Show us your TrueNAS (ghetto) build

[Sara]

@Lylat1an is right, there is no “show us your build” thread yet!

@Constantin

And if it is sufficiently delicious, you’ll be eligible for a sticker too!

Stickers? Are you serious? Ok, let’s do this! Here is my setup:

My whole setup is tuned for silence, because I had it near my office desk before.

The Mikrotik Switch is great, but until very recently the fan “curve” was way too agressive. And when I say “fan curve” I mean it does either run at 100% when it reached 40° or 0% when under. And since the original fan is so small (20mm) that I could not replace it with a Noctua fan, I simply removed the cover and put an old 80mm fan on top of it.

Below is a Unifi Switch for PoE.

Below that is an old Lenovo Office SSF as my OPNsense Firewall with 10GBit WAN.
I have the option to get 25GBit, but then I have to buy optics for me and make a one time payment to my ISP of 222$ for the optic. So I am stuck at 10GBit for now.
The network card had not enough room because of the PSU at the buttom.
So I removed the PSUs “shelf” and turned it 180° degrees.
The PSUs 20mm fan was annoying so I just removed it.
Was worried a little bit, but it has been humming along for over 3y now.
For the NIC I attached a Noctua fan. Since there is no mounting point or anything, I just used these rubber things and just squeezed the rubber between the grills of the NIC.

The TrueNAS at the bottom is pretty boring, SuperMicro, Fractal Define R5. 8 HDDs for RAIDZ2, 2 SSDs for special vdev, one SSD for boot. In hindsight I would probably go with L2ARC instead or at least not change the default 0 and only store metadata. It is now almost full without me really knowing why.

Proxmox on top is almost the same, just with a BeQuiet 500 case. Two SSDs mirrors for VMs. Backup is to an offsite PBS server.

Anything important is of course protected by a UPS.

Fractal packaging is great to collect cardboard. We dispose cardboard different from paper, please don’t ask me why.

The whole setup is roughly consuming 200W, I mostly blame the 8HDDs and Supermicro IPMI for that. But thankfully, I have two ghetto build 400W solar panels in the garden I snapped for cheap. I hope they will cancel out some of it.

Setup grew over time. In hindsight I would have started with DAC and ZFS sooner. Other than that, I am very happy.

[LarsR]

My small selfmade server rack
Edit:
For context, the rack sits in the corner of my living room, is barely audible (not more then a regular desktop pc) with all noctua fans.
In addition to the truenas box, my mikrotik 24 port switch and my opnsense box are also connected to the ups. Powerdraw from the wall for everything is around 132W

[joeschmuck]

The first thing I noticed, they have an UPS!. I’d have to dig up some old photos of my past Frankenstein builds, but some were pretty ugly, but they worked.

[Sara]

@joeschmuck

The first thing I noticed, they have an UPS!

To be honest, UPS failed me almost as many times as it saved me.
I had 3 over the last 8y. All from APC.
The three before both suddenly failed and crashed my systems because of it.
In the same timeframe, the probably saved me at best 5 times

[oxyde]

Guys, please, be serious and be ready for the real ghetto experience.

Disclaimer : If you’re weak-hearted, don’t go any further

• case bulkheads losed i dont know where and replaced with vanilla polycarbonate sheets and hot glue
• good psu that weigths about as much as four candies
• front fan from my 2008 pc, with a custom pin header because cable were too short, with the original led crunched because i don’t like led fan
• hard disks solid holded by mountable 3d print joint, plus a lot of space for spare disks i use to test systems
• 5.25" slots used as additional storage box
• pratical 23423423 metres usb cable plugged, ready to use for every ghetto needs
• enteprise self made power button with led
• 100% reliable powerline to achieve internet connection
• old router saved from joint and modified to act as an access point
• last, but not least, practical front handle come from a wrong 3d print

This pc help me when I do my electronics experiments and repairs, and just plugging sata power on disks-plug the adapter with the truenas so became my backup system

[venya]

Home build budget gamer/music production box that I turned into a TrueNAS network storage and play server for our apartment. A few NVME drives for OS and apps, and a 2x4TB mirror for general storage. I’m about to add a 2x3TB mirror, but that will pretty much max out the motherboard, which didn’t ask for any of this.

I have way more fun with linux containers than I did playing actual games.

The Thermaltake V21 case is probably my favorite I’ve ever owned. Very modular, so I was able to swap the vent and window panels so the cats could still enjoy a warm spot without destroying my ventilation. It’s definitely time to clean the fan filters, though. Because I built it for recording and mixing music, the 200mm fan on the front was a big draw (if you’ll pardon the pun); it keeps the whole thing cool and is virtually silent.

[Lylat1an]

Did you replace their batteries?

One went bad on me once, before I knew their batteries are only guaranteed for 3 years.

[Sara]

Yes and no. Once I replaced it, the other one had a none replaceable battery.
IMHO these batteries are done after two or max three years.

[Sara]

@oxyde

ready for the real ghetto experience.

Wow, that is really is ghetto. And impressive that it even works. Are these WD greens? These used to die like flies for me.

