Homelab First TrueNAS Build - Hardware Verification

[cerkoryn]

Greetings all.

I finally got the go ahead to turn one of our basement closets into my dream home lab. It's got plenty of space for a full-size 42U rack and we just installed a dedicated mini-split for climate control in that closet. I'm super exited about starting the build, but having anxiety picking out the right parts. I've built many a PC in my life and do cybersecurity for a living so I know a thing or two, but I don't really ever do much system admin/server admin work. Right now I'm just trying to put together the NAS to start with.

Unfortunately, PCPartPicker doesn't seem to help much with server parts, so I used a lot of google and GPT-4 (whom I often had to correct) to get to this tentative parts list:

	NAS	Price	Power	Link:
Case	4U Rosewill RSV-R4000U	$80 used, $180 new	-	https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HLCNKM3
Motherboard	Supermicro X11SCA-F	$200 used, $370 new	-95W	https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-Motherboard-MBD-X11SCA-F-S1151-Retail/dp/B07H4W6WB4
CPU	Intel Xeon E-2244G	$269 used, $400 new	-71W	https://www.newegg.com/intel-xeon-e-2244g-lga-1151/p/N82E16819118221
RAM	Micron 16GB DDR4-3200 ECC UDIMM 1Rx8 CL22?	$39.15 new (x2 needed)	?	https://www.crucial.com/memory/server-ddr4/mta9asf2g72az-3g2r
GPU	-	-	-
SSD (boot/cache)	*do I need one?*	-
HDDs	Western Digital 8TB WD Red Plus	$150 new (x8 needed)	?	https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Plus-Internal-Drive/dp/B09QQX27GM
PSU	Seasonic FOCUS GX-550	$142 new	550W	https://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-GX-550-Full-Modular-Application-SSR-550FX/dp/B07WQYM74W
Expansions	Intel X550-T2 (future purchase)	$192 new	?
	*do I need an HBA card?*
OS	TrueNAS Scale
Software	Jellyfin
	Radarr?
	Sonarr?
	Prowlarr?

For the most part I just plan to dump a lot of our family's pictures, videos, etc. on the NAS, but I also want to set up Jellyfin on it. I'd read that a good CPU or dedicated GPU would help for on-the-fly transcoding, but decided to take the cheaper route of just pre-transcoding when necessary. Additionally, I also am getting a GPU farm for cracking passwords and mining BTC that I might try to occasionally use to do remote GPU transcoding which is why I put that Intel X550-T2 as a future expansion idea.

Feeling like the TrueNAS version of Raid 6 (RAIDZ2?) is probably optimal here using my 8 drives, though Raid 5 could work.

The two things concerning me are the price, which is much higher than I anticipated, and the actual compatibility of parts. Anyone veterans here able to critique or provide some guidance for my build plan? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sfatula]

I have a few comments. Get a UPS, making sure it works with what Truenas uses, NUT or network ups tools.

You will not need a l2arc, what you are calling a cache.

You do need a cheap small boot drive. Maybe 128G, SSD. I mirror mine. Wouldn't recommend double duty as anything else, just a boot drive.

Raidz2 would be good for 8 drives and jellyfin. Raidz2 not = Raid 6, it's much better than Raid 6.

You can get around having to transcode by having clients that don't need to. In my case (Emby instead of jellyfin but same idea), I am using for example Infuse on IOS/Apple TV and it doesn't need transcode. The only time I ever need transcoding is watching remotely on Roku while traveling due to bandwidth limitations and without a GPU works fine as it's rare and we are not home so nothing else stressing the machine.

Lets see, 8 8TB drives cost $1,200 new based on your prices. Alternative is 5 16TB drives. Cost will be about the same new, but you might also go manufacturer recertified. Recertified could be had for $850 so savings of about $350 not insignificant. You'll use less power too.

You didn't list a CPU cooler.

 

[StrangeOne]

Just a few things off the top of my head to look at:
Boot drive- yes you need one. Go for NVME since you have 2x m.2 slots on the board.
HDD's- I personally would go the used enterprise route. Seagate Exos X14 12TB cost me $109 with a 2 year warranty. Or less drives but larger and get the 18TB ones for $169.