Is TrueNAS my best choice? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-03 20:06 I have an old gaming rig I'd like to repurpose, otherwise it's destined for the bin. It's an old i5 6600K, 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and currently has a 980 Ti in it. I'd like to get a couple of large HDDs (probably something in the upcoming Black Friday sales) and pop those in there and run a local NAS/Media server. I'm not sure what services I'd run on it as it stands, I already have an RPi running PiHole and I run a mailserver on a VPS. So I think this would probably be an \*arr suite and Jellyfin / NAS box really. Would TrueNAS tick the box or is there a better solution? Is Unraid worth paying for, for example? I will continue to browse the sub, but thought I'd raise a little discourse as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mistersinicide · 2023-11-03 20:22 If you want to just use any assortments of hard drives, I would recommend picking a different solution then TrueNAS. I think Unraid does this. I don't use UnRaid cause my setup doesn't require using random assortments of hard drives, so I've stuck with TrueNAS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-03 20:24 I'm happy to pick up matching drives, to be honest. I've got my eyes on 2x4TB Ironwood drives at the moment. I haven't looked into the difference just yet, but is Core or Scale better for home use? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mistersinicide · 2023-11-03 20:27 Better is kinda subjective. But if you're looking to run docker containers, then TrueNAS Scale is the way to go, it's also Debian based where as Core is still FreeBSD based. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- brod33p · 2023-11-03 20:28 > Core or Scale better for home use? Scale is probably better if you are planning on using docker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-03 20:29 I run docker solutions at work, so Scale might be a good fit for me then. Thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-03 20:30 Thank you, I have experience with docker so that would be a good choice for me I think. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- matz0r81 · 2023-11-03 21:35 Not sure about true as but setting up a Nas with everything you mention is really easy with omv ---------------------------------------------------------------------- persiusone · 2023-11-03 21:59 Truenas scale will work great for this. Has ability to run VMs and Docker natively. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-03 22:26 Thank you for the recommendation - go to know where to start with it :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mintfresh22 · 2023-11-03 22:32 You ought to pick up some more memory while you are shopping. Zfs loves memory. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notdoreen · 2023-11-03 22:38 A barebones Ubuntu server should do ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IamTHEvilONE · 2023-11-03 22:51 I'm on truenas only because I have a vsphere kit I'm backing and needed a few things for that. Otherwise, I'd be on unraid after seeing exactly how the jails/plugins work for the dockers you mentioned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- acid_etched · 2023-11-04 00:06 I use unraid and like it a lot, but I also haven’t bothered to set up anything in your list but jellyfin. My recommendation is always going to be try both (unraid has a 30 day free trial) and pick whichever you like using. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dogeek · 2023-11-04 00:19 TrueNAS is a great starter OS for self hosting. It is quite resource hungry though, from my experience, and doesn't do much more than what Debian 12 + ZFS can. If you're used to running containers manually, that's what I'd recommend. If instead you want to do everything through a GUI, TrueNAS Scale (not Core, as it's based on FreeBSD) is a good choice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hannsr · 2023-11-04 00:37 Besides what others have already pointed out: do yourself a favor and ditch the 980ti. You'll only need it to install the OS, after that it'll just drink energy doing nothing. In case you need physical access to the system (as in a monitor and keyboard attached to it) any cheap GPU will do the job for far less energy. And if you want some kind of hardware transcoding you'll be better off with something like a GTX 1660 or newer. Those are cheap to get but will be far superior to a 980 while using less energy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KarlosKrinklebine · 2023-11-04 01:45 Be aware that the newest release of Scale has removed Docker and uses containerd. You can run Docker images in k8s, but it's quite a bit more complicated than just plain Docker. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lvlint67 · 2023-11-04 03:40 > Is TrueNAS my best choice? Unless you have a VERY specific reason to pick *BSD... you're going to be much better off in the *nix world these days. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 03:45 Yes, I was thinking that. I'll keep my eyes open for a good deal! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 03:50 That's good to know, thank you. A little contrast to the other comments I've had. I have experience with docker, so that does tick a box for me. Our of interest, what else do you run? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 03:54 I guess my only hang up is I have no experience with software RAID on a base install of Linux, which was why I was leaning more to towards a software package to do the job for me. As much as I don't mind tinkering, I'm tempted to have this as simple as possible so I don't have to play with it much (famous last words, I know). But still, thanks for the reply - I will look into it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 03:55 From what others have now told me, TrueNAS Scale is *nix over FreeBSD, is there any other reason you wouldn't suggest using a "product" like that over a more DIY solution? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 03:56 I get you, but I have zero experience setting up RAID under a base OS, which is why I was leaning more towards to product/package like TrueNAS or Unraid. Still, it's worth considering, thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lvlint67 · 2023-11-04 04:00 I'm wildly allergic to the term "Hyperconverged" after inheriting such a system from HP over the last two years... I don't have any further good technical reasons to avoid the platform no. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 04:00 I agree, it's a shame as it's been such a solid card, but I don't have much of a use for it anymore. Not worried about physical access, more than comfortable with SSH and remote administration. Is transcoding a requirement these days? I figured with better modern codec support it would be less of a requirement? I've seen people running older Quaddro cards for it though, and those can be picked up nice and cheap and don't require additional power. