Help with NAS

Matt_Hirst · 23 Nov 2025 at 16:28

As many other people I find myself in a situation where when I've run out of storage space I've just bought another hard drive. When I've upgraded a pc I've just bought a bigger new drive and so on and so forth.

Fast forward to now and I, as a hobby do photography, so storage again has come to the fore along with backups, so I started to build a Truenas server out of an old pc which kinda works but is not the most power efficient and if I am honest I do tend to power it on to do a backup and then power it off.

What I am thinking I want to do; is build a NAS that will stay on permanently, the aim of the NAS is as follows:

* Act as a seperate copy of my photographs and data, maybe longer term it will act as a live storage device where I work directly from it though only after I build another NAS offsite to act as a backup?
* Hold my media library and be able to share this to the various tv in the house. I have an extensive library of movies and whilst I do like to have the originals in their cases I do like the idea of convenience to be able to watch them.
* Be able to act as a storage solution for three apple accounts and my android device - primarily for photos etc
* I don't particuarly like my TrueNas server, it's a bit noisy, more power hungry than a NAS also I found it a bit of a pain to setup, so would probably feel safer with an off the shelf solution especially if it is on 24hrs a day.

My main PC is as follows:

12700K
64gb RAM
1 TB boot NVME
1 TB games NVME
4 TB storage nvme
8 TB photo storage NVME
8 TB WD red pro hard disk, copy of 8TB nvme
1 TB nvme that i use as a cache drive for focus stacking (lots of reads and writes to this drive)
10 GB nic

My current True NAS
3 TB
4 TB
4 TB
8 TB wd red pro
10 GB nic

I have coming 2 * 8 TB WD red pro.

in my cupboard I have all my old hard drives and ssd - mix of drives from 1* 4tb ssd, 1 * 3TB hard disk, 2TB hard disk, numerous 1 TB hard disks (there's also drives going down to MB as I never sold any).

So what to do? I don't have a huge budget, hence probably why I am in the place I am in with all the above.

Current thought process is to get a 4 bay NAS, so would welcome view points on Synology DS925+ or the UGreen 4800 Plus or wait for the 4800 pro assuming a similarish price to the pro? The Synology I believe can be expanded to add additional drives, can the UGreens? also any thoughts on either of the units? Or would you stick with TrueNas and learn / expand that server?

Drive setup in the NAS, I am looking to put all the 8TB wd red drives into the NAS, years ago I used to run raid 10 on some home NAS that I had but now thinking RAID 5 (3 disks plus 1 redundant). In theory I'll have a copy of all the data on my main pc and on the NAS, then I may also have the TrueNas box just to keep as a third copy until the offsite NAS can be procured.

In order to facilitate the swapping of drives into the NAS, can I put the 2 new drives in the NAS and copy the data across, then take my 2 drives (1 from main pc, 1 from TrueNas) and add them in or do I need to copy the existing data somewheer else and then add the 4 drives into the NAS configuree that for storage and then copy the data back across - if so I may have to factor into my costs a large usb Hard disk, or will TrueNas allow me to mix drives in a storage pool could I create a 3TB, 3 TB, 4 TB 4 TB pool? what size would it give? - please note one other reason to go for a NAS is that I am looking for simplicity and ease of use so sorry for the question if it is a stupid one!

So what to do, how would you do this?

Matt

BongoHunter · 23 Nov 2025 at 20:23

Been through something similar myself and decided to build my own NAS as prebuilt didn't seam like good value.

The Synology DS925+ is going to be about £500 and has limited RAM and networking, what spec is your TrueNAS machine, specifically which motherboard/cpu. You might be able to easily add a lot of SATA ports to for a relatively low cost, and then put it in a case like the Silverstone CS380 (or similar).

Unraid might offer the easiest way to throw a large amount of disks into a simple and easy to use/setup DIY NAS.

lsg1r · 23 Nov 2025 at 21:18

You have so many options now for home server/nas software...so I'm in the build your own camp too.

