A video I'd like to see is one that builds a NAS from scratch. Select the case and components (board, memory, PSU, whatever), and and then make a 4-5 bay hot-swap TrueNAS system for the price of a Synology DS920+ (or preferably cheaper), with a similar footprint but with a better processor and with ECC memory etc. It's all well and good saying anyone can grab an old PC, but that's going to be less power efficient and reliable than anything that could be built today. Basically I'd like to see a demo of that. Can speed through all the screwdriver turning, thermal gunk application and general fitting etc, but listing the components would be the basics here. Maybe some pros and cons of the various parts if important options need to be highlighted.
if u cant work those things out and have no idea about computers other than "turning screws" or "adding gunk" then i would say stay away from trying to build your own server, its not for everyone, you do need some basic know-how 😄
I just setup my TrueNas Scale with NextCloud server in a few hours by watching RU-vid videos. The only cost was the 12TB x2 HD and the time I spent to set up. Every other hardware was found in the IT recycling at work. my case is an old Lenovo P410 tower with 6core zeon, 64GB of RAM even comes with a fancy Nvidia Quadro. Will probably attach 10GBE NIC once I get a 10g switch. TrueNas wins this guys!
Seagulls at it again. Hysterical. We've been seeing more seagulls in the inner parts of NYC as well. Strange. Hitchcock/TrueNAS mystery thriller coming
Nice one. I watched a recent vid of yours and hadn't noticed this one, thought I'd watch to see if I made the right decision! :) I only went down the TrueNAS road because I had files that could not be silently corrupted, both business and personal. It seemed to care most about the data integrity...and so the journey began (I hate that word). I started by playing with a spare old machine. I then migrated it onto an ex-workstation I had. Then I wanted something to receive snapshots/replications of that first install, so I built a nice SuperMicro board+CPU. All was well...then electric prices went sky high :( So I built another TrueNAS machine that was to become the "always online" (30W). That is backup with Backblaze, with clever filters to only backup specific files types (yes, took some fiddling) and then every week or two, I boot up the big ones to receive snapshots. I'm quite happy. If I was in America, I'd have bought a TrueNAS machine (for the business element of my usage), it's only because I'm in the UK it wasn't worth importing. LEARNING CURVE - Yes, it was only after 12 months use (only an hour at day at most, 5 days a week) when I felt I was competent enough to rely on TrueNAS heavily. My day job is designing houses and extensions, so although I use tech, it's not my primary vocation. SUPPORT: Yes, support may be hit and miss, though the community is made up of volunteers who are active or retired network/data storage professionals. I go to them when I'm really stuffed, but they do welcome newcomers that are willing to put the effort in to learn the basics at least. IT WOULD BE AMAZING IF: Pool Expansion was made easier, yes you can do it by replacing drives with larger ones, but you have to do all of them to get the gain. If it had a browser based file explorer, that would be really helpful, but I do understand why there can't be one, the architectural model simply isn't designed for it sadly. Also, once you get used to it, it's quite practical. SUMMARY: It was a time sponge (though relatively short), but I'm glad I have it now. I can have a drive die, and lose no data. I can be replacing that dead drive and another drive fails, and I lose no data. I can lose a whole computer (but no drives) and move the drives AND settings to any other system I want. If I lose all the drives, I have a redundant backup (or two). I can get ransomewared, and just rollback to the previous day or hour. It's nice.
As a content creator I have a LOT of data between the libraries that are used to create my content and the content created. I had a 4 bay Seagate NAS that they EOL'd and stopped supporting so eventually I could no long reliably read or write to it. The idea of free NAS software deployed on no longer used hardware was very appealing after getting stuck with the now useless Seagate hardware. I managed to get the data off that system to an external 8TB drive, pulled the drives out of the Seagate, put them in a surplus tower case with an old AMD Phenom 6 core processor, 16 GB RAM, and some other unused hard drives and voila, a NAS I don't have to worry will be EOL'd and can no longer be accessed! Was there a learning curve? Yes. Was it steep? Not for a simple deployment more advanced that the system it replaced, and I didn't have to spend a dime, only a few hours of my time.
