Overview of New Features and Improvements in TOS 6

[TMroy]

Initialization Experience Upgrade:

TOS 6 Ushers in a New Era for Linux Kernel:
TOS 6 has embraced the brand-new Linux Kernel 6.1 LTS, presenting users with an unprecedented experience. This update not only elevates system performance but also reinforces overall efficiency through the introduction of MG-RLU.

File System Performance Leap:
The btrfs file System has witnessed a substantial boost in performance, meeting the demands for high speeds. Moreover, the new erofs feature facilitates cross-file system data sharing, providing users with more agile data management capabilities.

EXT 4 File System Stability Enhancement:
Extensive repairs and organization have been carried out on the EXT 4 file system, ensuring users can enjoy increased stability and data security during usage.

Hardware Support and Innovation:
TOS 6 is prepared to support Intel's "Meteor Lake" 5nm chips, keeping in sync with the latest hardware technologies. Additionally, we have integrated the Kernel Memory Sanitizer (KMSAN), expedited Intel memory error decoding via the EDAC driver, and introduced Maple Tree data structure support, offering users more efficient data processing capabilities.

Security Control Escalation:
Reinforced security controls have been implemented for the ability to create user namespaces, ensuring that while users enjoy powerful functionalities, system security is further strengthened and user data is adequately protected.
This series of initialization improvements aims to deliver a faster, more stable, and secure system experience. Whether in terms of performance, file system, hardware support, or security, TOS 6 has taken a solid step forward, meeting user expectations for a high-quality operating system.

Custom System Drive:
Users can now choose to install the system on specified hard drives or SSDs, with a maximum of four options, for swifter system responses, application loading, and data submission. This feature allows users to install the system on disks with faster response times, thereby boosting overall system performance.

Optimized System Installation Process:
In version 6.0, we have further refined the installation process of TOS to adapt to modern usage scenarios and maintain higher stability during operation.

Enhanced System Update Mechanism:
To prevent update failures caused by user configuration differences, we have revamped TOS's system update mechanism. TOS 6 also introduces update verification and error correction capabilities, ensuring that users can update only when they meet the update criteria and avoid update failures caused by using incorrect update packages.
UI Visualization Improvements:

New Desktop Design:
To keep users more focused on content, we have removed system application icons from the desktop, resulting in a cleaner and clearer desktop with reduced visual distractions.

Navigation Bar Simplification and Centering:
We have optimized the display of the navigation bar, reducing the number of items and centering them, thus more clearly identifying the currently active application. This improvement enables users to switch between applications more easily and efficiently.

New Right Sidebar:
On the right side of the screen, we have added a hidden sidebar that integrates multiple practical features, including system panel, message center, buzzer control, file task viewing, and help. This sidebar provides users with a convenient one-stop tool for enhanced usage experience.

New "Start" Menu Experience:
We have redesigned the "Start" menu, transforming it into a comprehensive entry point that integrates user settings, power-off/restart buttons, history viewing, and function and application search. This new design aims to make it easier for users to access various functions and applications, improving efficiency.

Custom Shortcuts:
Users can create custom browser page shortcuts on the desktop for quicker access to applications, virtual machines, or containers.

Custom User Avatar:
In settings, users can personalize their avatars, making the desktop more individualized.

Dark Display Mode:
Considering users' visual health, we have added the popular dark display mode to reduce eye fatigue caused by prolonged screen use.

Accent Color Options:
Users can now choose from up to five accent colors, customizing the display style of pages, navigation bars, buttons, icons, and prompts to showcase their personality.

System Panel Upgrade:
The new system panel features a new layout, allowing users to customize component quantity and position, easily monitoring system operation, network connection, storage usage, and hardware status.

Module Navigation Improvement:
All control panel configurations are now expanded in the left module navigation bar, facilitating quick switches between different setting sections.

Quick Save for Configuration:
We have added a quick save function for control panel menu configurations. When users complete configurations but haven't applied them and jump to other pages, they can swiftly save the current configuration status.

Permission Management Enhancement:

System Internal User Permission Setting:
In the latest permission setting module, we have included the "System Internal User" function, enabling administrators to independently set shared folder access permissions for these users, greatly enhancing permission management flexibility.

Advanced ACL Permission Refinement:
To meet more complex permission management needs, we have added advanced access control list (ACL) permission functions for SMB file services. Besides basic deny, read-only, and read-write permissions, administrators can now choose from up to 13 elaborate permission control options, ensuring more meticulous and comprehensive management of folder access permissions.