I use unraid (only spins up required disks) and that would be my choice personally but you also have hex os which is essentially an overlay of truenas, zima os and there are likely others too lol..

Your truenas server is going to be as noisy as the hardware in it, my home server is an i5 13500 which I'm currently moving into a Jonsbo n5 due to increasing to 12 drives but even before this the noise was primarily coming from the drives. I'm running unraid purely due to the fact that it only spins up drives as needed etc.

The thing is unless you buy an arm based nas (I wouldn't these days) you're basically buying a mini pc so power draw will be similar to a pc built the same way.

If I was going prebuilt hardward depending on drives needed I'd be looking at a brand that can install a different os like unraid, last I checked Ugreen and terramaster both allowed you to change the os.

Matt_Hirst · 24 Nov 2025 at 12:15

I think the reason I was wanting turnkey was mainly ease of use and setup, I had an issue with trying to set it up earlier and trying to learn new things and terminology well I'm finding as I get older I get more enjoyment elsewhere.

Spec wise the TrueNas setup is now as follows:

MSI Z170a mb, added an exrtra nvme 6 bay sata to allow more drives
Intel G4400 processor
16GB DDR4
case Fractal Define R5 with 13 drive bay plus 2 ssd (I bought two cases cheap off marketplace)

Last night I was messing around with it and setup 3 2TB hard drives in a Z1 to give 4 TB extra space. so now have 1 8TB, 2 4 TB and 1 3 TB plus the aforementioned drive 3*2TB.

Question how do you guys have your hard drives setup? If I setup the main pool, when the 2 8TB drives arrive and add in my 2 existing 8 TB drivers in raid Z1 giving 24TB of storage??? Is this a frowned upon solution as it gives one drive redundancy or is that normal? I will always hold multiple copies so seems logical to me.

Another question PSU reccomendations with lots of SATA connectors? I've been trying to work out where a noticable droaning noise comes from and it's definitiely the PSU, come to think about it, it's the droaning that was annoying me in my main PC so I swapped it out.

Have orderred an air cooler for the CPU to replace the AIO - again this was cobbled together from old parts. The AIO has 2 Noctua fans on, so may swap the Fractal fans out for the Noctua to see how that affects the soud.

Thanks for your thoughts so far it's making me lean back to a DIY but do worry about the learning curve .

lsg1r · 25 Nov 2025 at 00:43

Matt_Hirst said:
Last night I was messing around with it and setup 3 2TB hard drives in a Z1 to give 4 TB extra space. so now have 1 8TB, 2 4 TB and 1 3 TB plus the aforementioned drive 3*2TB.

Question how do you guys have your hard drives setup? If I setup the main pool, when the 2 8TB drives arrive and add in my 2 existing 8 TB drivers in raid Z1 giving 24TB of storage??? Is this a frowned upon solution as it gives one drive redundancy or is that normal? I will always hold multiple copies so seems logical to me.

Another question PSU reccomendations with lots of SATA connectors? I've been trying to work out where a noticable droaning noise comes from and it's definitiely the PSU, come to think about it, it's the droaning that was annoying me in my main PC so I swapped it out.

Have orderred an air cooler for the CPU to replace the AIO - again this was cobbled together from old parts. The AIO has 2 Noctua fans on, so may swap the Fractal fans out for the Noctua to see how that affects the soud.

Thanks for your thoughts so far it's making me lean back to a DIY but do worry about the learning curve .

Corsair RMX850 PSU, fan hardly comes on, think I nabbed a few of my non sleeved cables from my RMX1000 and basically swapped out the 4 pin power adapters for extra sata connectors (I was fine doing this, same connections etc... do not mix and match)

That drone could be the AIO, I went air cooled due to reliability, but there is a drone from the pump on my main pc I can just pick up or it could just be resonance with the case, I had some fans that resonated perfectly with the case and made it so much louder.

