As I said in an earlier post, my first foray into FreeBSD was when I built out my FreeNAS server, using FreeNAS 9.2.1.8 in late 2014. Technically, I did some work for an ISP in the early 90s who ran BSDi. Was my first (and only) time rewriting a sendmail.cf. This was before the days of editing m4 files to generate it. The old saying was "you're not a real sysadmin until you rewrite a sendmail.cf...If you do it more than once, you're just nuts." But I digress.
So I ran FreeNAS 9 till the end of it's life, but skipped FreeNAS 10 (Corral). Then I moved to TrueNAS 11 and stuck with it through the 13 series. However, throughout the 13 series, they started developing Debian-based TrueNAS Scale, as opposed to the FreeBSD-based TrueNAS Core. I tried it on backup hardware, and it just didn't work for me. I feel like iXsystems has left Core to die on the vine. They seem to be trying to erase Core from their site to drive people to Scale.
I personally believe that FreeBSD is a far better platform on which to run ZFS. Just the fact that FBSD does ZFS-on-root, and introduces the concept of boot environments, which gives you the ability to completely roll back an update that goes sideways. The linux kernel devs, OTOH, actively dislike ZFS, because it came from Sun Microsystems, who are now owned by oracle...And it feels, to me, like the kernel devs are worried that oracle is going to paradrop a legion of lawyers on the linux foundation or something. Even Linus has said "Don't use ZFS." After testing Scale, I tried XigmaNAS, which was based on the original FreeNAS code after iX forked it into a commercial appliance. But Xigma felt a little bit...Clunky.
Enter zVault. zVault is a truly open source release of iXsystems' TrueNAS Core 13.3, with all of the licensed files removed. But unlike TrueNAS Core, it has a roadmap forward. The team is working on replacing it's current FreeBSD 13.3 base with FreeBSD 13.5, which is still viable until 2026, and updated ZFS code.
I have been running zVault in it's current 13.3 incarnation in production on my home systems for over a month, and in test at work, and so far, I am impressed. I know it is, at this point, still mostly TrueNAS Core, but it feels like its second wind, and the pall of death is not hanging over it, like a breath of fresh air. I will continue to run it, and wait with baited breath for the improvements zVault promises to bring.