What's the BEST home server operating system? 

The best home server is two servers. One that is a NAS and the other is for Virtual Machines. Proxmox and TrueNAS are what I consider the top option. The reason for this, the NAS is you backup system. Proxmox backs up to the nas. If you only have one machine then you have no backup. I think a lot of people pushing what is the best for everything are leading new homelabbers down the path of data loss.

Christian if it wasnt for your videos I would have never gotten the courage and motivation to install linux, portainer, and a ton of containerized services. Our home has been transformed. Greatly appreciate the awesome content you make. Thanks for everything!

Been going through the same exploration myself for the past 15 years and I am proud to say, we have similar setups. I just wish your content was available then like it is now. Regardless, love your channel. It’s on my top recommendations for family and friends who are interested in this space. Videos are inspiring and keeps me motivated to continue to learn. Thanks for sharing.

Gotta say, this was a fantastic video and I really appreciated the deep walk through on each option and why one might go with each of them. The fact that your choice wasn’t the choice you recommended for starting out, with an explanation of why, just really cemented your credibility. Glad I came across your channel and you’ve earned a subscriber!

I‘m using UnRaid for my HomeServer setup. As NAS, HyperVisor and Docker Host. It‘s fun to work with and a huge Community if there are questions.

Hi Christian. Thanks for the video. I am running Proxmox on three workstations in a cluster with HA and TrueNAS Scale on its own workstation. I found the Dell and HP workstations were cheaper and work really well for what I do in my home / lab. I really enjoy your videos and look forward to more.

This is very timely and helpful as I am going to build my first home server this week. Thank you!

Thanks man i am trying to build my own NAS system and wasnt really sure how, i looked into TrueNas Core but now that you mentioned TrueNAS Scale i looked up the differences and it is a really great piece of software exactly for what i need.

I have been using Proxmox for years and I highly advise it. The web interface is fantastic and simplifies server management and backups. Personally I use LXC (containers) as they have less overhead than KVM for most internal services. I do use KVM for outward services as Personally I like selinux for security. Speaking of security I think that is a consideration on servers and I would highly advise using selinux or apparmor. Another option if one wants to run a few servers such as a web server is to use one of the various services such as linode. For a basic server they are less expensive than hardware and there is the additional cost in that most internet providers limit upload speed unless you upgrade the basic service. I stopped running windows servers decades ago the cost is too high.

16:30-17:00 is 🔥🔥. The best tips on the video! Just found you last month, keep up the amazing content! Danke!

thanks.. always fun to see your clips and ideas, can agree with you on this choice both with proxmox and truenas, looking forward to the next upload

Can't wait for the next video ! I'm starting with some NAS stuffs but now Hypervisors make me excited to try since it sounds much more controlled and can build many stuffs on. Wait for the next video so I can feel more confident building my very first home server.

Some folks mentioned Unraid. I would put that on the same level as TrueNAS. Slightly different target group, but what makes it really strong is the huge community behind it. All being said, I have switched to TrueNAS bare matal and Proxmox HA cluster on HP Thinclients myself. I also have few services running in cloud.

Glad I watched to the end for the mention of XCP-ng, though I think it deserved a spot in the hypervisor chapter. IMO, it's a best-of-breed system, especially when combined with Xen Orchestra. Anyone who is serious about using their homelab as a learning platform would be well served by spending some quality time with it.

Brilliant video. The most important tip I understood from all that is to stop looking for alternatives and just dive in - I have stalled on my new home lab project for the last 8 months now simply because I was too afraid of using the wrong thing and having to do it all again.

Clear, honest, informative and well articulated. Thank you.

This is a great video, so far I've settled on Windows but this does present a great argument on alternative options

Great video. I´m running Proxmox on my HomeServer, and I love to learn more about Linux, and deploying new services for me and my Family on my Own. And you are so inspiring to me. Like your Content a lot, and looking forward for your next Video. Keep it up !

Just want to let you and the algo know that this is super valuable content. Thank you!

Building my first Proxmox machine changed everything for me in what I can do, and experiment with, at home. I highly recommend trying it out. You don't need a very powerful machine to spin up your first instance. Just as long as the CPU fully supports virtualization features, which is very common, but not universal.

Thanks for the discussion, demo and info, have a great day.

