I’d have ZimaOS raised to 3rd place hands down, where it would be only after unRAID and TrueNAS. The amount of people that would ditch their Windows drivepool builds to ZimaOS would be off the charts, myself included, because we’d finally get integrated checksum and snapshots at the file system level without either (a) losing data multiple times to learn all the TrueNAS lessons or (b) breaking the bank with U$250 licensing costs.
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I believe you summed it up really well.
Native MergerFS + SnapRAID-style pooling would make ZimaOS extremely competitive for mixed-drive media storage. The combo of flexible pools, parity, and snapshots at the FS level would bring a huge number of Windows DrivePool / OMV users across, without the cost or learning curve of TrueNAS or UNRAID.
And it’s great to see how active the community is and how accommodating the Zima team have been. Totally agree this would unlock a massive audience.
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agreeing on all points here.
imo the hardest part is to keep the simplicity without adding complexity.
i‘m afraid, that at e.g. v2.0 the user will be indirectly forced to either buy Zima-Hardware or at some point has to decide between Unraid and ZimaOS (for his 3rd party HW).
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Yup, that’s the actual challenge.
Tagging @Zima-Giorgio to evaluate the possibilities of implementing this. I’d go full survival mode and bumping this into P0 internally granted the sheer potential this would unlock.
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Hey guys, thanks for your feedback. We will take your suggestions into consideration.
Hi, @dropn9ne , rest assured. User won’t be forced to buy Zima-Hardware before and after v2.0, period. We are making ZimaOS a general NAS OS now.
Hi, @vipper_666 , I have forwarded the posts here to the team. And the team will reconsider it regarding your feedback.
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snapraid +1
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I am hoping this happens at some point. Because of the lack of parity for a jbod setup i run ZimaOS for all my apps but run OMV on my nas to get ther mergerfs + SNAPRAID setup. Would much rather be able to run one system.
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Thank you for considering this! I really hope the team is open to this as it would be an absolutely KILLER addition!! I would absolutely throw my money at you right now for 3 ZimaOS licenses but I really need these features with my personal setup!
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It would be without a doubt one of the best OS out there. Those features would be game changing just like it was to unRAID.
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I’d really love to see proper MergerFS integration added to ZimaOS – ideally with a simple GUI option in the Storage Manager, similar to what CasaOS has with its Merge Storage feature.
I (and I suspect many home users) often work with hard drives of different sizes, ages, and capacities (recycled from old builds, upgrades, etc.). What I need is an easy, flexible way to pool them into a single unified volume that all my apps can use seamlessly as one big storage path.
With MergerFS:
- I can just plug in a new drive when I’m running low on space, add it to the pool, and the system automatically handles where new files go (no manual path changes or reconfiguring apps).
- Expanding is painless: Add a bigger drive, copy files over if needed, remove the old one, and update the pool.
- Optional parity with SnapRAID gives bitrot protection and recovery from a single drive failure without the performance hit of traditional RAID.
- Crucially: If one drive fails, only the files on that drive are lost – the rest of the pool remains accessible and intact (unlike striped RAID/JBOD where one failure can wipe everything).
This setup is perfect for media-heavy home labs (movies, photos, backups) where data is important but often replaceable/rebuildable, and we prioritize flexibility over enterprise-level redundancy.
ZimaOS already has great RAID/JBOD options for users who want that, but MergerFS + SnapRAID would make it unbeatable for the “mix-and-match drives” crowd.
Please add this. Even basic MergerFS pooling with configurable policies (like “most free space”) would be a game-changer!
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Any news regarding this killer feature?
There’s this brand new NAS distro, which also relies on the combination of SnapRAID and mergerFS. So clearly people have a need for this:
MOS OS
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Tagging @777-Spider
Any new developments on this? Would really like to use ZimaOS, but this unfortunately makes it a non-starter on my mixed-TB device sizes primary NAS system…
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