Building a TrueNAS Scale for Home Office Storage / Media Server

[sangmoklee]

Dear respected forum members,

I am trying to come up with a list of components for a TrueNAS scale home media server + home office storage. I currently have about 25TB sitting on my old TrueNAS Core server and it is becoming quite full. So this is what I have so far:

CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G (Renoir)
Motherboard	ASRock FATAL1TY B450 Gaming K4
Memory	2x Samsung DDR4 32G PC4-25600 ECC Unbuffered or 2x Kingston DDR 16G PC4-25600 ECC Unbuffered
HDD	6x or 8x WD Ultrastar 18TB DC HC550 WUH721818ALE6L4
SSD	1x Transcend MTE110S Series M.2 NVMe 2280 128GB 3D TLC
Power Supply	750W
SATA Controller	1x Marvell 88SE9215 4Port SATA III Controller
Ethernet Adapter	1x Realtek RTL8125B 2.5Gbps Ethernet Adapter

Here are the questions:

1. Even though my current NAS server has ECC memories, the CPU does not support it, so it is no use. I did find out that I need a CPU that supports ECC after I built it. For the new one, I am choosing AMD over Intel because ECC is available at a much lower cost. Xeon is too expensive for me to build. When I have it built, how do I find out whether ECC is working or not?

2. ASRock FATAL1TY B450 Gaming K4 specs states that it supports ECC, and I read that Ryzen Pro 4650G support it too. Do I need to check anything else to make sure ECC works?

3. Will I be able to pass-through AMD's iGPU to Plex on TrueNAS scale?

4. Since I am going to be using iGPU, I probably need 64GB of memory total. If I have 32GB, iGPU will probably use 16GB and the rest 16GB seems too small because even my current system uses 14.2GB out of 16GB on jails. Or can I get away with 32GB in total?

5. I am going to use on-board SATA controller, and if I get more than 6 drives, I will add a controller for additional HDDs. Do I need a better SATA controller? I read that using multiple controller shouldn't be a problem, but are there any issues I should expect for using multiple controllers?

6. Do I really want Scale over Core? For using Plex, Scale seems to be a better choice, since I won't be able to use graphics HW acceleration with AMD+Core.

I will appreciate any insightful inputs. Please consider that I am not very fluent in UNIX commands. I can do cd, ls, apt get, rm, chmod, and copying commands from manuals and forums, but that's about it. Therefore, I will be mostly using preconfigured plugins instead of installing the services from scratch.

Thank you very much in advance!

 

[artlessknave]

gaming motherboard + TrueNAS = no. likely why no-one else has replied.
the NIC is realtek. probably won't even show up. and if it does, it'll likely work like crap, like other realtek NICs

6. Do I really want Scale over Core? For using Plex, Scale seems to be a better choice, since I won't be able to use graphics HW acceleration with AMD+Core.

probably, yes, scale will probably be better. I do not believe Core can do any of the HW acceleration. I do not know if scale does either though.

Do I need a better SATA controller?

most motherboard SATA ports are fine. on supported motherboards.
if you want more drives, you want a SAS HBA.

you don't list your existing hardware so it's impossible to speculate on if you are better off going all new or just upgrading a few parts.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I am trying to come up with a list of components for a TrueNAS scale home media server + home office storage.

Can you please be more specific here? While this certainly rules out a lot, there is still a number of variables with that somewhat high-level description.

I currently have about 25TB sitting on my old TrueNAS Core server and it is becoming quite full.

What does "becoming full" mean? Disks, CPU, RAM, a combination?

So this is what I have so far:

Is this the old or the planned, new machine? From a grammar point of view it is your old machine, but content-wise it seems to be the new one.

Memory

2x Samsung DDR4 32G PC4-25600 ECC Unbuffered or 2x Kingston DDR 16G PC4-25600 ECC Unbuffered

You cannot pick arbitrary modules, even if they match those details. The motherboard vendor maintains a list of tested modules (called the QVL or HCL) and you should follow this to the letter. Alternatively, RAM manufacturers maintain their own list. But the board manufacturer will ignore/dismiss those.

2. ASRock FATAL1TY B450 Gaming K4 specs states that it supports ECC, and I read that Ryzen Pro 4650G support it too. Do I need to check anything else to make sure ECC works?

In the past there have been cases where "supported" meant that the board would boot and work. But the advanced error correction mechanisms would not be used. Whether we still have such cases today, I do not know.

4. Since I am going to be using iGPU, I probably need 64GB of memory total. If I have 32GB, iGPU will probably use 16GB

What makes you think that? I am not an expert on GPUs, but built-in ones are usually low-end and those will certainly not need more than 1 GB.

and the rest 16GB seems too small because even my current system uses 14.2GB out of 16GB on jails. Or can I get away with 32GB in total?

Without more information on what your jails are doing, it is impossible to tell.

6. Do I really want Scale over Core? For using Plex, Scale seems to be a better choice, since I won't be able to use graphics HW acceleration with AMD+Core.

I will appreciate any insightful inputs. Please consider that I am not very fluent in UNIX commands. I can do cd, ls, apt get, rm, chmod, and copying commands from manuals and forums, but that's about it. Therefore, I will be mostly using preconfigured plugins instead of installing the services from scratch.

Plugins on Core are a dead end. You will either need to manage jails manually or move to Scale.

 

[danb35]

So this is what I have so far:

There are extensive hardware recommendation guides here; please toss this proposed build (because honestly, nothing about it is good for TrueNAS, whether CORE or SCALE), review them, and try again.

 

[Constantin]

Relative to the cost of storage, motherboards, cases, and RAM expenditures can be pretty modest, especially if you go used route. I don't see the point of using a gaming rig in conjunction with bit-rot-proof data storage. There are plenty of inexpensive choices out there, so I'd choose the right tool for the job.