The most obvious case would be when actually installing the OS. Next, if something’s misbehaving. I like to watch the console on boot (particularly after an upgrade), in case something goes wrong.
There’s always “hook up a keyboard and monitor to the machine.” I like having remote access because my NAS (along with most of my other servers) is in my workshop, ~70’ from my house, and occasionally I may need to check on things when I’m away from home.
Thats the thing with the QNAP I could always login and see what going or if I needed to change network settings etc. What are you using or would you recommend something else other than the HP Microserver?
I have 2 TrueNAS Core systems at home, Peabody and Sherman. Sherman is a home brew using a Fractal Design Node 804 case, Supermicro workstation board, and a low end Intel Xeon processor. It has run continuously for 7 years. In that time, I have replaced some failed disks and recently expanded the pool as it is receiving daily snapshots from Peabody which is my primary storage machine acting as an Apple Time Machine spool volume.
Peabody is a iX Systems Mini Mini+ (small 5 bay case) with Intel Intel(R) Atom™ CPU C3758 @ 2.20GHz processor. This CPU is fine for file system service and a Nextcloud instance I use for note taking and random stuff.
Both systems have ECC memory. I consider ECC essential to any system that runs continuously as NAS do. All single bit memory errors are corrected. Most multibit errors are detected and the affected process trapped.
If you are building from new retail, you’ll be hard pressed to beat iX Systems Mini prices. Do believe the Hardware Guide on what from your junk box to reuse, especially mother boards and memory advice. Mother boards must have all ECC plumbing present and ECC setup support in the startup environment. For AMD, check manufacturer’s website. Don’t trust gamer configurators.
Things I like about TrueNAS Core.
TrueNAS server and Enterprise run on Linux. Core is FreeBSD. Differences in VM and container support. Move to Linux to do big business container tricks and clustering.
QNAP is now ZFS. That’s the easy part. iX Systems boffins labored for several years to get to the robust feature compete web UI that we have today. I began with FreeNAS 9 which had gaps and rough patches. Today’s TrueNAS 13 is a true polished product.
If you need to do something, the answer is in the guide. It can take a little searching but Perplexity has been my friend for the recent Sherman pool expansion.
One caution: Volume naming in examples (“tank”) tends to be stupid. I’ve taken to naming things following the UI/Guide language rather than traditional FreeBSD/ZFS geek language. Pools are pools, usually numbered. Datasets and ZVOL are named by use or use case.
I took the sage advice to build RaidZ2 with double redundancy. I’ve had 2 disks croak during disk replacement so was very glad redundancy was double-redundant.
If re-purposing disks from inventory, Pool sizing will be based on the smallest disk in the pool. Calculate accordingly.
If you do a rolling replacement, TrueNAS will determine the pool size based on what is currently in the pool. No need to issue commands, the UI does the resize for you.
Failed volume replacement is similarly easy. Take out the Tango Uniform disk (the serial number printed on the label will be in the disk identifying data). Put the new one in, restart, and tell the UI to replace. Come back tomorrow and life should be good.
Do not do anything until you have viewed the Resources section of this forum where the true experts have given their advice. You should also read this:
I run six TrueNAS servers in various locations (none commercial). All but one I built from used equipment. I prefer Supermicro X9 and X10 motherboards (You MUST run a server mobo, server processor and ECC memory - If you don’t ZFS cannot guarantee data integrity). I run various RaidZ2 configurations with six drives of 6TB, 8TB or 14TB, all WD, but many shucked from EasyStore external chasis. My sixth system is an ASROCK C2750D4I in a Node 304 case. This system has been in coninuous use for nine years. It started with 6TB drives. I upgraded while the pool was online to 8TB drives, and later to 14TB drives. Only once has a drive gone bad, but every couple of years I get I/O errors that are corrected by installing a new SATA cable. Buy your power supply and your SATA cables new. None of my used Intel or Supermicro equipment has ever failed. Buy only Intel NIC cards. Five systems are Core (upgraded from FreeNAS). One is Scale, just to see if there is any reason to switch (haven’t found it yet). I run many Jails, especially Emby, PiWigo, Tailscale, FEMP, NetData, and S3. I boot from a PNY 120GB NVME SATA drive ($18), sometimes mirrored. I have recently seen an X10SL7-F with 32G memory and an E3-1230 processor for $150 (probably negotiable) on eBay. One further suggestion - setup your media server so that it seldom or never has to transcode. Enjoy.
X10 or later, please–X9 is stuck with the horrible Java-based IPMI remote console.
“iX is killing off CORE” is enough reason, IMO. iX’ recommendation is that new installs use SCALE, and I think I’d have to agree for that reason.
