Freenas Freenas](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125509764/728813834.png)
If you do want a standard Debian Linux-based solution that can run standard KVM virtual machines, LXC cointainers, Docker containers and manage ZFS, Ceph and other storage solutions, check out the STH guide Create the Ultimate Virtualization and Container Setup (KVM, LXC, Docker) with Management GUIs
Well I’ve decided: I went with Proxmox. FreeNAS 11.1 was and is still a long way off and the list of bugs yet to solve is quite large. Although I must admit, the primary reason for moving to Proxmox is not because I dislike FreeNAS but because I’ve outgrown the platform. FreeNAS is still the best at what it primarily does: being a rock-solid NAS with ZFS and a easy-to-use interface. My setup however has moved to a hyperconverged appliance with multiple VM’s (both Linux with ZoL and docker, and windows with VGA passthrough) and that’s not what FreeNAS is designed or capable to do.
For Christmas I bought each of the Kids a Roku 3 for their TV. They use them pretty much nonstop. Mostly watching youtube videos of Mine Craft and cartoons. Years ago I copied several movies from DVD to my hard drive, using hand brake at the high quality settings. Now I'm looking to put those movies ( and Music) on a FreeNAS box with the Plex Plugin and streams those movies to the Plex channel or someother channel on the Roku 3, PS3, and Xbox 360. Would the FreeNAS with Plex setup work? I'm not sure how the files are encoded, some are avi, others are mkv, and I think mp4.![](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125509764/149831217.jpg)