My NAS is a 10 year old custom built PC, that did it’s time as the main driver.
I then built another customer build that should last the same amount of time.
The NAS was born like 5 years ago. So it has MOBO that is about 15 years old and most other components. Quite a few things replaced to make it into a NAS. New SSD, new HDD’s etc. but I am starting to get worried.
I woke up this morning to a real weird noise coming from it in the morning. I don’t turn it off at night.
I powered off, and the sound went away and Plex is back up and running etc etc. But I am fairly ignorant of what I should be doing… re: systems check.
Can you please guide me to the best place to look, and what to do? Feel free to shill articles/videos etc.
Ultimately, I haven’t run back ups in ages either. I have the storage, just not sure on how to get external HD to connect to it and best copy everything… I’ve got all music, photos, videos, files etc. important stuff.
I have investigated the idea of buying an entirely new NAS; fresh but not yet pulled the trigger on that… any help would be greatly appreciated.
I suggest that you use the search facility here - e.g. TrueNAS Backup - there are very many threads covering this topic.
Also the Forum Archive - regular contributor @Arwen has a detailed post on a method using hard drives : How to: Backup to local disks | TrueNAS Community - for instance.
If the data is important to you, back it up - ideally with at least one copy being stored off-site and unpowered.
If you feel your NAS is failing, I see no reason not to build a newer one from scratch, then replicate all the data from the old one to the new one. OEMs like SuperMicro still make new motherboards from the X10 generation that make pretty ideal HDD-based SOHO servers. However, the form factor matters.
For a larger case with lots of HDDs, I like the x10sdv-2c-7tp4f. It sips power, has lots of SATA slots, 10GbE built-in, two PCIE3.0x8 slots, etc. and costs only $550. Downside is embedded CPU, only 2 cores, and unsual Flex-ATX form factor that will not fit into smaller cases. I have a higher-core version of this board (feat the D-1537 CPU).
For a Mini-ATX motherboard I’d seriously consider the X570D4I from Asrock Rack. Not my favorite company due to its spotty end-user support, but it is Mini-ITX, it has two Oculink ports that you can use either for 8 SATA or NVME, 1 PCIe 4.0x16 slot, 10GbE Copper, and the freedom to select among billions of Ryzen CPUs. For low-wattage and validated ECC support, scour eBay for a -G or -GE CPU listed in the Asrock Rack CPU QVL list.
If either motherboard sounds interesting, search for user stories here and make an informed decision from there.
For mini-ITX my favourites boards are Supermicro A2SDi, especially the A2SDi-H-TF: 12 SATA, 10GBase-T, DDR4 RDIMM for plenty of cheap RAM.
Not cheap, but the second best low-power NAS motherboard I’ve tried. (The first place, if you’re curious, belongs to its bigger and meaner brother A2SDi-H-TP4F. SFP+ and full length DIMM slots in mini-ITX size: Wow!)
I think you meant to link the X570D4I-2T. -NL is BTO and lacks 10G.
Mind the SO-DIMM slots (ECC SO-DIMM is made of hen teeth…).
For ECC support, that would be a -G/GE PRO part. Non-PRO APUs do not support ECC.
Mind that APUs can only bifurcate the x16 slot to x8x4x4, not to x4x4x4x4; the latter is only possible with Ryzen CPUs (no iGPU), which then have a higher idle wattage.
At the cost of 2 SATA ports (6 rather than 8), there are plenty of mini-ITX X10SDV boards which sips power, provide 10GBase-T and sport a PCIe 3.0x16 slot which bifurcates x4x4x4x4.
Thank you for that correction. I fixed the link! Also, many thanks for the Pro pointer.
The A2SDi-H-TF is a great alternative / replacement for the C4750D4I that iXsystems used to ship in its Mini’s. At ~$620 it offers a lot of SATA slots and the only downside is the 3.0x4 PCIe slot and the 10GbE Copper LAN interface.
In TrueNAS CORE, you can back up to an external device (e.g., USB drive, external HDD, or network share) using the built-in “Cloud Sync” or “Replication Tasks”. If you’re using an external USB drive, you can use rsync or periodic snapshots.
Method 1: Rsync (Recommended for USB Drives)
Plug in the External Drive
Go to System → Advanced → Enable “Show console messages” to see the device name.
Use glabel status in Shell to find the disk name (e.g., /dev/da1).
Format it if needed (UFS, ZFS, NTFS, EXT4, etc.) using gpart.
Followed some steps: outcome - - I use this usb drive to backup main PC as well. So I guess if I wanted a NAS specific backup - best to get a new one and format? Recommendations?
- I use this usb drive to backup main PC as well. So I guess if I wanted a NAS specific backup - best to get a new one and format? Recommendations?