https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX6q0qCKOVM

What's next: a move to a Fedora base (built on Universal Blue's uCore) for faster security updates and far better hardware support out of the box; native Docker Compose; a built-in backup solution — to the cloud, an S3 bucket, or another Unraid server, with snapshots and full restores; a plugin permission system so you can see exactly what each plugin can touch before you install it; and a cleaner, more consistent interface across the OS, your account, and Community Apps — all without taking anything away from the power users who go deep.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by peterg23

Some past Unraid newsletters and shows mention Multiple Arrays (not pools) coming within the 7.x cycle and within 2026:

E.g. https://newsletter.unraid.net/p/unraid-2025-year-in-review

E.g. https://youtu.be/PihqSOF8wnA

Unraid 7.4 beta is out, Unraid 8 is being discussed above. Multiple Arrays are not mentioned with a single word.

I think it would be fair to tell those, that wait for Multiple Array support for so long, if it will ever show up.

Edited August 16Aug 16 by hawihoney

11 hours ago, hawihoney said:

Unraid 7.4 beta is out, Unraid 8 is being discussed above. Multiple Arrays are not mentioned with a single word.

I think it would be fair to tell those, that wait for Multiple Array support for so long, if it will ever show up.

@SpencerJ ?

@SpencerJ?

In my country, older people use the saying, “No answer is also an answer.”

I guess I know the answer ...

I hope the cloud backups support standard systems like Borgbackup in addition to the standard protocols like SFTP. My backup servers in the cloud run Borgbackup and I like it a lot. I use Borgmatic on the clients to handle scheduling and configuration (including on Unraid at the moment).

Having built in presets for common cloud providers would be useful. I saw S3 listed, but things like Hetzner Storage Box are very commonly used too.

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Daniel15

Any chance Distrobox will be included by default in Unraid’s implementation of Universal Blue's uCore?

Edited August 20Aug 20 by PenTurDucKenLinE

On 8/20/2026 at 2:44 PM, PenTurDucKenLinE said:

Any chance Distrobox will be included by default in Unraid’s implementation of Universal Blue's uCore?

I wouldnt expect it to be. It has yet to be seen how much freedom the user will have over the underlying distro.

On 8/16/2026 at 11:49 PM, hawihoney said:

Some past Unraid newsletters and shows mention Multiple Arrays (not pools) coming within the 7.x cycle and within 2026:

Too hard basket for LT, accept its never coming and make plans appropriately.

On 8/16/2026 at 1:12 AM, peterg23 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX6q0qCKOVM

What's next: a move to a Fedora base (built on Universal Blue's uCore) for faster security updates and far better hardware support out of the box; native Docker Compose; a built-in backup solution — to the cloud, an S3 bucket, or another Unraid server, with snapshots and full restores; a plugin permission system so you can see exactly what each plugin can touch before you install it; and a cleaner, more consistent interface across the OS, your account, and Community Apps — all without taking anything away from the power users who go deep.

We’re also happy to feature a wellness-focused integration with our sponsor, on their website you can find the best place for your body!. Technology can make everyday life easier, but it is just as important to look after your body, skin, and overall confidence. Taking time for professional care and building a routine that works for you is a worthwhile investment in feeling your best.

thx for this podcast, it was a great time to spend!

Hi there!

I am very excited about this news regarding Unraid OS 8. Following this great update and distro change, is it possible to address the performance bottleneck caused by FUSE? I am a great fan of Unraid and I have one of the first Unraid Pro licences, but my main server is running Ubuntu Server, mainly because of the lack of Docker Compose (which is already on the roadmap) and the better performance with ZFS. If this FUSE issue gets resolved, I would love to migrate my main server to the new Unraid OS 8.

Thank you for your amazing work!!

Cheers

Edited September 1Sep 1 by JohnMA

I have my concerns regarding ZFS because Bluefin  has been started to deprecheate ZFS first with Aurora at the end of this year. It's not clear what happens with their other OSes.

GitHub

We will remove ZFS support starting with Fedora 45 based...

This is kinda awkward as the Fedora Kernels are rather aggressive (even with a 2 week coreos delay) which does not play well with out of tree kernel modules like ZFS. Which means we either have to ...

Edited Thursday at 02:20 PM5 days by b52

On 9/1/2026 at 7:48 AM, JohnMA said:

is it possible to address the performance bottleneck caused by FUSE?

For shares that are only on one array or pool (i.e. it's not configured as cache + array), you can use the "Exclusive Shares" option to avoid FUSE for that share. You can also avoid using /mnt/user/ and instead use the array/pool directly (it's a different directory in /mnt) which is what I'd recommend for VMs.

On 9/1/2026 at 7:48 AM, JohnMA said:

mainly because of the lack of Docker Compose

There's a pretty good plugin for Docker Compose: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/197334-plugin-compose-manager-plus. I combine it with FolderView3 to keep all the containers organized by having a folder per Docker Compose stack.

2 hours ago, b52 said:

I have my concerns regarding ZFS

I don't think it'll really affect Unraid. The issue is if you want to run the very latest kernel, but that's mostly a thing just on client systems (desktops and laptops). On servers it's usually fine to run an older one with ZFS support, and that's what Unraid is already doing today.