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 04:02 Hahaha that's fair, some of the terminology thrown around by these things sometimes is just pointless. I appreciate the honesty! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ohv_ · 2023-11-04 04:09 128 if you can dish it with dedupe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- acid_etched · 2023-11-04 04:14 Currently I’ve got swag running my website (an nginx installation with some extra built in), FileBrowser set up as a sort of google drive replacement for my friends, several game servers that I boot up when we want to play them, jellyfin, and a couple vms for running always on windows apps like blobsaver. I have some stuff I was playing around with, like zoneminder, which I was using to remotely access android phones set up as security cameras, and home assistant, which I had controlling a single outlet. I plan to do more with these but could honestly get rid of them for now as I’m not using them. I run ZeroTier as a backup way of being able to get into my network if my vpn decides it’s not interested in working that day, and during the winter I use TRex miner so I can say I’m mining bitcoin to heat my house. I’m sure there’s some things I’m forgetting but those are the big ones. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sajberspejs · 2023-11-04 04:20 Quite easy to get things right in TrueNAS. The GUI is actually quite powerful and there's a lot of good guides online. Lawrence Systems have a ton of quality content. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sajberspejs · 2023-11-04 04:22 No need to exaggerate, that's just expensive. Take a look online. 32gb should be plenty for a home server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sajberspejs · 2023-11-04 04:25 I don't know about you, but managing pools, datasets, replication, monitoring, email notifications etc would be too much of a hassle for me without the GUI. I run Linux as a daily driver, but I don't care about learning these things you don't do very often. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- art_of_onanism · 2023-11-04 07:41 Out of curiosity have you considered OMV? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 07:56 I haven't, someone else mentioned it as well, is it worth looking into? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 07:58 Mobo maxes out at 64, so I can't go that high. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 07:59 That's what I'm aiming at if I buy more, mobo max is 64 anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 08:00 That's a good point tbf. Don't get me wrong, I like tinkering, but I would like this side of things to be a little more set and forget I suppose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Maricius · 2023-11-04 08:59 Docker uses containerd aswell. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 09:26 I particularly like Unraid over TrueNas because it doesn't use traditional RAID, which requires all drives to be spun up or running all the time. Saves a lot (couple hundred bucks per year for me) on the energy bill and your drives potentially have a longer lifespan. I do not need the benefits of ZFS so I go with XFS for my Array and btrfs for Cache drives. Need a VPN to your home network? Unraid has Wireguard build in and ready to go. The use of Plugins, Apps (Docker) and VMs is easy with Unraid and if you want something similiar (but not Docker) you have to use TrueNAS Scale instead of Truenas. I'm an IT professional and testet every popular NAS OS before sticking with Unraid just for the ease of use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hannsr · 2023-11-04 09:38 Really depends on your requirements. I mostly use it for remote access, to scale content down to 1080p max. My upstream isn't sufficient to stream in 4K. but if you only stream at home to a sufficient player you likely won't need it at all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- art_of_onanism · 2023-11-04 10:15 Personally if you are only running locally OMV is more flexible than truenas. I'm by no means professional so for myself I have less headache setting up and running services on OMV than truenas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 10:47 Thank you, sounds quite informed! I'm a dev, but I find I want things easy at home after a day of doing stuff at work! With the RAID, do you still have redundancy built in? I don't kno me what Unraid does differently yet. Perhaps it's worth popping down the cash for Unraid then... I shall dig into it a little more, thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 10:49 Got you, that makes sense. I likely won't need it remote to be fair. I'm hoping to upgrade to a FTTP connection soon though, so that might solve that anyway. Just waiting for the infrastructure in my area. Thanks for the reply. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 10:49 I will keep that in mind and have a read into it, thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- leaflock7 · 2023-11-04 10:59 well assuming your motherboard is supported, you could easily install an esxi and then play with whatever on top of it, or just proxmox. You will have a base that is minimal and for the time being since it is your first walk in this area you can do snapshots to easily revert etc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 11:21 Yes Unraid has redundancy as every array has a minimum of 1 parity drive and you can even mix drives of different sizes within your array (with the parity drives needs to be at least the size of your biggest drive). You can test Unraid 30 days for free thats how I did it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 11:39 Take a close look at cost per terabyte and plan ahead. Keep in mind that if you use something like Unraid, it is adviced to not aim to low when it comes to disk size as your parity drive needs to be the same size as your biggest disk. Most 4TB drives have double the price per TB in comparison to bigger drives. For my part I started with 2x 16TB MG08 and extended my array with 18TB MG09 later. Depending on your needs and bugdet, 2x 12TB MG07 would be fine as one drive is needed for parity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 11:49 You do not need the 980ti as the i5 6600K as Intel HD Graphics 530 build in. Just use the graphics port on your mainboard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 11:59 I did consider that, but I assume I would need a VM to act as major storage and then another to run media server, etc? I think I'd prefer to run an "all in one" solution, for this particular task with as little maintenance as possible. I'm not looking for a homelab-esqu scenario as I run a VPS with several services on it anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 12:04 Grand, thank you for the explanation! Sounds ideal to be honest. I'll certainly give the trial a go. I assume the paid tiers for "attached storage devices" in talking about hard drives? So 6 drives for the base tier, etc? