TrueNas OS install into my spare and empty OS PC

TrueNAS General
1

Hello all,

I have a spare 16 year old desktop PC with an ‘empty’ SSD and two HDDs. I am thinking to install TrueNas OS onto the blank SSD. I think this is called a Bare-metal install.

Are there advantages and disadvantages in this approach"?

Or

should I install something like Ubuntu (or Ubuntu Server?) first then TrueNas OS?

I am trying to make the setup and day to day operation as simple as possible with the view that I can park my spare desktop under my desk and have it running in the background purely in server mode for my work desktop PC and laptop.

Thank you

2

Welcome!

Bare metal is always better from a performance a reliability perspective.

Read the minimum hardware requirements. Intel NICs are preferred since they typically have better driver support. Also do not use Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drives.

Also, stay away from hardware raid.

3

Thanks. I’ll get to do some reading as per your supplied links.

Cheers

4

In general, modern TrueNAS works better on more modern hardware. In fact, it may not be possible to install TrueNAS CE, (formerly SCALE), because if I remember correctly, it requires UEFI booting. That was much less common back then.

While many people on various forums and YouTube videos say you can re-use older hardware, I doubt they meant 16 year old hardware. Further, ZFS is all about reliability which very old hardware is generally not suitable to give.

5

HI. I can share that I tried an install of SCALE (from CORE) and had issues with booting. SCALE does not like booting from other than UEFI devices. Here’s the thread where I got ‘educated’ about this issue.

CORE to SCALE cannot boot

I eventually replaced the mobo and RAM with more modern gear. I was able to reuse the case and power supply, along with the boot and data disks. My old Gateway DX4860 had a microATX mobo, so form factor was no issue.

1 Like
6

it is the simplest and most efficient approach. on the other hand, you have a dedicated machine - which you may not be able to use for other purposes later.

if you are simply trying it out, I can suggest installing truenas as a virtual machine, like in virtualbox, or pve. this adds more flexibility but does cost you some performance. once you are more comfortable, you can install it on a real machine.

alternatively, you can install SCALE or other all-in-one systems (I use fnOS) that can also host vms or containers…

7

Yes, so you say in almost every post you make here.

1 Like
8

OK. Got it. It’s still worth a try so will see what happens.

9

Yes. I will need to get my head around virtual machine, virtual box, pve, vms, containers…whew!

I am very new to all this and it’s one of the reasons that I am thinking about bare metal installs - if they work, of course. Wish me luck.

10

you will be fine. a big reason to use truenas is the community support - you can always ask questions here.

truenas does have a level of complexity that can be daunting to a new user. so you may want to be prepared for that.

setting up samba (directly or via a container) is simpler but it requires knowledge of linux / samba/ containers.

other all-in-os systems (like fnOS) can be simpler but they are often close-sourced.

I would say give them all a try and see which one works best for your use case. what worked for others doesn’t mean they will work for you.

best of luck.

1 Like