Edited Thursday at 05:03 PM5 days by Daniel15

13 minutes ago, Daniel15 said:

For shares that are only on one array or pool (i.e. it's not configured as cache + array), you can use the "Exclusive Shares" option to avoid FUSE for that share. You can also avoid using /mnt/user/ and instead use the array/pool directly (it's a different directory in /mnt) which is what I'd recommend for VMs.

I have already used that option and I noticed better performance 👍.
For some background, I do not use VMs. I mainly use Docker apps (Nextcloud, ownCloud, multimedia, and more apps) and storage (SMB shares). After some tests, I noticed a lack of performance when comparing Unraid + ZFS to Ubuntu Server + ZFS on the same hardware. Am I doing something wrong in the Unraid configuration? I tried system and appdata datasets on a mirror ZFS (NVMe SSDs). The data folders are in a RAIDZ1 (3 x HDDs). Those optimizations can be discussed in another topic; however, my main request is a newer and better-performing implementation on the new Unraid OS 8 platform (Fedora). Is this being considered, or is the plan to keep FUSE solution going forward? Is sticking with FUSE a deliberate design choice for Unraid, or just a limitation of the current stack that could be improved in the upcoming Unraid OS 8 on Fedora?

33 minutes ago, Daniel15 said:

There's a pretty good plugin for Docker Compose: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/197334-plugin-compose-manager-plus. I combine it with FolderView3 to keep all the containers organized by having a folder per Docker Compose stack.

The plugin is a great solution—thanks to the developer for it! However, I found it a bit hard and confusing to use. That might be because I'm used to managing Docker Compose via terminal commands, files, and standard structures, and in the past, I just used the native Unraid Docker tab.

I don't think it'll really affect Unraid. The issue is if you want to run the very latest kernel, but that's mostly a thing just on client systems (desktops and laptops). On servers it's usually fine to run an older one with ZFS support, and that's what Unraid is already doing today.

The hope finally dies. Good ZFS implementation is crucial for me, and power consumption is a concern for many Unraid users. (powertop, C states, HDD sleep). Hopefully Unraid will take care of it with Unraid 8.

On 9/3/2026 at 10:39 AM, JohnMA said:

Is sticking with FUSE a deliberate design choice for Unraid, or just a limitation of the current stack that could be improved in the upcoming Unraid OS 8 on Fedora?

I'm hoping they improve it, maybe with a custom kernel driver rather than using FUSE. I'm guessing they use FUSE because writing a kernel driver is much more work than writing a FUSE app, but this is literally one of the killer features of Unraid so I really feel like it should be prioritized as such. Maybe they could take some ideas from overlayfs I don't think the move to Fedora changes anything, though - they could implement the same improvement on the current Slackware system.

FUSE is slow because every read and write needs to jump between kernel code and userland code. It's not designed to be used for fast file systems where efficiency is a priority - it was built mainly for filesystems that are IO-bound (like network shares), not CPU-bound. FUSE over io_uring and uncached buffered I/O both landed in Linux 6.14, and both should increase the performance of FUSE, but I'm not sure if Unraid takes advantage of either.

On 9/3/2026 at 10:39 AM, JohnMA said:

I found it a bit hard and confusing to use. That might be because I'm used to managing Docker Compose via terminal commands, files, and standard structures

You can use terminal commands if you want to. The plugin puts the Docker Compose stacks in /boot/config/plugins/compose.manager/projects/, and regular docker compose commands work fine. It's the same with regular Docker containers in Unraid - regular docker start and docker stop commands work fine. That's essentially what the web UI is doing.

On 9/3/2026 at 10:39 AM, JohnMA said:

After some tests, I noticed a lack of performance when comparing Unraid + ZFS to Ubuntu Server + ZFS on the same hardware. Am I doing something wrong in the Unraid configuration? I tried system and appdata datasets on a mirror ZFS (NVMe SSDs). The data folders are in a RAIDZ1 (3 x HDDs).

How are you testing the performance?

On 9/5/2026 at 7:31 AM, Daniel15 said:

I'm hoping they improve i

Yes, I'm hoping for that too. Thanks for sharing the technical details about FUSE, I really appreciate it.
By the way, is there a more appropriate place or official channel to request this improvement regarding FUSE directly from the Unraid team?

On 9/5/2026 at 7:31 AM, Daniel15 said:

You can use terminal commands if you want to

Wow, with your information about the directory /boot/config/plugins/compose.manager/projects/, I was finally able to deploy Docker Compose files using commands! So now I am trying to migrate some of my Docker Compose files from my main server to the server with Unraid.

On 9/5/2026 at 7:31 AM, Daniel15 said:

How are you testing the performance?

I performed some simple tests. On the exact same hardware (for the server and client) and on my local network, I copied 200 GB—a mix of small and large files (up to 8 GB)—using an SMB share, and got similar results.

However, when using apps like Nextcloud and ownCloud, I can maximize my full 1 Gbps bandwidth using Ubuntu Server 26.04.1 + ZFS + Docker. On the other hand, on Unraid I noticed lower bandwidth usage.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by JohnMA