I think you oversold the complexity of TrueNAS. Yes, it's a very complex server operating system that will pretty much do anything, but it can also only take ten minutes to actually deploy a TrueNAS system if you follow a script or a prompt-based video. Another huge item in the plus column is that if your closed NAS takes a dump you can be SOL depending on your warranty (Synology is famous for this). With TrueNAS as long as you've made a copy of your system settings, then if your TrueNAS host machine takes a dump It's not hard to pull your drives, load them into an entirely different host machine, load TrueNAS and your profile and you are back up and running. I understand you've got to make a video but TrueNAS doesn't have to be as scary as you make out.
Cheers... I DEFINITELY don't get a kick out of adding that noise when editing... If you REALLY want a taste of the good, stuff...pour yourself a drink, get comfortable...then play the shut down noise to Windows XP... You are welcome
I own a Synology, a QNAP, and a Terramaster. I've occasionally toyed with the idea of setting up a TrueNAS machine. But, my conclusion after watching the video is that TrueNAS is for highly technically proficient individuals and those who want a learning experience. But, as a money saving option, you would have to value your time at $Zero.000 and have endless patience. That's not to take anything away from TrueNAS because I'd love to try it out but based on my criteria, I just don't qualify.
@@lukastemberger If you want a more hands off experience, go with Synology. If you like to tinker more and get into more technical stuff, then go QNAP. My Terramaster is on a shelf somewhere, unplugged. If I could only have one, I would go Synology but it would be a tough decision as I do like to tinker.
It's important that your CPU has encryption features otherwise it will thrash. I discovered this when running virtual TrueNAS, must make sure you pass those features through to the VM.
I used an older desktop computer that I had sitting around to install TrueNAS Core, and there was definitely a learning curve for me. I'm what you would call a Windows power user, but I'm not a computer tech, just a user. But I DID get the TrueNAS system up and running, and it's quite fast for my home network. I have a NVME boot drive and two 1 TB SSDs as my storage pool. TrueNAS recommended setting them up in Mirror mode, but I elected to set them up in Striped mode so I would have 2 TB storage instead of 1 TB, which wouldn't have been enough. I have a separate system for file backups, so if the striped drives crash, I'll just reinstall the files from the backup. But the system has been online for about 9 months so far, with no crashes. If I need more capacity in the future, I can add more SSDs. If you have a spare desktop computer sitting around, this is a great way to repurpose it.
Nvme boot drive is basically useless in a TRUENAS core system, a modern USB 3 key is more than enough, most of the system is stored in Ram. Many Truenas systems in the business environment boot on a standard 1GbE NIC. Better you use the nvme for something more useful. Having a striped configuration is a very very bad practice. Don't be surprised when you lose everything.
One topic that no one touches on is how do you dispose of the NAS if there are issues after the warranty expires. I had a 8 bay Synology that dies 6 months after the warranty expired, the Synology's response was you are SOL, we will be happy to sell you a new one. No parts of any type, no help at all. TrueNAS will run on just about any hardware, you can roll your own or iXsystems can supply parts for their systems if needed.
I've had two Synology 1515's die on me. One was in warranty and they replaced it (hooray) and the other wasn't.... and thus I was SOL (Sailor out of Luck). I am switching to TruNAS. My patience with Synology is ended.
RaidZ Expansion is not done yet - still not merged into the master OpenZFS branch. I have no idea how fast pull requests are done on that project; but I hope they'll be done this year.
Repurposing an old PC and deploying TrueNAS Core is not hard. There are plenty of guides to follow and decent documentation. You can do it. It can be a fun project.
Jimi Hendrix in the recording studio (1968) making seagull sounds with his guitar! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-STqIt30wt2M.html#t=13m25s
TrueNAS is amazing for hobbyists and home users who want to DIY and mess around a bit. I'd never deploy a TrueNAS setup in an SMB and definitely never in an enterprise setting, even with iXsystems backing it.
