So I have been using TrueNAS since FreeNAS V8. Been a journey. Started out thick, went to a 1-box on top of free ESXi, the went back to a 3 box VMware cluster solution (2 hosts, thick CORE).
I have been putting of switching but I knew it was inevitable based on Broadcom being the worst. So I finally went back to a 1-box Proxmox. Started with migrating CORE 13.0u8 and got it stable. Saved the config and imported it into SCALE 24.10.4. Not sure if this was the perfect approach, but I really did not want to have to re-do all my base configs…
SCALE has come a long way since I last tried it out on 22 and 23. Good work TrueNAS team. Went through some shell scripts and made them work on Linux - not too bad. Huge shout out to @joeschmuck for the Multi_Report. What a champion. Need to sort out the Supermicro fan control some day, but I just set the fans to a decent RPM that seems to never really change, so good enough is good enough.
My thoughts: TrueNAS on Proxmox is a great home lab setup. I now store my VMs on the Proxmox ZFS storage and back them all up using Proxmox Backup Server on a VM to a TrueNAS NFS target. Works well and I am confident everything is on good storage (unlike DAS on ESXi…). Starting to leverage some LXCs. Still hosting a lot in a Docker Ubuntu VM. Not sure I will ever leverage the advanced features in TrueNAS with this setup though.
All in all, happy with the solution and really thankful that TrueNAS continues to offer such a ballin free to use NAS+ solution. Great work.
Keep those platter spinning peeps!!
You might already know that I had been running TrueNAS on ESXi since version 9, but I was here when version 8 became TrueNAS. These days I no longer run TrueNAS on ESXi, I run on bare metal, but then again, I’m not running other VMs. I was able to get ESXi 8 (free) with a license, and you are correct about Broadcom. I have never used Proxmox, hopefully I will never need to use another Type 1 Hypervisor.
Thanks for the shout out, it is very appreciated. Things like that get me motivated to continue work on the next major version, because honestly, I’ve been dragging my feet.
I am glad you were able to put SCALE on Proxmox, and yes, SCALE has come a long way. I’m still thinking about updating to the current version very soon. It seems stable and no bugs that might impact my usage. I have outgrown the need to have the most recent version when it is likely to have bugs so I wait for a few minor version changes first, but one time I enjoyed identifying any problems I could find just to feedback that to the developers and make the product better.
Hope that new setup keeps running error free for a long time!
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Ahh, V9 days on ESXi - takes me back to this post that I followed to do the same. It has been a journey over the years for sure. First use of ZFS was with OpenIndiana - what a beastie that was.
My ghasts are flabbered as to how much awesomeness is bound up in the multi-report script. And the graphic showing the layout - pretty cool. Any chance it can have 2 chassis? I have my SSDs in the DL380 case and the spinning rust in the SuperMicro case. Not critical but it would be neat to arrange them all.
But again, I tip my cap to you for your effort and for sharing with the community.
Now, we will let SCALE soak for a week or two before I burn the bridge and update the feature flags…
Cheers,
The drive layout is still not a final version of that feature, it works for many but not all. And I do have an update that will fix problems that others have seen. As for multiple cases, as of now, no, but it has been talked about. The current solution is to create a large custom layout where you can place all your drives into it, formatted the way you like it.
Yes, I have seen that ESXi post before, a few times. I personally never used it but I know I have helped several people having troubles and referenced that post. Some thing are easy to read and understand, some things are not especially if you are not familiar with what is going on in the first place.
Back on FreeNAS 8.x and 9.x I was compiling FreeNAS source code with my own modifications, mainly to make MiniDLNA work. I posted a lot back then about how to make it work. Plex was not always the easy thing to do, like it is today. FreeNAS 10, I stopped, but so did everyone else’s computer. What a bad release. FreeNAS 11 eventually came out and I was done compiling code.
I really need to take a hard look at Proxmox. I will when/if I need to run a serious VM.
Cheers
Thanks - was thinking of just making an 8 column 5 row thinger and using that.
And Coral…. Oh. My. Word. What an experience that was. So happy they recovered to 11 post haste. Yuck.
Proxmox 9.2 seems pretty swell so far - really like that it is ZFS-able. Solid on my HPE DL380 so that is great. So far, it has been reliable and restarted fine after a sudden power failure due to a dusted UPS. Worth giving it a shot if you need a VM hypervisor in your life IMHO. Also really like that you can get under the hood with simple Linux commands and it does not seem to mind too much as the GUI just pulls the configs from text files you can edit. ESXi was less fun, but (and FU, Broadcom) VMware is still so much better than any other hypervisor I have tried. But, all things pass.
Cheers,