Product FAQ

What is Rockstor?

Rockstor is an Open Source NAS (Network Attached Storage) operating system. It is a software solution that can be installed on commodity hardware or on most hypervisors satisfying Minimum system requirements

How is Rockstor licensed?

What is a quick way to evaluate Rockstor?

For quick evaluation, install Rockstor on Virtual Box, Virtual Machine Manager or VMWare. See Quick evaluation using a virtual environment for more information.

How can I get started with Rockstor?

Installation of Rockstor is a very easy and short process. See Quick start to get started.

What kind of hardware do I need to install Rockstor?

Rockstor runs on 64-bit commodity hardware, both x86_64 and ARM64 (i.e. Pi4). You can install it on bare metal or a hypervisor. See Quick start for more information.

Can I run Rockstor from a USB flash drive?

Yes. Rockstor is optimized to do less writes if it detects the system drive to be non-rotational. Older USB 2.0 ports and devices are not recommended. So we recommend USB 3.0 devices even if your motherboard doesn’t support USB 3.0. Ideally use the combination of a new fast USB 3.0 device in a USB 3.0 port. See Minimum system requirements subsection USB advisory for more context and better options.

Are there faster alternatives to running from USB?

Yes. SATA or pci-e attached devices are generally a far better option; with non-rotational media such as SSD via for example mSATA or m.2 preferred.

How much does Rockstor cost?

Little to nothing, depending on how you choose to receive Rockstor package updates. You can install Rockstor using our x86_64 and ARM64 installers free of cost. These installers include the last major stable version, or the latest stable Release Candidates. Depending on if the testing channel has been recently restarted or is in Release Candidate state. The Testing channel is free, but access to the Stable channel interim updates requires a small subscription fee. Stable channel interim updates are limited to small “hot fixes” to existing features only.

See Software update for more information.

N.B. There are no feature difference between the channels bar those in pre-stable status.

How can I share files using Rockstor?

Rockstor supports popular file sharing protocols like Samba/CIFS, NFS, and SFTP. See Services & File sharing for details on how to setup and configure these. Linux, Apple, and Windows clients can easily share files using Rockstor (see Accessing Shares from Clients). Rockstor also supports apps like OwnCloud, Nextcloud, Syncthing, Seafile, and others in the form of Rock-ons (Docker Plugins) that provide more advanced and/or easier ways to share and access your files.

Do you have any hardware recommendations?

For home or small business use, we’ve seen Rockstor install flawlessly on HP, DELL and Supermicro servers and desktops. The developers of Rockstor have used HP Micro servers and Pi4’s for personal use.

Rockstor also installs easily on the latest generation of servers from vendors like HP and Supermicro and more recently Traverse Technologies’ Ten64 platform.

For hobby and small home installs the Pi4 / RPi400 are also supported.

See the downloads page for both x86_64 and ARM64 installers.

I have Rockstor installed. How do I get software updates?

Rockstor can be updated directly from the Web-UI when it indicates that an update is available. It’s a simple, non-disruptive process and takes only a couple of mouse clicks. Note however that you must select an Update Channel before you will receive any ‘rockstor’ package updates. All upstream OS updates are offered by default.

How frequent are the software updates?

Rockstor development depends on the number of contributors and Stable Channel subscribers. Testing channel releases are always more frequent. See the Update Channel documentation for more information.

Why is Rockstor updated so frequently?

While we make major releases that require complete OS re-installs, i.e. such as when moving from Rockstor 3 to 4, we try to make these releases as infrequent as possible. Generally we push small tested updates as often as we can, and base our Stable Updates channel releases on the field testing carried out by our community in the Testing Channel.

What Linux flavor is Rockstor based on?

Rockstor 4 is “Built on openSUSE” and resembles most closely the upstream JeOS variants. Our rockstor-installer uses openSUSE’s own kiwi-ng installer builder. We host a bare minimum of re-branding apps on the Open Build Service (see also Overview) courtesy of openSUSE/SuSE/AMD. Otherwise we favour openSUSE’s own *-branding-upstream options.

Our now legacy Rockstor 3.x was based on CentOS 7. We re-branded CentOS, added Rockstor software in the form of additional rpms and changed the installer to make it a bit more straightforward and specific.

What Repositories does Rockstor 4 use?