Hi Christian. Thanks for the vid! My homelab consists of Proxmox VE+Backup Server (VM, LXC, Docker, Backup) and a Synology (NAS, data-backup, VMs, share+sync Data, video surveillance, Cloud sync., Photos, VPN, Wordpress). Synology is a very reliable, fast and secure homelab solution. All gui managed by DSM. A hint for your next vid: "battle" Synology vs TrueNAS. Have a good time !😀

I've been using Open Media Vault for a while. One of it's advantages, is that you can take drives with data already on them, and build the NAS around them. Most of the other NAS platforms seem to want to wipe the drives to start with. I also built a small Ubuntu server at work. Thanks to the abundant resources on the web I was able to do it successfully. Although, my advice is to keep track of what you installed when, as you build it (software wise) so that when you screw up, you can redo everything quickly, and if needed, rearrange the packages as you install them. After you're happy with it, there's one or more web gui's for administering it.

Looking forward to that tour!

I'm glad i found your video and for sharing your experience. Thanks

i agree with christian, do whats good for you. There are so many things you can do, its best to determine your needs for hardware and projects and then go from there. Great video!

This is truly define my entire cases. From Linux then Proxmox, finally I end up using TrueNAS Scale. Just want a simple home storage server with additional task. After watch this video I know I do not make a wrong decision. Love this video. Thanks for sharing!

"the linux distro that you're using doesn't matter so much" (pulls out popcorn)

Excellent advice and explanations. I really enjoyed it. Thanks Christian !

I enjoy the videos, Christian, and this one confirmed my choice of Proxmox & TrueNAS Scale for my homelab. I use workstation class machines and I am about to do some hardware upgrades and reconfigurations now that I have "a plan". :-) Keep up the good work.

The recommendation to stop at some point looking for alternatives and go with your Solutions is really one of the Gold nuggets of this video! You'll get to this point after a long and hard journey. If you have too much time, sure take that path but the outcome will be less than using that time to master the Main components. .. And please.. don't jump on every hypetrain! A very good Video!

Thank you for describing my own setup perfectly! :D Proxmox on my actual server with an Ubuntu VM and an rPi just running its own OS + docker

I personally like the idea of using Intel Nucs as Raspberry Pi alternatives and instead of PiOS I use Proxmox to bring some applications (Adguard, unbound, tvheadend, zabbix, etc.) to my internal network. On my Backup Server I use OMV, just because I wanted to have a GUI on my backup server. My main server runs unraid for over two years now and I'm totally happy with it. I also like the helpful and friendly unraid community. 👍

An in depth video on backup for Truenas Scale apps would be interesting and a great idea 💡 ☺

I REALLY like this video. It's essentially everything I needed and had links for what it didn't include and it didn't take half an hour..

This video and this comment thread is solid gold for someone starting out in this tech space. My thanks to everyone.

Thanks for the recommendations!

I tried all the other hypervisors over the years but Proxmox just works the best. It totally changed everything. Absolutely love it. I only need one quiet server in my rack and it just runs everything flawlessly. I use an older Asrock board with dual Xeon e5 2690 v2 with 256 gigs of ecc reg. All the parts were used and inexpensive... also have two TrueNAS servers with more than enough disk space. Lots of headroom to play with for my needs. Virtualize everything !

Right now I'm using CasaOS. It's not really an operative system but a front-end that aims to be a very user friendly NAS alike OS. To be honest, I can't believe how much I fell in love with this "os" because it's super simple, intuitive and user friendly. In fact, thanks to this program I finally understood how docker images work. So if someone new to self-hosting reads this comment, I do encourage you to check it out.

Really useful info as ever. I hope you plan a lot more videos on getting labs setup for noobies getting into it.

I love it to hear a fellow german talking about tech. I personally just use proxmox at the moment

Thank you for your videos, please keep sharing your knowledge!

Looking forward to you next video!

Thank you for sharing the knowledge you have gained.

After watching your video about Self Signed Certificates I discovered your channel and enjoying it since. Another great video again, thanks Christian. Probably I could not understand but I can not figure out when using Proxmox & TrueNas Scale together where to put docker volumes, will there be 2 ZFS pools for each, etc. Probably I can understand it with your next video :)

Building my first home lab. Thanks for ending the argument, finally! Proxmox and TrueNAS for me!

Windows 2016 Server Essentials, Thx for sharing...

That is the best overview of so many versatile tools and solution. Thank you so much for you wonderful, hyper-Informative ;-) content.

