TrueNAS Scale: Great Until You Need to Recover Data

💾 The Setup

I've been running TrueNAS Scale for a year. It's been great—reliable, fast, feature-rich. I love ZFS, snapshots work perfectly, and the web UI is excellent.

Then I needed to recover data, and everything changed.

The problem: TrueNAS is great until you need to recover data. Then you discover the limitations.

❌ What Went Wrong

1. Corrupted Pool

One of my ZFS pools got corrupted (hardware issue). TrueNAS detected it, but recovery wasn't straightforward.

2. Limited Recovery Tools

TrueNAS has basic recovery tools, but for serious data recovery, you need command-line access and ZFS expertise.

3. Documentation Gaps

The recovery documentation assumes you're a ZFS expert. For regular users, it's overwhelming.

✅ What Actually Worked

After struggling with the GUI, I had to use command-line tools:

# Check pool status
zpool status

# Scrub the pool
zpool scrub tank

# Export/import pool
zpool export tank
zpool import tank

# Check for errors
zfs list -t all

The GUI couldn't do what I needed. I had to drop to the command line.

💡 Lessons Learned

• TrueNAS is great for storage, but recovery requires ZFS knowledge
• Learn ZFS command-line tools before you need them
• Test your recovery procedures regularly
• Have backups (TrueNAS snapshots aren't enough)

🎯 Conclusion

TrueNAS Scale is excellent, but data recovery is harder than it should be. Learn ZFS before you need it.