My TrueNAS inside of PROXMOX

[warhawk8080]

PC specs:
HP Compaq Elite 8300 SFF
8 x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
maxed out DDR3 Synchronous 1600 MHz RAM at 32GB
1TB KINGSTON SSD as the host drive and where the virtual drives are kept
I did pay like $40 online for the machine...it's original specs were crap
After upgrading the processor to the fastest socket 1155 processor and maxing the ram it cost a little bit more

I did order me one of these to replace the never used DVD ROM
ICY DOCK 4 Bay 2.5" SAS/SATA HDD & SSD Hot Swap Cage for External 5.25" Bay

Controller card I used
SATA Card, PCIE 3.0, 4 Port with 4 SATA Cable, SATA Controller Expansion Card with Low Profile Bracket, Non-Raid, Boot as System Disk

Then I found 5 1TB HGST laptop harddrives online for under $100

Simply installed TrueNas in a 20GB virtual drive, I went ahead and gave it access to the full 8 processors and 8GB RAM
Then I passed thru the PCI card and TrueNAS saw all the drives

Installed simple and now running a ZFS Z-1 pool with TrueNAS!

Awesome!

Thanks for such a great (and free) product!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jgreco]

8 x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

The i7-3770 is a four core CPU.

I did pay like $40 online for the machine...it's original specs were crap

That is certainly an upside to older gear.

Controller card I used
SATA Card, PCIE 3.0, 4 Port with 4 SATA Cable, SATA Controller Expansion Card with Low Profile Bracket, Non-Raid, Boot as System Disk

Your link there did not work.

Please be certain that you are not using a SATA controller with a SATA port multiplier. See

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

full 8 processors and 8GB RAM

Four processors. And you should probably allocate more than 8GB RAM. CORE's minimum requirement is 16GB and SCALE's probably should be too.

ZFS Z-1 pool

What's a Z-1 pool? ...

 

[warhawk8080]

updated the busted link

It's a 4 core 4 thread...that is how PROXMOX shows it

It's a RAIDZ1 I should have been more precise

Just upgraded Core to Scale...it has qemu-guest-agent built in

I only have 32GB RAM and I have a few other debian and 1 windows 10 VM running (I stripped it down and all it is doing is running my security camera software [ispy] feeding to a NFS share) so I had to limit it's total RAM...it's only serving as a backup home NAS, my UnRaid server is the main along with my PLEX and other things. Probably going to get a yearly subscription to backblaze to have offsite backups.

The reason I posted the PCI->SATA controller is it worked just fine out of the box...I researched alot and was worried it wouldn't work...but was pleasantly pleased when it came up and pass-thru'd without a hitch...is it the fastest or best...probably not...but it works

Thanks for your reply :)

 

[Arwen]

From what I read, that is a 2 port SATA chip with one port going to a SATA port multiplier. I could be wrong, (I quit reading after I read about the SATA port multiplier...).

TrueNAS works better without SATA port multipliers as @jgreco wrote.

Did you pass through the entire PCIe card to TrueNAS?

That is the best way to achieve stability when using TrueNAS as a VM.


A couple of comments, (from the linked Resource below):

• SCALE is not an upgrade from Core, they are similar products with slightly different feature sets
• Just because "it works" after install does not mean that your TrueNAS SCALE server will be reliable in the long run. Or even in the short run. A properly designed, configured and parted out NAS server will generally be reliable. But, many people throw parts together and assume they are suitable. Which may not be the case.

Welcome to TrueNAS SCALE - Beginners Intro

Since mid 2021 we have had many new users of TrueNAS wanting to try SCALE. Here are some things that are helpful for new TrueNAS SCALE users to know; SCALE is a specialized & targeted OS based on a Linux distro. However, SCALE is NOT a Linux...

www.truenas.com

As annoying as we are about wording, using precise words helps communicate details so that we can assist others in getting a reliable experience with TrueNAS. Our goal is to avoid having you come back later, and say "My TrueNAS is hosed! I can't access my data! It seems gone! Help!". (And yes, that bloody well happens :-(.

Here is a terminology primer:

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer

We realize that new users have a lot to learn when they come to FreeNAS. There's a certain amount of confusion added to discussions when users pick random/approximate terms to describe things. I've spent a lot of time quietly trying to...

www.truenas.com

 

[jgreco]

From what I read, that is a 2 port SATA chip with one port going to a SATA port multiplier.

Yeah, that means that the first two ports will work okay but it will suck if you try to use the third port. Also, this will be severely limited by the PCIe x1 interface.