Australia, Melbourne

[sk1ba]

Hello all,
I am based in Australia, Melbourne so any Aussies on here with any advice would be greatly appreciated but would be grateful for any input from anyone.

Over the last few months, I've slowly been trying to educate myself on Truenas and now Truenas Core using a mix of youtube, forums, reddit etc. but with so much information out there I feel a bit lost.
I know there are many build guides, lists out there but they mainly seem to revolve around the US/Europe so the price and availability of parts here in Australia are quite different.

I have a Lenovo workstation that I have been playing with Truenas core and really like everything about it so I want to migrate from a Synology NAS that currently host all my data.

I have now finally decided to build my very first rig and was just wondering if anyone in Australia has recently built a system (given the chip shortages etc) part availability and cost $$ doesn't make it a great time to build anything here in Australia.

I have a budget of $2K including storage.

The use case is just pure storage hosting media, music, movies etc, document store
connections from a Linux server running docker for various applications but this will be run off a different host and a handful of windows/apple devices

 

[Basil Hendroff]

Hi and welcome. I'm over on the west coast in Perth so I hear you about the $ and availability issues.

For starters, make sure you're across the forum rules.

I have a budget of $2K including storage.

Unfortunately, AUD$2K isn't a lot. It could cost you that much just in storage. For example, for around 15TB of practical storage space (assuming only 80% of a RAIDZ2 pool is used), you will need 4 x 10TB non-SMR disks.

Doesn't leave much change for a system build does it?

Given the $, my advice is not to build a system, but to look for a secondhand HP Gen 8 microserver on eBay or Gumtree. Make sure it's fitted with a Xeon CPU and 16GB ECC RAM. I recently picked one up from eBay for $630. The Gen 8 is the sweet spot for HP microservers as iLO is built in for remote management so there's no additional cost there. You get four non-hot swap drive bays and a choice of CPU.

Still want to build a system? You'll need to increase your budget or go for smaller disks. You can pick up 6TB WD Red+ for around $240 per disk. Four disks will give you around 9TB of usable space. If you value your data, only use ECC RAM. Don't build a system with an Intel chip as it doesn't support ECC RAM.

 

[sk1ba]

Thank you so much for your detailed response Basil!

I was thinking about only getting 4x4TB drives as thats probably all the storage I need for now (I know I'll regret this!)

What are your thoughts on the HP Gen 10 microserver as I dont really need iLO?

 

[Basil Hendroff]

What are your thoughts on the HP Gen 10 microserver as I dont really need iLO?

HPE Microserver Gen10 is back

The Gen10+ hasn't been long in the Aussie marketplace so the price is at a premium.

I was thinking about only getting 4x4TB drives as thats probably all the storage I need for now (I know I'll regret this!)

You're almost certainly going to find this a poor investment. Under ZFS, you can't just add a disk to increase the size of a vdev. You have to replace all disks with larger disks, or, add a second vdev, which isn't practical on an HP microserver (you might be able to use an expansion box, but you lose the benefit of the microserver's small footprint).

Note: Practical storage at 80% capacity using 4 x 4TB drives is just 6TB on a RAIDZ2 pool. Based on your use case, I'd be considering an off-the-shelf NAS with mirrored 6TB drives in this case e.g. https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop...oud-ultra-2-bay-nas-wdclul12tb#specifications

EDIT: For $2k, you might be able to get away with a Gen10+ and 2 x 6TB (or possibly 8TB) drives in a mirror.

 

[wsoteros]

Welcome!

Hopefully, you're enjoying your stay so far. There are tons of videos from great creators like Tom Lawerence and SpaceRex that are perfect for someone who is new to TrueNAS. Also, be sure to search questions on here because there is a good chance that they have been asked and answered!

If you have any questions feel free to reach out!

Thanks,

Will

 

[velocity08]

Hello all,
I am based in Australia, Melbourne so any Aussies on here with any advice would be greatly appreciated but would be grateful for any input from anyone.

Over the last few months, I've slowly been trying to educate myself on Truenas and now Truenas Core using a mix of youtube, forums, reddit etc. but with so much information out there I feel a bit lost.
I know there are many build guides, lists out there but they mainly seem to revolve around the US/Europe so the price and availability of parts here in Australia are quite different.

I have a Lenovo workstation that I have been playing with Truenas core and really like everything about it so I want to migrate from a Synology NAS that currently host all my data.

I have now finally decided to build my very first rig and was just wondering if anyone in Australia has recently built a system (given the chip shortages etc) part availability and cost $$ doesn't make it a great time to build anything here in Australia.

I have a budget of $2K including storage.

The use case is just pure storage hosting media, music, movies etc, document store
connections from a Linux server running docker for various applications but this will be run off a different host and a handful of windows/apple devices

Hey @sk1ba

are you still looking to build a TrueNas or has that been sorted?

Might be able to assist if your still in the market.

""Cheers
G