I’m looking to make a rackmount TrueNAS (Scale) unit to replace my Synology. I’m handy around computers but just a hobbyist level. I have never used TrueNAS before. I’m a creative with 25 years of photography and some videography work that I store & retrieve. Access to these files will be my primary concern, but I do want something that I can try out some other functions.
I looked at the Mini R - but wondered about making my own instead.
I would like to put this in my studio in a short rack (20" deep) somewhere between 2U to 4U. (currently leaning towards the Sliger CX3702, but I’m open to input).
I’ve heard that it would be better to have an Intel vs AMD CPU for the playback of videos over a network. Is that as true with TrueNAS?
The CPU will help push the motherboard direction. I was thinking that it would be nice to have SAS either on board or on a card and then use SAS to SATA cables. So, depending if I can find a motherboard with SAS connectors, is there SAS cards that are recommended?
I was thinking of starting with 32GB of ECC memory, but it would be nice to be able to upgrade it in the future if wanted.
I’m going to start with 5x14TB drives that I have. I might add more in the future, either as a larger pool, or more likely a second pool and segregate my work.
If it’s not on the motherboard (rare, from my search) I would also add a 10GB NIC to help with moving large files around. Is there a chipset that I should use / stay away from?
Thank you for any and all help. I really appreciate it.
I was planning on an m2 drive to boot from. Does it make sense to have an additional m2 drive (like a cache drive like my Synology has?).
How do you plan to access your videos? If you’re just browsing to the files on your server and opening them with an application on your computer, you don’t need a GPU since the server will essentially just be sending a stream of data for your computer to decode.
On the other hand, if you’re accessing videos through something like Plex/Jellyfin, you might want a GPU. If all the clients support the video formats, you don’t need a GPU. If some clients don’t support the video formats, you might consider one.
If you think you need a GPU, it’d help to know if you intend to use a desktop/gaming motherboard (meh) or a server motherboard (yay), if you’re planning to use old/new parts, budget, etc. Can’t tell you if Intel or AMD is the better option until then…
If you’re going the server motherboard route, there are lots of options with onboard SAS and/or SATA. If you buy a SAS card, there are boatloads of cheap (but good) LSI cards on sites like ebay.
32GB isn’t a bad starting point, depending what you want to do. I’d definitely leave some slots open for expansion, though.
Starting with the drives that you have? Do you have somewhere to offload your data temporarily? The drives will need to be ‘wiped’ to move them from Synology to TrueNAS. They are different filesystems.
Server motherboards with onboard 10gbit NICs aren’t difficult to find. I think on the desktop/gaming side it’s a bit more limited. Price ranges are probably similar… Again, you could add it if you don’t mind giving up the slot…
I’m really thinking of going with a Mini R and just be done with it. I have a lot going on and I am not sure I want to mess with working through a new build. I know that I could do something cheaper, but there is a value having something that works (and having it by this weekend).