New Recycle Bin Permission Control:
To prevent accidental deletion of important files, we have added recycle bin permission control. Administrators can elevate recycle bin access permission levels, ensuring users can only delete files when necessary.

User Group Permission Management Improvement:
We have optimized user group permission management logic. When users join two or more user groups simultaneously, the system automatically configures appropriate permissions for users based on the priority principle of permissions (Deny > Read-Write > Read-Only).

Enhanced User Search Functionality:
To improve administrator work efficiency, especially when managing a large number of users, we have added a user search function. Administrators can now quickly locate specific users by searching usernames when configuring user permissions.

General Functionality Enhancement:

Scheduled Task Notification:
We have added a scheduled task notification function to inform relevant users of the real-time status of user-defined scheduled tasks.

Network Function Improvement:
For easy video browsing and searching, we have added media indexing to automatically generate thumbnails for video files.

File Service Optimization:
To meet more complex user application requirements, we have added more custom options for NFS file services, making NFS services more flexible and adaptable to actual user needs.

Storage Functionality Enhancement:

Flexible Shared Folder Management:
We have added migration functions for shared folders between different storage volumes, allowing users to allocate and manage storage resources more conveniently. Meanwhile, a search function for shared folders has been introduced, enabling rapid location of target folders even with a large quantity of folders.

Integration of Cloud and Local Data:
To meet higher user demands for data management, we have added mount functions for cloud disks and WebDAV, supporting direct mounting of cloud disks and WebDAV directories to TNAS locally, simplifying data management operations.

Intelligent Monitoring of Storage Space:
A low storage space warning function has been added. When available space falls below a user-defined threshold, the system intelligently issues alerts to help users avoid insufficient storage space issues.

Hyper-Lock WORM dual mode selection:
To meet the compliance needs of different users, we have added two modes of the Hyper-Lock WORM file system: compliance mode and enterprise mode, providing users with more flexible usage options.

Strengthening of hard disk management:

Wipe hard disk online:
The new online hard drive wiping function allows users to delete all partitions and erase all data without uninstalling the hard drive or shutting down the computer, making it convenient to reformat the hard drive.

Real-time detection of hard disk health:
We have introduced a hard drive health detection and warning function. Once there are abnormalities in key indicators of the hard drive, the system will immediately issue a warning to ensure the security of data storage.

Improved efficiency of system and hard disk operation and maintenance:
In TOS 6, we added the ability for users to specify the installation location of the system, and added system drive letter identifiers to the hard drive list to provide special markers for systems with hard drives, improving the efficiency of system and hard drive operation and maintenance management.

Cross-platform data interoperability:
We have added support for cross-mounting ARM and x86 disks or arrays on different platforms, allowing users to directly read data from different hardware platforms without formatting operations, greatly facilitating hardware platform migration. (This feature is only available for TOS 5.1.67 and later systems)

Multi-file system disk direct mounting:
In addition to ext4/ btrfs file system disks, it now supports direct mounting of disks containing EXT3, NTFS, ExFAT, and HFS+ file systems. Users can directly manipulate the data on the disk without having to power on or off or reformat it. The newly mounted disk will be presented as a file directory. (Note: At least one system disk with TOS installed is required in the TNAS device)

USB storage device health management:
Added S.M.A.R.T. detection function for external USB storage devices, allowing users to more comprehensively monitor the health of USB disks.
Enhanced safety performance:

Personalized HTTPS certificate:
To meet users' higher requirements for security, we have added the ability to customize SSL certificates. Users can apply for their own SSL certificates and upload them to the TOS system to replace the default HTTPS certificate, enhancing the security of network communication.

Firewall rule optimization:
We have redesigned the rule settings of the firewall, introduced the concept of rule priority, and optimized the creation of rules, enabling users to more flexibly and accurately manage network security.

SPC security and privacy control:
The SPC security and privacy control function has been added, which improves the overall security level of the system through advanced technical means, effectively preventing user data from being subjected to malicious attacks and ensuring the security of user data.

Real-time monitoring of system resources:
The real-time update function of system processes' CPU and memory usage is added, and sorting by process name and category is supported, which facilitates administrators to understand the system resource usage of each process at any time.

Network I/O details:
We have added the chart viewing function for each network port's network I/O, allowing users to intuitively grasp the usage of system network resources for reasonable allocation and management.

The application center is well-equipped:

Application download:
The application download function has been added to the application center, allowing users to easily download the tpk installation package for applications and install them on TNAS without internet connection, enhancing the application scalability of devices.

