Best hardware for TrueNAS

[katie279]

Hi all,

Got a couple of Synology NAS' and looking to upgrade. Always had half an eye on things like TrueNAS as conscious my use of Synology gear isn't hugely past a glorified filestore (eg don't really use Plex etc)

Fairly comfortable setting up TrueNAS itself, but interested in how you'd set up the hardware.

Ie primarily :

1) how do I pick the right PC itself - ideally low wattage, high performance!

2) what case/rack setup should I get to house it all? I like the extension units that synology have as I've ended up with 8-9 HDDs, so like the idea of loads of space to extend them!

Many thanks in advance!

 

[katie279]

Nothing special needed to be honest. I migrated from a HP microserver n40l to my old PC, a 6600k with 32 gb of RAM. The idle wattage was the same (about 40w) and performs far better.

If you're installing bare metal then you don't have to worry too much, just get something relatively modern and stuff it in a nice big case with loads of bays. If you run out of SATA ports on the motherboard then budget for a HBA card.

As you're researching this you'll find a lot of people saying you must have ECC RAM. ZFS is no more at risk from bad RAM/cosmic rays than any other file system, but ultimately the choice is a personal one. and will depend on cost and how important the data is to you.

Think carefully before going down the truenas/ZFS route, you have to plan your storage layout carefully, and it's not as flexible as other solutions (e.g. unraid). FOr example, I started with 6x2tb drives in RAIDZ2, and my only option to expand this was to replace all 6 drives with 4tb models. Once they were full I couldn't afford to replace all 6 with larger drives and so I had to start a new pool with 2 large drives. It worked out fine in the end, but as I say, it's not very flexible.

Really helpful - will have a nose around at cases!

Is there any motherboards that are better for multiple disks? Ie if I was going to aim for 20 disks in end state, would there be any limits I'd hit? (I like to plan for expansion!)

Good point re unraid, I keep hearing about this - not precious about TrueNAS, so might have a look - sounds like it's a stronger design!

 

[katie279]

Not criticizing, just curious, how is TrueNAS an upgrade over a Synology NAS?

I figured they were some of the best around.

Used Synology for about 15 years, but getting a little irked by some of their cynical policy shifts - eg acceleration of EoL support for NAS models which forces upgrades to the whole unit sooner, their recent debacle about only allowing their own hard disks to be used in their latest NAS. They backtracked although still put annoying warnings on the control panel, hence looking around at alternative approaches....!

 

[katie279]

Great to have some experience! Have you used Unraid?

 

[katie279]

Really useful insight! I agree I really have been happy with Synology, just totally put off by their recent moves - to be fair they've backed down a bit on the initial blocking of non-synology hard disks in their kit, but it does show an underlying poor culture that's started to emerge...

I've also heard good things about Unraid. I might spin up a test server or something and have a play and see what I think before I plunge in!