@@davidg1838 It's just not reliable enough and it's missing a boatload of features that require a bunch of tinkering and third-party support to get working, if you can even get it to work at all. It's a nightmare for the IT team especially for bigger organizations who need 99.999% up-time. ZFS has a LOT of promise and I think ZFS will get adopted by other platforms, but I don't ever see TrueNAS becoming a viable solution for enterprise or even SMB unless they drastically change what they are... but then they won't be TrueNAS anymore....
@@---GOD--- OK, thanks for the feedback. I'm still keen to test it out for basic file share, backup and file sync operations, with the NextCloud add-on. That's all my client's would ever need.
For me the high learning curve may be a drawback. I want a NAS to be easy to use and well integrated to my PC/Mac system. If there are problems I want to be able to fix them easily.
Ok so i already own Unraid, What are the reasons i should change to True NAS from Unraid, minding that i rely on VMs for my work. Also if i want to change from my HP 2 CPU server with 28 Cores to a Terramaster pro I3 8 core x99 how much performance do you expect i will loose? the new i3 system looks impressive.
Once the 7700K is finally relegated to becoming a NAS, I expect TrueNAS will be in there somewhere, likely with two NVME drives(boot and cache), and 4-6 SATA spinners of 6, 8, or 10 TB each...
Great video, only additional negative thing I would state in Truenas, is that user MUST have some form of backup solution for the NAS (RAID is not a backup) and you also have to consider replacement hard drives as well as RAM, storage controller, network card and CPU. For example, even though there are SAS controllers that support up to 24 physical SATA or SAS drives, ESPECIALLY consumer motherboards (surprise surprise, most of their PCI-e slots are shared or disabled when x port is occupied) might have hard time running those at full speeds and you are forced to purchase more than 1 SAS controller with support up to 8 drives per controller (which leads to point of running out of PCI-e slots), or buying a motherboard with enough PCI-e slots even if they are shared Truenas is great for those, who love the idea of being able to purchase servers without OS pre-installed (and yes, you need server hardware like ECC RAM, or you risk running into compatibility issues and data corruption), but it isn't something you can spend 400-600$ and assume that hard drives are only thing you need to replace. I would say, for average consumer, buying external hard drive enclosure with USB or external SAS ports is better solution, there are bunch of those which you just plug in and can be activated using Windows storage pools or any disk manager of any OS.
I don't see how this is a TrueNAS issue??? If you buy a NAS from any vendor with their proprietary OS (Qnap, Synology, etc.) you have the SAME issues, right? And now THEY want to lock you into using their RAM, NVMe, SSD, HDD, network cards....It's sad. TrueNAS doesn't care about any of that--if BSD supports the device, likely TrueNAS will. And with TrueNAS now on Linux, there is even better driver support for network and storage cards.
Really like your in depth videos. What are your thoughts on Ultrastar vs Exos (18tb) drives for a Truenas build? The Ultrastar drives are slightly more expansive where I live. Wondering how they compare in regards to power consumption, performance, reliability etc.
I have the exos x18 drives. real work performance will get me 280mb/s read write speeds. 5 year warranty I also have a sandisk professional G drive that has an ultrastar drive in it. they pretty much perform the same and would be a good buy with either one of them.
Hi there, how fast should be the hard disk on which the TrueNAS operating system will be installed. Will this somehow affect the efficiency and speed of the system as a whole?
Not that big an issue.....; most will use/find a small 120 GB SSD for the OS, and some use mirrored, but, that would require a pair of SATA ports; no real reason to use/waste NVME slot on the OS...
