Is there a hardware compatibility list for home NAS?

[MarkJohnson]

I am having a hard time trying to figure out what I need for hardware for my next TrueNAS build. My old AMD FM1 (3-core) system has died and I purchased a new system thinking it would be easy to install.

It is an i3-12100 CPU. MSI B760P MB, and 16GB of TeamGroup Classic RAM. But I can't get my system to boot.

I didn't think about this not running in windows, so I assume the rig is just too new for FreeNAS.

I've been looking all over and cannot see a hardware compatibility list for TrueNAS. I assumed there would be one available, as FreeBSD/Linux hasn't the best driver support.

Can anyone point me in the right direction of getting this thing working, or what to return before my return window closes on me?

 

[MisterE2002]

google for the "TrueNAS Community Hardware Guide" and "Hardware Recommendations Guide" pdf.

CORE == BSD -> Search internet for support of your devices
SCALE == Linux -> Would expect most strange hardware to work

That said, what do you mean with "does not boot"?

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[MarkJohnson]

It tries to boot, but my 27-inch 4k monitor, shows the boot screen in like a 3-inch square in the center of the screen, and the monitor switches screen resolution and I get the monitor changes to HDMI 2 3840 x 2160 message over the top of the booting process.

I played around with it and just found a way to boot it in the BIOS directly, and I captured it on my phone.in video. here is a screenshot, it is a little blurry.

I will try the search options above and hopefully find a solution.

Thank you for your help

 

[MarkJohnson]

Yeah, I already found those threads before. They weren't very helpful, other than server support, not for me. And they only really mention 115X support. I need something newer. I found an old 1200 (10th & 11th Gen) support, but it was unclear and very old.

Anyway, I tried the TrueNAS Scale, as it was recommended as being better supported through Linux (rather than BSD). Right away I got an error about bad shim signature, so it sounded like secure boot issues. It took me an hour trying to figure that out, as MSI moved it from the main settings and had it in one of the graphical setting tiles named Security, that is blocked out when it the settings menu.

Anyway, the Scale version worked fine, so I went back to the core version (12) and FreeNAS boots fine. The configuration seems different, as before it auto configed the network card and other settings and all I needed to do was configure the TrueNAS menus. So, now I need to watch a video or two and see on how to get to the FreeNAS interface and setup or hopefully recover my old drives. Or just make new raid and backup again.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[MarkJohnson]

OK, new problem. The NIC isn't recognized on my new MSI Pro B760-P motherboard.

Realtek RTL8125BG 2.5G LAN

I assume this isn't supported by FreeNAS yet. Is there any options to disable part of the NIC, and maybe revert to like a 1GB standard NIC? Or am I stuck buying a NIC card? I mean I plan on buying a 10GB ethernet eventually, but I can't afford it now. I gues I can find a budget GbE card in the mean time.

 

[artlessknave]

MSI Pro B760-P

the hardware compatibility lists you dismiss are there for a reason. TrueNAS is designed for, tested on, and validated to, server grade hardware.
trying to run it on anything else is a mixed bag, usually with lots of fail and frustration.

I assume this isn't supported by FreeNAS yet

realtek is completely unsupported by TrueNAS (FreeNAS no longer exists). realtek NIC's are tolerable on a client but hot garbage for a server.

Is there any options to disable part of the NIC, and maybe revert to like a 1GB standard NIC? Or am I stuck buying a NIC card?

no, the NIC is either a NIC or it's disabled. if you are bypassing the recommended hardware, you will need to make concessions to reach something functional.

budget GbE card in the mean time.

the cards are almost always realtek, and won't help. get an INTEL NIC.

TrueNAS scale, being linux based, likely has better support for the low quality hardware, as they have more devs to support less reliable drivers.

other NAS systems, such as OMV and unraid, typically give a better experience on random hardware, as they are designed to work on "old parts lying around"; TrueNAS isn't.

