Resources List including Detailed Hardware and System Build Notes (plus new user advice / help)

Resources
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This resource was originally created by user: [WI_Hedgehog] (https://www.truenas.com/community/members/wi_hedgehog.116993/) on the TrueNAS Community Forums Archive. Please DM this account or comment in this thread to claim it.

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TrueNAS is not as simple as videos make it look, though it is fairly easy to get a system running if you read the documentation and don’t color outside the lines.

Show : tl;dr: Hacking TrueNAS

If you want to save yourself lots of money and loads of time, the top of the page has Documentation and Resources tabs which contain extremely helpful information like the TrueNAS manuals. There’s also a Search tool at the upper-right that works extremely well. If you understand the system and requirements before jumping in you’ll save money, time, and frustration.

As general advice, if you run TrueNAS as a NAS and don’t add things to it it tends to run fine and without issue, though I suggest using an Uninterruptible Power Supply and NUT.

Precautions: (dreaming big is fine, but let’s nail down a few things that go badly for new-to-TrueNAS users)

  • Adding Virtual Machines, Jails, Containers, TrueCharts, scripts, and especially running TrueNAS in a virtual environment (Proxmox) is where people get themselves into trouble and start losing data. It appears most initial problems occur due to network bridging not being configured properly, with drive access perhaps being the second biggest issue. (keep reading)
  • If you saw a video with TrueNAS 1) in a VM, 2) being used as a gaming server, or 3) Plex/Jellyfin server: You’re probably in for more work than you expect. First build TrueNAS as a NAS on server-grade hardware, and when that’s tested and stable incrementally expand it, or better yet use a different platform completely as TrueNAS doesn’t work spectacularly for any of those purposes (though it does work well as NAS, not surprisingly). (keep reading)
  • TrueNAS CORE (BSD) is faster and more stable than SCALE (Linux), so consider running CORE. There’s almost no interaction with the operating system anyway.
  • DO NOT use gaming hardware for a NAS; TrueNAS is a Datacenter-grade platform and will not run well on gaming hardware just like games don’t run well on server hardware.
  • If you’re trying to repurpose an old desktop system use Ubuntu Server (possibly with ZFS though that’s often not the best choice for older systems, use LVM instead), not TrueNAS. Videos showing TrueNAS working for a day of filming before tearing down the system for another build is entertaining, but this isn’t good for long-term stability (or even short-term stability). TrueNAS uses hardware in ways desktops were not designed for and they’ll eventually break and your data will be lost forever. Use Ubuntu, --or Gentoo if you want to wander into the deep end of the pool. Repurposing a desktop can get real expensive real quick and you’re better off buying used server equipment–you’ll save money and time.
    (Note that Ubuntu Server and TrueNAS have a text-only terminal attached, unlike Windows or Ubuntu which are graphical and use a mouse.)
  • Is TrueNAS “a lot cheaper and as easy to use as a Synology NAS?” Well, cheaper…that depends on Total Cost of Ownership, including the time you invest in learning any system. It’s hard to beat Synology if you want an easy-to-use home system that you just plug in and click around a bit, though Synology gets expensive when storing a lot of data.
  • TrueNAS as a VM Under Proxmox or VMWare: Don’t do this, Proxmox can operate as a SMB Server for Windows or NSF Server for Linux. VMWare sharing methods: (link1, link2)
  • Minecraft: This isn’t a good idea, Minecraft is best run on an old desktop where it will run far faster and smoother–and without the cost of server hardware TrueNAS requres. The ZFS filesystem TrueNAS uses can be used there but you don’t want to do it as it will wreck performance.
  • Steam Games and Deduplication: If you have the money, it’s doable. Otherwise…
  • Plex/Jellyfin: This isn’t a great idea for many reasons, though it can be done. Transcoding is somewhat pointless as even cheap phones can display 4K data streams, so a Raspberry Pi [alternative] with Kodi is enough to stream video and will use far less power and be much quieter. Both work great under Proxmox (which is designed to run containers), however be prepared for a lot of hardware and configuration headaches you’ll most likely face if trying to do this with TrueNAS.

If the above suggestions don’t meet your needs because you have valuable data and truckloads of it, and you’re convinced you need an industrial storage solution on server-grade equipment to handle it (without breaking the bank), then TrueNAS is probably what you want.

(If you’re reading this on a phone, turn it sideways and read in Landscape Mode, longer lines will make more sense)

Fundamentals​

Basic Understanding​

Hardware​

Range of Builds:

Required Hardware:

- Detailed Look Inside Power Supplies​

Example Systems​

Building​

Configuration​

Maintenance​

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DO NOT add the following “stuff” to your system until you actually need to as it will unnecessarily complicate things and possibly break other stuff:

Ease of Use​

  • bc the basic calculator is in CORE and the script will work there out of the box; SCALE however does not include bc in the base system (yet…this may change) but can be added if you want to use the script there.

Advanced​

Storage​

LSI/Avago/Broadcom Host Bus Adapters:

Bottleneck Reduction:

Boot Resiliency:

iSCSI / Block Storage​

Network​

SAMBA Performance:

Switch, Firewall:

UPS​

Dangerous Territory​

Applications​

TrueNAS is an excellent NAS appliance, and there are sound reasons to stretch that further, though doing so is not without inherent risk. While the linked threads contain some “bold exaggerations” they also contain valuable information on what to expect and how to keep your system out of trouble while capitolizing on the resources.

CREDIT: This list was originally based on @Chris Moore’s Links to useful threads and @Davvo’s list (in his signature).
DISCLAIMER: What you do is up to you, opinions and comments herein non-withstanding. Comments are based on enterprise-level hardware reliability statistics and critical data retention, which to different people means different things and holds different values. You could conceivably run TrueNAS in a VM without ECC memory on generic consumer hardware for years without problems, buuut that’s not really “best practice.” Sometimes though, “you gotta do what you gotta do and throw caution to the wind.” I’ll just mention you might want to keep on top of your backups… [image]

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@iX_Resources , when you’re migrating these resources over, can you just put them into the Resources category? The mods and some of the other users can do this, but it seems it’d be less work if you did it during the migration.

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Mistake on my end. Sorry about that.

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