"Disadvantages?" Not really... * No native file manager. ...who cares? All your system's other file management tools work with the shares just fine. Besides, it actually does have native file management if you pop open a shell from within the GUI. * Support. The community is huge; hand-holding documentation is ubiquitous on the 'net. * Learning Curve? Meh...I'm a minor-level power user, couldn't code my way out of a bag. I built a silent, SFF, 6-drive, RAID-Z2 FreeNAS pool that is 13 years old and is basically eternal, since it predicts drive problems (4 replacements so far) and mails me well in advance of a failure). If you can assemble IKEA furniture, you can handle FreeNAS / TrueNAS. * Power Hungry? ...you'll be grateful for those extra native services as you enjoy superior redundancy, disaster avoidance and data integrity (scheduled scrubs are neat!)), and the inherent benefits of an enterprise-grade file system. --Spend a little time, a little effort, and you'll have something you can point to with pride, because you actually built it yourself.
Thanks for the video. One question though. I ordered 3 seagate exos x18 drives for my nas. Its a closet pc that ill be turning into my media server. since i have not got the drives in yet should I wait to setup truenas until i get the drives or can i add them after? Id like to get ahead of it if I can. Thanks. The pc specs are an Intel core i7 9700k 32 gigs of ddr4 3600 a 970 nvme 1tb drive and a 2080 super but ill probably take that out and put my 1070 back in it.
This is probably too late but I would install TrueNAS and set it up with any drives for just experimental purposes. Learn the bits you want and when the time comes just delete the experimental pool and pull the drives. Install the new drives, create the pool and attach your users. It's what I did.
VPN prevents all hacks. No more ransomware on any brand. You have to secure your unit yourself, it's like installing a unix or windows server: out-of-box setup are not secure at all.
@techware7 you're not talking about a simple vpn like running Nord or express VPN and just turning it on though, right? It can't be that easy to secure the NAS?
TrueNAS is probably for folks with larger (8-12+ disks?) pools of data, and for those really concerned with data integrity (bit rot, etc)...; I suspect the average user with 2-4 disks could be quite happy with OMV using EXT4 for a decade or more!
After I installed Truenas core and was ready to plug in my exfat drives like I did with my Synology and realized this is not possible...im like...it might be worth buying synology..
TrueNAS requires ECC memory. Know many ppl with old computers that use ECC? Ergo, TrueNAS is decidedly not the more economical choice. Essentially, you will need to assemble a new system with ECC memory (and lots of it too).
TrueNAS does not 'require' ECC. It a good idea when building a server or any computer to use ECC but it works fine without it. TrueNAS may have to correct an error introduced by the RAM but it does this fine.
I've got TrueNAS Core installed (for a test run) on an old Dell Optiplex w/ a Q8200 proc and only 6Gb of non-ECC RAM and it is super fast and responsive. I was very impressed with how well it runs but it might be more than I need. It looks like you can run VMs on it and all sorts of cool stuff. I just started messing around with it to check it out. OMV is another one I've been looking at.
Yes you should and not for the cost but because is the most secure, fast and customizable NAS system you can have for home, small and large bussines. And btw is not Free as you intend is open source. Stop to misleading people with thia basic difference. Open source is free as freedom not as gratis. That means the customizability potential as a very high value. If you think is "free" as gratis means you see only the small part of the whole picture. Poor peole seek things that have not cost, rich people seek things that have the potential of to making more money. Notice tha ZFS has also the possibility to have L2ARC and other vdev for almost any case scenario, this is one of the most powerful thing you have i truenas that allow you having a systems with incredible performance at very low cost if you design it in the correct way.
Lmao, TrueNAS having a hard learning curve - I built my old NAS on Arch Linux all through the command line and setup everything myself using built-in system packages, nginx w/ php-cgi, smbd, sshd, etc - still has been running strong for >5yrs! Lookup to do a 10x storage upgrade via a PE R720 w/ 12x3TB drives in RAID6 for 30TB. My old NAS is running 8x600G drives for about 3TB worth of storage.
Those inx mini systems are very expensive and have low end cpu's and only the high-end versions have 10gb ports the rest are 1gb. No 2.5gb ports. Disappointing. Better off buying a qnap or Asus nas and then putting Truenas on it. Are there other NAS's that let you install Truenas? @nascompares