 

[Paul5]

other NAS systems, such as OMV and unraid, typically give a better experience on random hardware, as they are designed to work on "old parts lying around"; TrueNAS isn't.

I don't know about that. As a home user since FN9.3 I use only cheap second hand PC's all with Realtek onboard NICs. My last was a 2core Asus 2008 year with 8GB and 10TB of Encrypted disks, paid $120 in 2013 and sold it for $90 7 years later with W7 and a 320GB Hdd, It's replacement is 4 Core and only replaced the two core due to the 4 Core being able to virtualize, paid $80. Knock on wood it's still going strong. My test one that has Scale Is another ASUS 2014 year with 2GB RAM and an 80GB HDD with multiple USBs to simulate other disks. I chose those PC's due to price and not a compatability list that would give me nightmare to sort through, yes, no, no, yes, yes, no.

The only hardware issues have been in the old days of Freenas 9XXX with NIC cards. In taking advice form the forum and buying Intel GB cards, by the time I bought them and update occured and no longer needed the now usless Intel cards, the problem turned to be a BSD bug but everybody alwasy rants about Realtek being crap. That was the first and last time I bought something based on others recommendations.

Again, knock on wood but from my home user experience in always using encrypted disks and second hand PC's without ECC. BSD based TrueNas is very resilient, so much so that since I removed the UPS years ago (too cheap to buy new batteries) I have had one or two power failures with the disks unencrypted and open when using the old GELI encryption (Haven't had one yet with ZFS encryption). It always booted up as though nothing had happened.

O' and always have backups just in case.

Just thought I'd rant a bit.

 

[artlessknave]

"I have never been hit by lighting, so obviously all lightning storms are safe"

the problem is that this hardware fails to work reliably often enough to warrant avoiding it. many here in the forums fit into the datahorder or data integrity paranoid categories and hate seeing people lose data, and as the time is *donated*, aren't inerested in troubleshooting configurations known to have issues. the recommendations are intended to make that highly unlikely. you ignore that at your risk, but that the key; it's your risk.

 

[Arwen]

...

The only hardware issues have been in the old days of Freenas 9XXX with NIC cards. In taking advice form the forum and buying Intel GB cards, by the time I bought them and update occured and no longer needed the now usless Intel cards, the problem turned to be a BSD bug but everybody alwasy rants about Realtek being crap. That was the first and last time I bought something based on others recommendations.

...

Yes, their probably was a bug in FreeBSD that impacted Realtek NIC drivers. Could have been in the driver code, or how network stack worked with that driver. (Or possibly even impacting all NIC drivers, just showed up more on Realtek NICs because of additional issues in that driver.)

The point people are trying to make about TrueNAS, is that Realtek NIC drivers, (especially in FreeBSD used by TrueNAS Core), are less tested and probably less used than other brands in server roles.

Vendor Realtek apparently does not publish an interface guide for their NIC chips. So much of the work is reverse engineering. While some other vendors actually write the driver software for the various OSes, for their chips. (Like LSI / Broadcom, Intel, etc...)

My current desktop, (a miniature all in one PC), uses a Realtek NIC, and the Gentoo Linux distro does not seem to have any problem with it. Obviously, my desktop is not a server, (nor TrueNAS server).


This was written more to help others understand that "Your mileage may vary".

 

[Paul5]

Remember we are talking about home users here and not actual sever grade requirements or obsessive compulsive data freaks. Just like most home user would not buy or know what ECC is.

"I have never been hit by lighting, so obviously all lightning storms are safe"

About 2,000 people are killed worldwide by lightning each year with 1,400,000,000 strikes every year and with a world parasitic population of 7000000000, the odds are in you favour.

aren't inerested in troubleshooting configurations known to have issues.

So why bother participating in the forum. In other words, by your statement you would determine a BSD or TrueNas bug to be the fault of a Realtec NIC just because the user has a Realtec card, you would then advice the user to go out and buy Intel cards for no reason other than prejudice.