Application operation log:
To meet the traceability requirements of administrators for application management, we have added the application operation log function to record operations such as installation, deactivation, uninstall, and update of applications, which facilitates auditing and management by administrators.

Improvement of file management experience:

Directory navigation and column display:
In TOS 6, we have comprehensively optimized the directory navigation, systematically categorizing common directories, user directories, volumes, and external storage, making browsing more convenient. The newly added column display mode allows users to browse file lists at five folder levels simultaneously on the same page, and supports dragging and dropping files, greatly improving operational efficiency.

Tab and multi-window operation:
The introduction of the tab function is equivalent to opening multiple file management windows at the same time, making it easy to move, copy, and paste files between different tabs, significantly improving work efficiency.

Thumbnail and preview:
Added image thumbnail size switching to meet different preview requirements. At the same time, direct preview of office documents is supported, without additional software, covering images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, TXT, and other formats.

File selection and task tracking:
Enhance the select all function of the mouse and shortcut keys, and add the invert selection function to make file selection more flexible. When copying/moving multiple files, the new task menu will display the total progress in a consolidated manner, optimizing the user experience.

Upload and conflict resolution:
In addition to selecting files from the computer, the new TNAS upload option provides convenient operation. Three conflict resolution strategies, skip, overwrite, and rename, are provided to meet different needs.

Performance and optimization:
Allows disabling image and video thumbnail generation, speeding up file list loading. The custom external network sharing link function has also been enhanced, allowing users to choose to use URL paths such as DDNS.

Text Editing：
Add text editor function to meet the needs of text creation and editing.

[aschang]

Hello when the migration will be possible for the users not part of beta testing batch?

[maexchen]

will TOS6 also use a 8GB system partition? I'm about to wipe my NAS and plan to update 5.1 with 8GB, but don't want to redo all again if I update to TOS6 later

[crisisacting]

will TOS6 also use a 8GB system partition? I'm about to wipe my NAS and plan to update 5.1 with 8GB, but don't want to redo all again if I update to TOS6 later

Yes, it requires the newer 8 GB system partition.

[Hockers]

When is TOS 6 going to be released?

[crisisacting]

When is TOS 6 going to be released?

It's still on insider preview builds.

If it's like previous TOS 5, it'll have a few public beta builds before it's officially released.

[ETCornerReviews]

I have had the privilege to be apart of the TOS 6 insider Preview Program and am excited to share quick feedback:

Right off the bat logging into your TNAS displays a more modern design approach; colors pop, icons have a sharper updated look, dark mode looks fabulous, the floating dock with notifications and the dashboard is kept sleek, and a new start menu provides an improved usability and cleaner desktop.

While the taskbar menu integration seems to emulate the windows approach with search bar, system power & logout management buttons, recent visits, and user account quick access, it sadly lacks searchability with the current implementation limited to keywords used in the system naming convention (regex search?). I am excited to see what solutions the TOS-Team is working on to improve the searching algorithms to make them more “intelligent,” allowing the search of settings, files and much more housed on the TNAS.

Regarding speed Terra Master has made big strides, significantly improving the responsiveness of the system. Even more impressive is combining this “new system snappiness” with their improved security features (i.e. SPC). The increase of security setting customization allows for a more tailored configuration, greatly reducing the risk of exposing unneeded services.

While there are a significant number of further improvements (see first post), these are the most noticeable in my experience. Overall, Terra Master has really stepped up their game, improving the customizability as well as security of TOS / TNAS Systems. I am also happy to see that suggestions / bugs are also considered as updates have already included implementations / fixes for the aforementioned. With all TOS 6 has to offer I highly encourage an update; it is worth the time and configuration needed.

P.S. Thank you Terra Master for the opportunity to be apart of the Insider “sneak peek”, I had a great time testing and exploring the changes implemented in TOS 6. I would also like to thank you for giving me the freedom to state my mind about this experience without restrictions. Lastly, I want to thank Terra Master for the prizes / giveaways. It is very generous of you to congratulate me with the iPhone 15, which is a real powerhouse and a great accompaniment to your NAS products, for the time I took to test the preview release and give my feedback. I once again enjoy the cooperation and professionalism and look forward to being a part of the change at Terra Master.

[TMroy]

Thank you very much for your always support!

[phiku]

Please update samba to a newer Version too. It‘s still 4.15 in TOS 6.0.154 as in TOS 5.1

Thanks
Phiku