I have an ESXi server that's probably over a decade old at this point. I basically wanted one that could do anything, and there weren't many alternatives at the time. I've been using Freenas as a VM under it, but now I'm moving to mainly using TrueNAS Scale on its own server. I like it, but I don't understand what I'm doing most of the time, and find myself just changing different options and checking the logs for errors until I find a combination that works. Containers may be a better way of doing things, but they sure seem a lot more complicated than VM's. It should get easier once I learn what everything actually does.

Great content and presentation! Love your energy! Cheers!

this is insane!! so much good information!! thank you! 🙏🙏👍👍

Good video Christian! Thanks for sharing it with us!👍😎JP

I've been very happy with XCP-ng on my server hardware. I found it advantageous to have a somewhat normal Linux hypervisor.

Hello Christian, thanks! What ‘visio’ software are you using at 8:17? It looks neat!

I am buying an allinone nas and try to follow your steps! Thank you

I have a ProxMox server at home. I love how easy it is to set up custom containers for things such as my dyndns client, my Home Assistant, piHole, Gitea. And, I can still run virtualized Windows Server, different linux servers or Windows 10 and 11.

Fantastic video! Super thorough and well layer out. I’ve been running TrueNAS/FreeNAS since 2009, I’m shopping around and you’ve convinced me to give Proxmox a go. I didn’t know about the API features, seems pretty useful for “just trying something” without messing with the host OS, or diving into someone else’s Helm charts… Keep up the great work!

I'm currently running my homelab with 2 nodes proxmox cluster, such an amazing and powerful Virtualisation system with all things that I need. It runs containers, VM, and even a virtualized firewall. It runs smooth, no issues. And for Nas, truenas scale is quite amazing too, great performances with ZFS, applications, external backup for my entire homelab

Thank you for sharing!

I used xenserver for a long time. But since 2 or 3 years i use proxmox and i will stick with it now 😉 I like the ability to control it via API. I also made a small dashboard in node-red so i can check and boot my VMs from my phone or tablet with just a few buttons (just for playing in homelab) Also planning to do a short introduction/tutorial on how i did this, but in german 😜

Thank you for the info, I plan to mane a small home server and I using many VMs for testing, I will definitely take a look into Promox!

We have been running proxmox in our local home environments. So far so good.

Awesome this helped so much!

Hi Cris...good tips. Can I ask what software you use to make the explanations of the virtual machine that looks like a blackboard?

a long time ago I used esxi , but after it began to be installed only on corporate hardware, I switched to kvm... thx for proxmox, looks amazing il try it

Great video and engagement!

Nice video! Thanks. I am thinking of making a home server using the following applications: jellyfin, sonarr, radarr, jacket, rclone, home assistant, TrueNAS/OMV, Revers proxy, OpenWRT/OpnSense. I don't even know if it is possible to have a reverse proxy and a firewall like openwrt on the same machine as the homeserver. I would certainly like to take advantage of Docker to make everything lighter, but all under Proxmox for more flexibility. What would you recommend and above all is it feasible to use the homeserver as a router/firewall for my home network?

I Love the Look & Feel of TrueNAS Scale. I can't get VMs working yet for some reason; I'll have to dig into your vids. I haven't professionally set up servers in almost 2 decades, I loved using Win2k Server over Server 2k3. I tried setting up Linux Servers but I was still a Uber N00b back then, Now Im an Old Uber-N00b

For me, many years ago when I was in this boat, the solution was very very simple... Some flavor of Linux, so I put Ubuntu on my home server. Ran that for quite some time, but got fed up with the rebuild times when major version upgrades happened, as it never upgraded correctly, forcing me to rebuild the server and its services each and every time. (This was in 2010) So afterwards I was experienced enough, and I spent some time rebuilding it under Arch Linux and since then, it has just worked for me. Of course it evolved further as the storage transitioned from mdadm RAID 6 to ZFS, but one thing was clear early on... Windows just couldn't cut it.

I use OpenBSD pf for my router/firewall, TrueNAS Core for storage, Windows Server for Group Policy with an iSCSI connection to TrueNAS, CentOS and Windows 10 for desktops with a mix of Cisco and Edgemax PoE switches and VirtualBox for VM's. Soon going to be building a TrueNAS Scale box for Docker apps. It's quite the mix mash of hardware and software cobbled together over the years.

Hi Christian, I have almost the same setup, apart from TrueNAS, as I use the Proxmox server itself to provide the storage via NFS and SMB, However, did you notice that NFS is rather slow, especially for small files like when you backup with rsync or dirvish? In that case, the "local" backup share is mounted via NFS and it is ultra-slow with file operations like hardlinking. This is not so much a problem when a large file is being read or written. Is there a workaround or is TrueNAS faster with NFS?

