Unraid and FreeNAS are two popular NAS systems in the market and many consumers are struggling between them and don’t know which one they should buy. On MiniTool Website, this article will give you a full guide to compare Unraid to FreeNAS. If you have the same concerns, you can read this post about Unraid vs FreeNAS.

What Are Unraid and FreeNAS?

Unraid and FreeNAS are both storage operating systems with different features. Those two NAS devices have the basic functionalities that allow users to store and share data for multiple computers, being accessed remotely.

To separately introduce these two NAS operating systems, Unraid can give you total control over your data, media, desktops, and applications using any combination of hardware; while FreeNAS is able to build your storage system to use in various data-intensive applications without any software costs.

These two different brands have their different features and services. Then let’s have a look at that.

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Unraid vs TrueNAS Review – What’s the Difference Between Them?

Do you know what are the differences between Unraid and TrueNAS? These two NAS devices have different features to provide services. Let’s figure it out.

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Unraid vs FreeNAS Review

Unraid vs FreeNAS in Compatibility and Requirements

Different NAS devices have varied hardware requirements. In this regard, Unraid will be more flexible for its specific hardware and disk configurations.

And the greatest difference between FreeNAS and Unraid is their disk configuration and Hardware RAID controller support.

FreeNAS requires a minimum of 1 disk, which is preferably equal size disks for RAID setup, in disk configuration while Unraid does not have too much requirement in this regard. But if you use hardware RAID controllers, Unraid is not your best choice.

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Synology VS Unraid Comparison Review – Which One to Choose?

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Unraid vs FreeNAS in File System Features

Whether Unraid or FreeNAS, they both have their salient advantages to occupy their markets. For example, FreeNAS, with OpenZFS as the file system, provides advanced data protection and encryption. FreeNAS also allows you to create traditional RAID modes to stripe and mirror data across multiple disks.

Apart from that, more features are allowed in FreeNAS, such as snapshots, replication, and plugin support.

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Different from FreeNAS, Unraid acts as an independent file system, using XFS or BTRFS. With Unraid, you are allowed to create one or two parity drives to protect your array against data loss. It provides data protection through dedicated parity drives.

Related article: XFS vs Ext4: Which One Is Better?

Unraid vs FreeNAS in Scalability

In the case of scalability, compared to Unraid, FreeNAS is more limited by equal-size drive requirements because FreeNAS requires to purchase additional hardware and disk drives of equal size when you are in an urgent situation of needing more storage capacity.

With the expanding storage, users can enjoy more advanced features and enterprise-grade capabilities.

Unraid will be more flexible to add any size and capacity of drives. Besides, if you find your submitted storage plan can’t meet your demands in the future, you can directly upgrade from Basic to Plus or other versions.

You don’t need to spend time setting up the configurations and this can be more cost-effective in the long run.

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Unraid vs FreeNAS in Pricing

For different services they can offer, those two programs provide available plans for users choosing, especially Unraid. Unraid offers varied staged pricing, including $59, $89, $129. (The price may vary with time and that is for reference).

You can choose the storage plan according to your own condition and these one-time prices won’t require any additional costs for the subsequent use.

It is friendly to use FreeNAS for those without too much storage and feature service demands but hope to try it free. However, if you want to expand your storage spaces, the spending will exceed your budget.

As FreeNAS is a traditional RAID system, it will be limited for users who want to add drives of different sizes or capacities.

An Overall Comparison

Here is an overall FreeNAS vs Unraid review.

Operating SystemFile SystemsRAID SupportPluginsHardware RequirementsData ProtectionCostNetworking
FreeNASOpen SourceZFSZFS RAIDZ, RAIDZ2, RAIDZ3, and MirrorsOver 100 plugins availableRequires a minimum of 8GB RAMSnapshots, Replication, and EncryptionFree to download and useStatic and Dynamic IP configuration
UnraidProprietaryXFS, BTRFS, and ReiserFSUnraid proprietary systemLimited plugin supportSystems with low resources are availableLimited data protection featuresDifferent staged pricesAdvanced networking features

Back Up Data to Unraid or FreeNAS

After reading this article, you may have known which NAS device is better for you. No matter which NAS device you have chosen, you may need to back up your data to the new one. We recommend this excellent backup software – MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up your data.

MiniTool ShadowMaker is committed to data backup for many years and some related features have been developed to improve your backup experience and satisfy your demands, such as backup schedules and schemes.

Of course, you can enjoy the Sync feature for file sharing and some other available tools.

Download and install the program to start the backup journey.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 1: Open the program and click Keep Trial to gain the 30-day free trial.

Step 2: Go to the Backup tab to choose your backup source and destination. If you want to perform a NAS backup, you can go to Shared in DESTINATION and input path, username, and password to click OK.

input path

When you finish, you can click Back Up Now to start the task immediately.

Struggle to choose your suitable NAS? Unraid and FreeNAS both are good choices. This article has a Unraid vs FreeNAS review and if you like it, you can share it on Twitter.Click to Tweet

Wrapping It Up

What are Unraid and FreeNAS? And what are the differences between them? Now, by reading this article, you may have an overall picture of them. This post can help you better decide the better option. Besides, backup is always your good partner in preventing data loss. Hope your concerns have been resolved here.

If you have encountered any issues when using MiniTool ShadowMaker, you can leave a message in the following comment zone and we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you may contact us via [email protected].

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