[oxyde]

I swear that at beginning the situation was under control, with a very beautiful sff case, but at the end the need to move/add disks fast and to easy swap from win to TN prevailed… Also better looking case i had have been used on other PC
Despite Is messy and ugly, i use this PC almost every day without issue. I would like to increase RAM from 8 to 16gb but ecc udimm at good price are so hard to find…

Yes, this Is a WD Green - in mirror with a WD Blue, plus a Red in stripe, all 3 CMR. I didn’t have had any problem yet (i have them from almost 2 year, taked already used for low price), gonna say that they do theyr job with ZFS well as backup target, but they are on just 1-2 hours every 7-10 days, i don’t know how they would perform 24/7.

[joeschmuck]

I replace my batteries every 3 to 5 years. I have to test the UPS units to verify the battery is good or bad. You never know until a power failure occurs and it poops out on you after 15 seconds. So I test by powering down my NAS, leaving other non-sensitive loads still running, unplug the UPS. I make sure it can last 15 minutes under those loads and if it fails, I order some new batteries. I need at a minimum 2 minutes for my system to power down gracefully, but I want at least 5 minutes under full load.

[Constantin]

Here is the inception thread for the sticker inspiration.

You can blame @stux.

The A76 case is huge but between the backplanes and the ample spacing between HDDs in their storage tower it offers really nice cooling performance at minimal pressure drop.

As a result, these drives stay at room temp +5*C or at 30 degC on average, whichever is lower. Most of the time, the fan script literally has the fans loafing along at minimal speeds.

There is also the DCDC UPS build report for the rest of the system that I still need to finish out (sorry @joeschmuck, it’s halloween time and you know what that means!). Cheers to you all. Constantin

[Stux]

@joeschmuck

I have to test the UPS units to verify the battery is good or bad

All my units test their own batteries :-/

And they then get all narcky if they need replacing

I’ve had pretty good luck with APC, UPSes lasting 10-25 years.

[joeschmuck]

@Stux

All my units test their own batteries :-/

Mine do as well, however mine only puts it on battery for a few seconds, and the voltage barely drops so it is considered good. I no longer trust the built in self tests the UPS units perform. And it was APC BR1500 (I think) that I use to buy, have 3 of them, and those tests were worthless. It will catch some batteries in bad condition. And yes, the longevity of the UPS itself has always been quite good. I can’t say one last over 12 years, I live in a place where electrical storms are too frequent which is why most of my electronics in the house are on an UPS.

[Constantin]

FWIW, if lightning strikes are a frequent issue on your transmission lines, I highly recommend a brick wall surge suppressor to protect your UPS.

One of my unpaid tech support clients has electronica wiped by lightning on a fairly regular basis. Long transmission lines, few customers (rural setting) leads to wild swings in input voltage.

UPS units usually have cheap MOVs on the front end, those expire with use. But there is also no way to test their functionality / remaining life.

Critical loads are protected using brick walls. I place them upstream of the UPS, that way the MOVs and input circuits are no longer stressed. Brownouts and blackouts will still take their toll, however.

[joeschmuck]

@Constantin

brick wall surge suppressor

That company is just down the road, well a 2 hours drive. But still, I’ve never heard of them before. They are not cheap, but it is cheaper than a new UPS or TV. Well the TV’s I buy at least. I could buy a cheap one from Walmart but you get what you pay for. OLED, I love the blacks, no light at all produced.

Thanks for that information. I will do some research and maybe place an order this week. I didn’t see a Whole House unit. If I did, I’m sure it would be big money.

[Sara]

@Constantin

FWIW, if lightning strikes are a frequent issue on your transmission lines, I highly recommend a brick wall surge suppressor to protect your UPS.

I thought that is why I have a UPS.

@Constantin

UPS units usually have cheap MOVs on the front end,

Care to explain what MOV stands for?
Searching it with duckduckgo showed me only naked bodies

[Constantin]

Your typical search history may be having by an impact
on your search results?….

Anyhow, a metal oxide varistor (Mov) is an inexpensive hardware component that is supposed to sacrifice itself by absorbing voltage fluctuations above whatever its clamp voltage is. In the US, I’ve seen many devices with MOVs in the 275VAC range, for example, which is more than 2x the nominal input voltage.

Once a MOV absorbs energy (and their capacity is measured in Joules), they degrade and may eventually fail closed (resulting in a dead short that is supposed to make an internal fuse or circuit breaker fail) or they fail open (in which case your device has zero protection from excess voltage).

The Brick wall uses a more expensive crowbar circuit that is supposed to be much longer-lived than a MOV. My “client” has had zero issues with their heating system or IT infrastructure since I fitted those brick walls. You might also be amused to hear that a PtP wireless link there shoots through exterior walls to avoid installing antennas outdoors since we lost so many to lightning.

[Arwen]

In the past I have been buying TrippLite Isobar surge protectors and outlet strips. But, now that TrippLite has been eaten up by Eaton, (pun intended), I might change brands. While Eaton has a decent business reputation, sometimes newly acquired companies end up with cost cutting on their products. Thus making some or all of the products inferior to ones made prior to the acquisition.

Here is a link for reference:
Eaton - TrippLite Isobar surge protector

[LarsR]

Just got a little something in the mail! Thank you @Constantin!
Now i just have to find the perfect spot for the maximum speed gains!