I use QEMU/KVM and it doesn't disappoint. I feel like I have so much more control and i can load the Distro that i want on top of the hypervisor. Plus its a hybrid hypervisor in that it is technically type 2 but runs JUST like a type 1. I have had ZERO issues. Tons of different interfaces (CLI, Libvirt for desktop UI, and Cockpit for web UI) it's simple and yet powerful

Hi, there, what Architecture diagram plugin did you use in 8:18? It seems an obsidian plugin. so cool.

Qubes OS is another worth checking out I guess. Haven't gotten around it yet myself, but I certainly will in the near future. Do you have an opinion about it?

Great video! Personnally I don't really like the idea of running systems that are administered using their own specific web interfaces like Proxmox/Truenas. I usually much prefer having a regular Ubuntu or Debian server as a bawe system which I can manage the way I want and host secondary systems with KVM / Virtmanager or Docker. To make it easier, Cockpit web interface with its zfs, vm, etc plugins makes it nearly as user friendly as proxmox or truenas for moderatelly simple use cases.

really nice video!

Running a Proxmox cluster with 3 nodes. Main server is an HP ML350 Gen9, network box is a VMWare Edge 680 that's been converted to Proxmox, and third is a micro HP desktop. Most services are running in LXC's, except two. The router/firewall is a full VM and a second vm for Windows that has a GPU for streaming games.

Great analysis Christian. Totally agree; at some point people should pick a solution and run with it. Constantly looking for something better just makes people dissatisfied with life! BTW, I have an ESXi server, a Proxmox server I am about to swap out with a more powerful box, and a TrueNAS box I am about to use to replace my 5 year old Synology NAS. Plus I plan to set up either pfSense or OpnSense on another box. And then I plan to dive into setting up the software for it all.

My Current home-lab: NAS Synology, that thing already runs a raid array for 18 years, the disks and shell (new unit) changed at times but the array only expanded and kept stable. Synology for me is the 'keep for stability' choice. No bitrot or broken files on the data yet. XCP-NG + Xen Orchestra community. I tried ESXI and Proxmox 2 times at home but never got it in the way i wanted, and Xen for me just naturally flows the correct way. The biggest benefit is that it keeps the 'don't set to much' attitude and true 'no master node' of ESXI but it's still open source and gives possibility of adjusting it to your hand like Proxmox. Also the Proxmox in my setup allot of times broke or wasn't stable, (can't shut down a vm, hangs in commands, masternode not available so searching where the ui is). On the VM's i run RedHat and Ubuntu, Also some Debians but those are mostly TKL (turn key linux) templates because that helped me allot in the early days. Docker is still normal docker and haven't yet tried Kubernetes, All is still Automated via Ansible and a little bit (XEN) via Terraform is in the works, no full migration yet.

Thank you, exactly what I was looking for. I personally don't need Linux-level customizations (so it doesn't make sense for me.), simplicity is more of what I'm looking for. 😁 Again, thank you.

Nice video. gave me Alot of good ideas

Hi Christian, from what I can tell you're running Proxmox and TrueNAS on separate bare metal machines. A year ago you've made a video "How to run TrueNAS on Proxmox?". Have you had any further experience with that since then? I'm thinking of running such a setup myself (Proxmox bare metal and a TrueNAS VM), because I really like what Proxmox offers in terms of VM management, but I also want to manage a ~30 TiB+ NAS. I've found that some people online advise against this specific setup, but not necessarily with any concrete arguments. Would love to hear your take on this if you had some further experience with actually running this kind of setup. Thanks

@christianlempa, I wonder what is your opinion on linux containers (LXD/LXC). I've been using LXD and running one windows server in KVM mode and all others (mssql, mysql, nextcloud, plex, dev machines, etc) as linux containers. The containers share the same kernel as the host, but other than that they have completely independent configurations, allowing me to easily install any software and configure each one individually. I don't need to set cpu cores, memory or hardware resource (although I can) which for my home lab suites me just fine. It would be cool if you could do a review on LXD. Great channel, cheers.

I'm going to be building a server this year with 128GB of ram and an intel xeon E5 2695 v3. My plan is to do FreeNAS scale (maybe vsphere if i'm feeling rich) as the host and then several VM's, both windows server and linux, to run all sortts of things from AD, DNS and DHCP, to maybe a couple of game server and a security camera system for my flat. This video proved interesting.

