I use TrueNas Scale for a couple of months now on a small device (Firebat AK2+ using a Intel N100) but it’s seems this device is not powerfull enough for my needs so I plan to upgrade it.
Before buying anything, I have a few questions :
Is TrueNas able to handle two network interfaces ? The device I plan to buy have two RJ45 and I connect TrueNas on two different network (I can’t post images on this post )
Currently, TrueNas is installed on my Firebat using this configuration :
– TrueNas installed on SATA SSD (256Go)
– Only one volume is used, a unique M2 SSD (512Go), but there is some application installed on it and some data.
If I take the physical discs and install them on the new device, is there any issue for TrueNas ? The new device will be a NiPoGi AM06 Pro that use a АMD R7 5825U.
For now I don’t have any large volume. With the migration, I plan to add 2 HDD (4To) using an external bay.
If you want to tell us why it is not powerful enough for your needs we might be able to help alleviate the problems you are experiencing. But to answer the questions you asked:
A shared space for host files (mostly movies and TVShow) between my devices (computer, TV, smartphone) and Online (using a filebrowser).
Hosting video game server deployed using container service (Minecraft, Enshrouded, etc…)
Hosting a VM for different experimentation
Later, I want to host an Home Assistant instance to manage my lights and power consumption.
I already encounter weakness with the game servers : the processor is close to its limit (I have notification when I played enshrouded that the server is really busy)
Ok for the multiple networks. That’s great for my plan. But why for the 2nd question ?
For the 2nd question, you asked “If I take the physical discs and install them on the new device, is there any issue for TrueNas?” and the answer this is no, there should be no issues. But I fully admit that my answer was not fully clear and could be misunderstood - and that was my fault.
No problem. So I can buy the AM06 Pro eye closed. As this computer is a little bit expensive (I’m not a company, so 350$ is a small budget for me), I want to be sure that is not useless. Just to be sure, when I start the new AM06 with the old disks, I have nothing to configure about the network interface ? TrueNas will auto detect th new NIC and get an IP from my router ?
Why ? They are not too expensive, the TDP is correct and they are modular enough for domestic use (I only have to buy a bay for extra HDDs). Moreover, in my case, I use this for a little more than a normal NAS : I host game servers and webapps.
If you think there is a better solution, I’m all ears as I don’t clicked on purchase button yet
A NAS is about storage, right? So get something that can actually host drives (plural).
Any second-hand SFF corporate PC with a handful of internal bays is already a better choice than a Mini PC.
Hmmm. I’m not sure to understand : except the aesthetic aspect, I don’t see what the point of an internal bay (and in my office, that’s not a priority at all). More over, external bay offer more possibility of upgrade (if 2 slots bay is not enough, I can upgrade to a 4 slots bay case).
On another angle, yes NAS is for data storage but in my case, that’s not the only goals. And why I like TrueNas is that it’s exactly what it does : data storage and more, pretty easily.
Oh. I’m not aware of that !! What are the main issues ?
EDIT : I saw @Arwen post about this (just found it). As I understand, it’s mostly because of physical issue, right (English is not my native language) ?
I my case, my bay is powered through an inverter, use USB 3.0 (so no big trouble with the speed) and lock behind a door and plug in the back of the miniPC (so no accidental unplug). Is there anything I don’t see ?
Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I am not sure that it is strictly true. ZFS has some clear requirements about i/o ordering and transparency of drive information, and a multiplexed USB connection doesn’t meet either of these.
Other than motherboard SATA ports, the only current way of reliably delivering this for SATA/SAS drives is a well designed HBA running in dumb AHCI mode (usually using IT firmware), designed to deliver performance end-to-end and delivering a 1-to-1 connection between HBA ports and disk drives. (NVMe has the same requirements, but different technologies than HBAs meet these requirements.)
The drives themselves have additional power, temperature and vibration requirements that also need to be met, and SATA / SAS cables have maximum length specifications.
Where the disks physically reside doesn’t matter as far as the above are concerned. They could be internal, they could be in an external shelf, whatever. So long as they are connected 1-to-1 to an HBA in IT mode by suitable within-spec cables, and have the correct power, temperature and vibration, they should perform reliably.
For what I know about my bay :
Currently, my two HDD use RAID from Synology, I have to grab data from them before plug it on TrueNas. But, I already plug it on my PC and they are see as RAID Disk. I know that’s not ZFS but is it a clue about the compatibility TrueNas ?
Yes - all you have described with your rig is what you do see i.e. the physical. What you are not taking account of is the invisible electronic protocol issues that you don’t physically see (as clearly described by @etorix).
There is no problem with asking for explanations, but if you ask for advice from people much more knowledge than you, please be prepared to accept what we say as the voice of experience and not refuse to accept it because it isn’t what you would ideally like to hear. We are trying to help you, to help you configure a server that will be both reliable and performant, rather than one which has either performance or reliability issues or both.
OK. Thank you. I really take account about your answers but the language barrier probably erase this. I didn’t buy anything right now, mostly because @etorix expressed doubts about what I explain.
For my configuration, I understand that SAS Shelves can be a solution for me, that’s right ? I didn’t know about this kind of devices until today.
Just to be clear : In addition to being French, I’m not a sys admin at all. I’m interested in this but I have only few knowleges about this. I previously owned a Synology NAS but the motherboard of this one burned last summer. Since, I found TrueNas in september and try it on a Mini PC. I really like this solution, but as I said earlier, it seems that my current configuration is not enough for my needs.
I think that this diagram shows you are doing pretty well for a non-sysadmin.
That infrastructure architecture looks fine to me. Without an ISP router, the wifi without internet will not have a DHCP server so you will either need to deploy a DHCP server for this network as a TrueNAS app or use static IP addresses.
However, I would say that this is a substantial requirement, as I can see in this diagram that you plan to have:
Multiple VMs
Some significant apps including video recording (?)
An N100 is NOT going to give you even remotely enough CPU or memory for this (and possibly not enough CPU PCIe lanes. And depending on what you want to do with the video, and with the VMs and apps, you might need to carefully plan your disk subsystem to give you sufficient disk space, MB/s throughput and iops, and if the apps and VMs will need synchronous writes to HDDs then you will need to consider SLOG devices also.
In other words, you need to start from first principles and first document as much detail as you can of your requirements. What VMs, how much CPU, memory, storage and i/os will they produce?? What exactly do you want to do with the video and what do these user requirements translate to in technical terms? How will user authentication work? What is the stuff right at the bottom of this diagram?
But right now it seems almost impossible to deliver this for a budget of $350 or 350€ or anything remotely close to this. Your requirements are not firm enough to be able to do any accurate estimates but my guess is that you might need perhaps $500-$1000 for the server and (depending on what you need) $500-$2000 for disks.
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