I turned a boat anchor (QNAP TS-451) into a TrueNas server (now bare-metal install)

TrueNAS General
21

The benefit of running TN in a VM on QNAP is simply that you can then do TN to TN replication. On a stock QNAP, you cannot install TN because the flash drive is only 500MB and TN won’t even install. So, short of upgrading the hardware, there is no other way to get TN running in a QNAP.

I decided to upgrade the flash and RAM and will then attempt to install TN on bare metal on a QNAP server. Since it’s a backup system for me, it should suffice and cost me $50 to do the upgrade.

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22

Depending on the age and model of the QNAP, some models with embedded video support changing the BIOS boot device, which enables booting from external USB devices.

Currently, I have a QNAP x73 family box running TrueNas Scale this way. It boots from an external USB drive that’s attached to the device.

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