As to hard drive setup... this is roughly how it will be when I get it rebuilt (not necessarily how everyone would do it but...)
10x 18TB drives in a 8 plus 2 parity unraid array - used as primary storage for media.
2x 2TB NVME in mirror for appdata etc
2x 2TB SATA SSD in mirror for downloads
2x 2TB SATA SSD in mirror for (not 100% sure yet) but thinking ftp/immich or similar
4x 2TB M2 SATA in mirror for transfer cache
2x 18TB Shucked WD Elements in mirror for Backups from PC's

Snapshot · 25 Nov 2025 at 07:17

Whether you go for homebrew or commercial, these days I would get something with NVMe slots as well as HDD. These can be used as boot/storage drives and/or cache, depending on how many there are.

My main NAS is from Asustor with four 4TB NVMe in RAID10 and four 12TB Red Pro also in RAID10. But there are equivalent models from Aoostar (no OS) and Terramaster (TOS is improving but easily dumped for whatever you want.

lsg1r said:
The thing is unless you buy an arm based nas (I wouldn't these days) you're basically buying a mini pc so power draw will be similar to a pc built the same way.

If I was going prebuilt hardward depending on drives needed I'd be looking at a brand that can install a different os like unraid, last I checked Ugreen and terramaster both allowed you to change the os.

Most consumer NAS use embedded or laptop class CPUs so 6W or 15W TDP. It's hard to match that with a homebrew unless you buy a complete NAS mobo from the likes of CWWK.

spile · 25 Nov 2025 at 07:36

I bought a second Qnap to sit alongside my ten year old Qnap. The original is effectively an NVR and backup to new one.

lsg1r · 25 Nov 2025 at 20:15

Snapshot said:
Whether you go for homebrew or commercial, these days I would get something with NVMe slots as well as HDD. These can be used as boot/storage drives and/or cache, depending on how many there are.

My main NAS is from Asustor with four 4TB NVMe in RAID10 and four 12TB Red Pro also in RAID10. But there are equivalent models from Aoostar (no OS) and Terramaster (TOS is improving but easily dumped for whatever you want.

Most consumer NAS use embedded or laptop class CPUs so 6W or 15W TDP. It's hard to match that with a homebrew unless you buy a complete NAS mobo from the likes of CWWK.

It's a lot easier than it used to be to buy motherboards based on mobile cpus.... especially if going mitx... most of miniforums mitx boards are mobile cpus for example.

Matt_Hirst · 28 Nov 2025 at 11:33

Ok am slowly adding drives to the TrueNas system,decided to give it one last go...

Anyway am trying to add JellyFin, but within TrueNAS when I goto Plugins I get a "Get Plugins Failed", I believe I need to setup DNS but am lost at this point.

Have tried to add what I thought is the correct details, added the "Primary DNS IPv4 Address" from my Vodafone router, press Save and rebooted but I still get the same error message?

Any help?

Matt

Matt_Hirst · 28 Nov 2025 at 11:44

Ignore I think I have it working now.

Matt

Matt_Hirst · Friday at 09:36

Ok home built nas has developed a problem one of the 8tb drives is showing 2 errors, have tried a scrub but still showing in error.

Have contacted wd about it as I think the drive was bought in 2024 so still under warranty. Also bought a replacement drive to drop in to get it back up and running.

Anyway I have a question, if I was to go down the LSI HBA route with say a 9300 16i can I just install the card, disconnect current drives and reconnect to this? Or is it a case of rebuild everything again? Any reccomendations on where to buy from or models to look for?

lsg1r · Friday at 18:34

Matt_Hirst said:
Ok home built nas has developed a problem one of the 8tb drives is showing 2 errors, have tried a scrub but still showing in error.

Have contacted wd about it as I think the drive was bought in 2024 so still under warranty. Also bought a replacement drive to drop in to get it back up and running.

Anyway I have a question, if I was to go down the LSI HBA route with say a 9300 16i can I just install the card, disconnect current drives and reconnect to this? Or is it a case of rebuild everything again? Any reccomendations on where to buy from or models to look for?

Depends on the OS but I would assume it would be similar to unraid in most cases.... I've changed case and I know I haven't connected stuff to the same port/cable on my hba yet unraid just saw them all in the right place as before.