I’m currently running TrueNAS SCALE 25.04.2.4 and plan to use my machine mainly as a media/storage server. The server itself is set up and running fine, and now I’d like to start installing the apps I need.
The apps I’m planning to run are:
Jellyfin
Radarr / Sonarr / Prowlarr
qBittorrent
Nextcloud
Proxmox (for testing/learning)
Audiobookshelf
Tailscale (to access my server remotely, since I haven’t figured out SSL and reverse proxies yet)
I’ve been going through the docs and some forum guides, but I’m running into confusion about datasets for apps.
Some guides create separate datasets for each app (e.g., /pool/configs/Tailscale) while others just install apps with the default settings, using the auto-created ixVolumes.
On the TrueNAS website I read that it’s recommended to use Host Path Datasets for permanent storage instead of ixVolumes, but in forum posts I also see people recommending to just stick with ixVolumes.
Now I’m unsure which way to go. If I use Host Path Datasets, I also don’t know which dataset preset to pick. For most apps I would assume the “apps” preset is fine, but then I read that for something like Tailscale, it doesn’t really use the dataset like a normal app would, so the “generic” preset might make more sense.
Since I’m a complete beginner, this is all a bit confusing. I don’t want to set things up wrong and regret it later, especially since this system is supposed to be my long-term media server.
So I am wondering:
Should I use the default ixVolumes, or is it better practice to create Host Path Datasets for each app?
If Host Path Datasets are the way to go, which preset should I use for apps like Tailscale vs media apps like Jellyfin/Radarr/etc.?
Is there a “best practice” setup for this kind of media/storage server that beginners like me should follow?
Any guidance, examples, or links to good beginner-friendly resources would be much appreciated.
iXVolume isn’t persistent, it gets recreated (don’t remember if its both on restart and update or just updates) and you’ll loose your config and you have to redo your setups every time. If you like extra work, go for it.
Hostpaths are persistent and even if an app breaks you can just delete the old app, reinstall, point to the old hostpath and you’re back in business.
If you create one Dataset per app you can create different snapshot policies for each app, in case you have to restore something from a backup.
If you only create one dataset with folders for each app you can’t do that.
Edit:
proxmox can’t be run as an app since it’s a whole operating system, you’d have to run that as a vm, and you’d have to make sure that your cpu supports nested virtualization, otherwise that vm will be useless…
Alright, so sounds like hostpaths are definitely the safer choice and path forward then.
What about the dataset presets thought? Would you recommend sticking with “generic” for both the configs and each individual app dataset (like for Tailscale, etc.), or is there any real benefit to using the “apps” preset in that case? I’d like to set it up right from the start so I don’t have to shuffle things around later.
Regarding Proxmox: My CPU should support nested virtualization, so I think I’m covered there. I’m not too familiar with Proxmox yet, but from what I’ve seen it looks like I can install the app through TrueNAS and set it up on my server, then run VMs from there for testing. Is that what you meant? I didn’t mean running it as an app directly, more like installing it via TrueNAS since that seemed like the convenient option.
Shouldn’t really matter what you choose, the apps preset just does some configuration that you otherwise have to do manually.
And again proxmox is not an app and can’t be run on the apps tab in truenas. You have to use the virtualization tab and create a vm
So no issues then if I go with “generic” for the config dataset and “apps” for the child datasets?
Yeah, I’m starting to see now that running Proxmox on TrueNAS is a lot less straightforward than I first thought when I saw it running on a friends TrueNAS server. I assumed there was an app for it like Jellyfin or Tailscale that I could just simply install, but clearly that’s not the case. Looks like I still have some catching up to do on VMs.
Thanks for clearing that up though.