Optional Rockstor package Update Channel selection exclusively adds one of either:

The Testing Channel or Stable Channel repositories.

The following repositories are included and enabled in Rockstor’s “Built on openSUSE” installer:

Debug-info counterparts “repo-backports-debug-update” & “repo-sle-debug-update” are also added but are not enabled. These are not used during the installer build.

What Filesystems are supported by Rockstor?

BTRFS all the way! Though there’s a lot more to Rockstor than the filesystem, at the core Rockstor productizes neat features of the BTRFS.

How do I prevent data loss with Rockstor?

This is a very important question and a lot of our work with Rockstor revolves around minimizing data loss. There are a few measures you can take to prevent dataloss and have disaster recovery strategy for different possibilities. See Data loss - prevention and recovery in Rockstor. Also note that the btrfs raid5/6 profiles are not currently recommended for production use.

Does Rockstor provide Block or Object storage?

While Rockstor does not currently offer native object storage, it is possible to leverage one of our Rock-ons (Docker Plugins), MinIO, which provides high-performance object storage. See our MinIO Rock-on write-up for additional details.

In addition, since Rockstor is open source, anyone in our community can work with us to get new features added in the future.

Does Rockstor support plugins?

Yes. Rockstor has a built-in engine that supports Docker based applications. See Rock-ons (Docker Plugins).

What is the current list of supported Rock-ons?

For the current list see Rock-ons available by default. Note that new ones are added regularly and can be requested on the Forum.

How do I backup to Rockstor using Apple Time Machine?

Samba exports can be used for Time Machine backups as of Rockstor-3.9.2-56, as a replacement for the now-deprecated AFP exports. The following forum post can be of interest for instructions on how to create a compatible Samba export: Time Machine backups with Rockstor.

Do you have examples on how to build complete NAS solutions for different storage capacities?

Rockstor is hardware agnostic, so you can build a complete Linux, BTRFS-powered NAS solution using the Rockstor NAS OS and hardware of your choice. The only requirement is that the system be of a 64bit Intel or compatible architecture. Don’t hesitate to visit our Forum to find user stories, example builds, or ask for advice from our community!

I run a small organization with 10TB and growing data needs. How can Rockstor help me?

With Rockstor, you can scale your infrastructure with low incremental cost to support your growing data needs. You can have very large storage capacity, limited only by system resources like CPU, RAM etc. Feel free to contact us with your questions.

Can I run a small home personal cloud using Rockstor?

Yes. Rockstor can be installed on many small computers like ASUS VivoPC or Intel NUC. We recommend visiting our Forum for user stories, examples builds, and request advice or recommendation from the community.

Can Rockstor support my specific storage use case?

You can contact us with your requirements and we will get in touch with you. We do storage services and support and are happy to enable you to use Rockstor for your storage requirements.

Is the BTRFS filesystem reliable?

BTRFS is a newer Linux filesystem and is under heavy development. Some commercial Linux distribution vendors are supporting it to various levels and others will follow very soon given that the stability has improved quite a bit. So for now, you have to answer that question yourself based on data and your risk. In our experience, BTRFS has become very reliable. Also, Rockstor confines users from using BTRFS more freely, thus reducing the chances of hitting deep intricate bugs. The fact that BTRFS bugs being reported lately are only triggered by very special scenarios is an encouraging sign.

However a proviso here is that the BTRFS community consensus has btrfs-raid5 and btrfs-raid6 parity levels of as not yet fully stable; and so are *not recommended for production use*. Please see the btrfs docs for up to date information on all btrfs matters.

Why does Rockstor support only BTRFS and not other Linux filesystems?

BTRFS is in it’s own league among Linux filesystems and we see tremendous value in building over it and making it’s advanced feature set easily accessible to users. While there are other excellent filesystems, we plan to focus on providing the best solution based on BTRFS.

How can I stay in touch with the latest Rockstor news?

We recommend you join our community forum, follow the rockstor-core project on github, and follow us on Masterdon @TheRockstorProject.

How can I contribute to Rockstor?

Thanks for asking and welcome to the Rockstor community. Depending on your needs and interests, there are a few ways to participate. See Contributing to Rockstor - Overview for more details. Don’t feel shy and email any of the developers if you like to discuss more before jumping in!

How can I report bugs and request features?

You can create issues or add comments to existing ones on our github issue tracker. The forum is also a good place to start.