I like unraid for a home server. It has the biggest community and support plus is the most flexible with putting drives in your array. Great on a budget when most people are using old drives of different sizes.

I watched 40 hours of videos before I chose a Server OS. While I watched, I learned a lot about what servers were. My needs were modest as as a solo user. Now, in November 2023, I have picked TrueNAS Scale. I could set it up with about 12 stages of implementation, to arrive at something that does the basic things I want. It took me just one day, as a novice.

Love the video!!! Thank you for the information. One solution I use in my set up is UNRAID as well as others you spoke about.

Very cool video Christian 👍 I am looking forward to your homelab tour video! I use different proxmox ve on bare metal and a proxmox backup server what is a perfect solution for all virtual machines! For file server I actually use an Ubuntu vm with NFS. I actually play with a Windows Server 2016 as CIFS file server because I love the static ntfs permission structure with AD-Groups! MA, be I built a AD-domain and join all my ubuntu-servers, then I can use different AD users for every server 😜 I am actually not happy with docker using volumes directly on my nfs or cifs shares (I mount the shares on the ubuntu-vm, where I run docker) because of the specific rights of some images. I tried Truenas too, but I prefer proxmox as hypervisor and I like running important services an dedicated hardware.

my home server for ssh and apache is running linux-mint but i am also using it as a media center for watching movies or emulators on the projector. and it has a direct connection to a synology NAS with 4 drives. for all my photos from my photography hobby. as you said there is no perfect solution. but this works amazingly well.

Hi Christian. Which Infrastructure as Code you are using? Do you have a video about it?

thanks a lot for your videos man.. they are very helpful.. quick question.. will you use Proxmox in production?

Thanks again for an interesting upload! Curious question, what do you use when you "paint"/draw in the conclusion section?

As a devops engineer I deploy a ton of vms and containers and if I'm given the choice, 90% of the time they're running the current Ubuntu LTS. No licensing issues or drama, very well put together and easy to hack into and excellent cloud provider support.

- Esxi's biggest issue is, that you need an additional storage server (iscsi etc). - Trunas Scale feels still a bit beta to me and is pretty limited. - Xcp-ng is basically dead anyway, i don't even know anyone who uses that. - Proxmox with zfs/lvm and lxc containers is just brilliant, they even have an mainline kernel, actually 6.1. In my opinion there is simply nothing that can reach Proxmox. Sure there are some missing gui features, like some zfs Management (manage datasets/adding cache/log/vdev) or zfs snapshots is a basic feature that's highly missing. But for that you have cli and zfs autosnap etc. Proxmox allows mapping over mountpoints datasets or any folder directly to vm/container, which is insanely nice. Basically just the gui is a bit limited, but you have all the possibilities over cli and there is nothing you can't realize. Im a really big fan of Proxmox and love what the guys are doing there, especially Lamprecht is doing the most work, glad god he is such a motivated guy. Hopefully he never leaves Proxmox. Maybe im sounding like a small fanboy, but i just love Proxmox, it ticks every wish you have. I have a cluster of 4 Servers btw, 2 of them are at home, main and a small backup, 1 is at my mum and the last one is a dedicated server from hetzner. All connected over opnsense/wireguard. Maybe one thing i would love is, better docker support, since docker and zfs, mhhh... I have docker running in an lxc container, which works excellent, but it took initially a bit to find out the correct cgroup2 rights and module options for zfs etc. This could be made easier, with an additional lxc option (like fuse etc). But yeah, the gui is a bit limiting, however you have the cli! Probably a good way to learn for some either. Cheers

thank you. i've been itching to have my own home server so that i can play and break things :) maybe i will try truenas scale, first.

Your channel is heaven to me.

Moin, great overview. I will go in the same direction as you. One storage server with TrueNas and one with Proxmox. I've been looking at CasaOs lately. In my eyes easier than OMV. For a very simple NAS solution with some container. And then there is Unraid. You can do a lot with it...

For generic server stuff - I personally use a customized Ubuntu Server image with SNAP completely stripped out - As well as a few other customizations made to it. For VMs - Proxmox, I have a cluster of a few physical Proxmox machines.

Have a question... If I were to use Proxmox and run my docker containers inside a Ubuntu server, why would I choose TrueNas Scale instead of TrueNas Core for my NAS? Thank you!

Great Video! Virtualization really is the key! For me, the free features that esxi offers are more than enough. The setback is due to the hardware, as it is not friendly with generic storage/network devices. I think Proxmox would be an excellent alternative for me, but I haven't tried it yet.