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 12:05 For transcoding you want Intel Quicksync with support for HEVC (Intel 7th gen and above if I remember correctly) or Nvidia NVDEC 6th gen (take a look at the Nvidia Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix and watch out for HEVC/h.265). If you want something future proof, AV1 support is the keyword. This is only true if you need to transcode! You can 100% play media files using direct stream through Plex/Jellyfin/Emby without the need of an graphics card capable of transcode modern media files in your server. I use an i5-11500 in my Unraid server for Plex and it can handle multiple 4K streams including HDR tone mapping. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 12:06 Aaah ok, I'll keep that in mind. I doubt I can stretch to that size at the moment but I'll see what I can find. I'm actually hoping we'll some unwanted and unused drives at work that I can get on the cheap... But we'll see what I can find at the back of the cupboard, so to speak. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 12:07 You're being incredibly helpful and insightful with your comments, I really appreciate it, thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 12:14 You are right most landlines do not provide more then 5-10 Mbit upload speed. Transcoded 1080p can take up to 20 Mbps while 4K h.265 files streamed directly vary between 12-18 Mbps. My solution is to only store h.265 files (for 1080p and 4K) as it is half the size of h.264 and does not need transcoding if you use something like the PLEX app as client. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 12:30 Yes. You have 1 boot drive (a USB) that does not count. Afterwards you create an array with two drives which one of them acts as parity. With the standard "6 drives" license you could have 5x hard drives (4x for data, 1x for parity) and 1x cache pool drive (most likely a fast SSD). By the way if your board does not have an m.2 NVME SSD slot --> there are really cheap (like 10 bucks) single slot PCIe adapters that work like a charm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 13:13 Thank you again! Luckily it does have an m.2 slot, it'll be an older generation one but I guess it'll do the trick. This will at least all get me off the ground without too much upfront cost. I'll change the case at some point to allow more drives as well, I think I'm a little limited as it stands. But enough space to begin with. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crisse-tabarnak · 2023-11-04 13:44 so... learn? cli isnt rocket science ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 13:47 Thank....you? I'm quite comfortable with a CLI interface, I just don't know how to do this particular thing and, frankly, I don't feel it's a skill I need. But thanks for joining in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- crisse-tabarnak · 2023-11-04 13:50 lol you asked for best choice, best choice is maybe not easiest, gui- less ubuntu server will be most stable and performant option ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 13:57 Ah, yes I see where I went wrong now. I didn't realise I wasn't allowed to turn down a suggestion. Silly me! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KarlosKrinklebine · 2023-11-04 14:11 The issue isn't the use of containerd. It's that the Docker layer in front of it is gone. Edited my original reply for clarity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- leaflock7 · 2023-11-04 15:05 yes you will have multiple VMs or with proxmox you can have containers. a linux server with software raid should work ?([https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create- raid-arrays-with-mdadm-on- ubuntu-22-04](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- create-raid-arrays-with-mdadm-on-ubuntu-22-04)) but still I believe proxmox at this point would be nice for you test things. even if you end up just going with a linux server and containers or whatever, the visualization layer will help you to experiment with different things till you figure out what you like ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Puzzled-Wind9286 · 2023-11-04 15:06 Try all of them! I tried Unraid, OMV, and Windows Server. Personally, TrueNAS Scale worked best for me. Super reliable and stable, easy to maintain, once it’s set up it #justWorks. I found it to be a little complicated setting up, especially shares. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ohv_ · 2023-11-04 15:33 64 it is mate ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 15:39 Out of interest, do you convert any h.264 media files to 265 manually, with Handbrake for example? I've never gone in big on a large library of media before, so I'll have to read up on best practises for storing, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- meddig0 · 2023-11-04 15:41 This is good advice. And thanks for the link - I like the Digital Ocean guides. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- techma2019 · 2023-11-04 16:48 OpenMediaVault is another choice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Circuit_Guy · 2023-11-04 17:40 I would recommend separating your app host from your NAS. I personally use and would recommend Proxmox on the bare metal. You can pass the drives through to a VM running your NAS software. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hannsr · 2023-11-04 18:16 I do have 40mbit upstream, which is just about enough for a single full res 4K hevc stream with Dolby sound. But nobody can use the internet anymore then. Hence why I transcode for remote play. And tbh, if I use it remote, usually I'm on my phone or 13" laptop so I don't care much about 4K. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hannsr · 2023-11-04 18:19 Right, somehow I thought it doesn't have an iGPU, but that's only newer (K)f models. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- subven1 · 2023-11-04 20:16 I try to get h.265 in the first place but there are also tools like Tdarr or Unmanic to automatically convert libraries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Munyuk81 · 2023-11-04 23:36 I just tried open media vault, true nas core and scale. OMV seems to be the simplest to use and it uses ext4 and several others and it will mount previously loaded hard disk. True nas uses zfs only and it won't mount other than zfs with only import options to a zfs disk. Find it much easier to load plugins on core than on scale.