After 8 years using QNAP and Synology, I am finally ready to dip my toes into building a Truenas system. I have previously built gaming PCs back in the day, but I am rusty, and so I am a bit lost in trying to decide how to go about this.
I have searched youtube, google, reddit, this forum, etc. for build recipes but it’s either for small 2-6 bay NAS or the really big enterprise level ones.
I hope this forum can help me with a “grocery list” for a system that checks off these boxes:
minimum 12 drive bays (not necessarily hot swap) and max 20 bays.
25GbE network connection
capable of serving 3-6 video editing workstations (not sure what that means in terms of what CPU/RAM is needed)
I don’t care what kind of chassis (tower, rack, etc.) and if there are off the shelves options that work well with Truenas and are simple to get up and running I am all in.
This system would check all of your requirements but will be more like 5k€ or so.
Space for 12 data drives (6 can be NVME), 2 boot disks on the back, and plenty of power.
If you want to go the cheap route, you may consider this:
This is an old, used system that should still perform ok for your purpose, and for only 600€ it’s a bargain. I use these systems myself.
You will need to swap the raid controller witha HBA (drop in replacement)