Actually, I also remember many many years ago Freenas broke WOL on Intel cards I think. Luckily no one criticised Intel.

I'll give an example from about 6 plus years ago or so. Currently the recommendation is to have the boot drive on SSD's or something, NOT USB's due to the writes corrupting them. Well, this is what I found since the System Dataset was dumped in them.

This happened over two years:
First time corrupted > replaced.
Second time corrupted > replaced and moved System Dataset to old scrap 40GB Hdd experiment (bonus side effect, System now boots in 2 minutes and shutsdown in less than 1 minute or so.)
Third time corrupted > Detached formatted and all that without physically removing, mirrored again and shortly there after corruption again.

I then stopped and thought about it, USB to PC is a plug and socket connection using 5VDC for power and data any interference or dodgy connection will/can affect. USB's sit there permanently so the join gets tired. I un-plugged and plugged back the Boot drives several times. Rebooted and it re-silvered itself, data corruption gone. Those very same "corrupted" USBs have been running for over 5 years. All I do now is once every 12 months I un-plug and plug then in a few times. As said over 5 years and no corruption yet. Haven't you had to un-plug and re-seat a video card on any PC.

the recommendations are intended to make that highly unlikely

So by my experience using USB's as boot drives is rock solid barring connection issues that exist with everything and As long as the System Dataset is elsewhere for boot speed and shutdown

you ignore that at your risk, but that the key; it's your risk.

That's always a two way street.

In general I agree and understand what you said but it sometimes gets annoying when people post and try to influence their opinion on how things are supposed to be based on their own assessment on how things should be. I've seen some users advice others that why do you want to shutdown your sever Truenas is not intended to be shutdown, blah, blah, blah. Even I asked a question no long ago about expanding TN capabilty and was responded with maybe TN is not for me and I should try OMV or other. Thanks, can I get a refund for the last 13+ years I've been using FN/TN, not only that but have you ever heard of new features.

In any case all hardware have issues, hence a little known obscure thing called warranty.

Sorry, I've had my rant.

 

[Jailer]

Remember we are talking about home users here and not actual sever grade requirements or obsessive compulsive data freaks.

I think you will find a great many home users here that would disagree with that statement. Data integrity is of the utmost importance and that's what drives many home users to TrueNAS and ZFS.

 

[MarkJohnson]

the hardware compatibility lists you dismiss are there for a reason. TrueNAS is designed for, tested on, and validated to, server grade hardware.
trying to run it on anything else is a mixed bag, usually with lots of fail and frustration.

realtek is completely unsupported by TrueNAS (FreeNAS no longer exists). realtek NIC's are tolerable on a client but hot garbage for a server.

Realtek NICs have worked well in the past. My FM1 and AM3+ both worked without major issues. So, there is absolutely support. All I was refering to, it a known list of RealTek chipsets that are fully/partially, or not existent at the time. So users can get an idea of what may work vs not work at all. or know some features won't be supported.

It's a simple database to keep track of.

no, the NIC is either a NIC or it's disabled. if you are bypassing the recommended hardware, you will need to make concessions to reach something functional.

This goes to my point of needing a compatibility list, so we can diagnose our hardware before hand.

the cards are almost always realtek, and won't help. get an INTEL NIC.

Don't you think this is counter productive. Shouldn't there be better compatibility support rather than generic listed info.

play with my ball or go home. I assume the devs want to help people use their product. rather than advising to use someone else's product.

TrueNAS scale, being linux based, likely has better support for the low quality hardware, as they have more devs to support less reliable drivers.

other NAS systems, such as OMV and unraid, typically give a better experience on random hardware, as they are designed to work on "old parts lying around"; TrueNAS isn't.

FYI, I installed Scale and it found my NIC just fine and it's working fine. I just reset the BIOS as I was disabling some things that other users said might cause conflict, like sound drivers and other I forgot about.