So I went and bought my hardware before I decided which system I would use. Not exactly though, as I had thought I would just build a windows NAS. But I wanted to give Linux-ish systems another try to see if I could do something cool. Tried Ubuntu, CentOS, Mint. They all sucked, or more likely I suck and just couldn't get those systems to work the way I wanted.
I guess I should back up and explain the use case right?
I need a NAS to offload pictures, home movies, source media, an iTunes library, Plex and Unify, as well as provide a shared storage location to transfer files between all the computers in the house. My needs are actually pretty modest, only using less than 1TB for all the aforementioned workloads. But I also now want to install a bunch of security cameras around the house. At this stage thinking of getting 5 x Annke C800 4K devices (turret, no mic) or maybe the equivalent Amcrest 2669ew-ai devices. But I haven't settled on the cameras yet.
Current hardware is; Core i3-10105F on an Asus B560M-K, 2x8GB Corsair DDR4-3200, 3xSeagate 4TB storage disks (ST4000VX013-2XG104), 1xOS M.2 MZ-V7E250BW SSD 970 EVO.
To cut a long story short I thought I would try an appliance instead of a full-blown Linux distro. OMG, TrueNAS is unbelievably good! This thing does nearly everything I want right out of the box and it is ridiculously easy to setup and manage. I've got my SMB shares happening, the NFS mounts (assumed I would use that for the Cameras) and even got a Plex appliance happening (I can't believe how easy that was). Haven't set up my Unify controller yet, but it's on the to-do list.
So the problem is that I only bought 3 storage drives as I assumed I would make a Windows Raid5 array. But with TrueNAS it really sounds like I should get another 4TB disk and convert my storage pool to a zfs mirror deployment instead? If so what would be the best way to do that, drop one of the disks out of the pool (it's RaidZ, so should be safe) then build a new ZFS mirror pool, build my shares, copy content from old pool to new, delete old pool, expand new pool?
For backups, I was reading some content that advised if you care about your data you should have a backup for your ZFS pools. Should I get another single 8TB drive and use that as a backup disk, replicating the new pool to the backup disk? Thoughts, recommendations?
I have a spare 1TB SSD samsung hard drive, which I was hoping to re-use somehow. I tried to see if there was any value in using it as a cache volume for the ZFS pools, but this doesn't appear to be a legitimate use case. Is there anything I can do with this disk to help in some way?
One concern I have is that recording 4k cameras may fill up the 4TB disks I have pretty quickly. This is one of the reasons I wanted motion sensor cameras so it only records what is necessary instead of everything all the time. Any suggestions in this space, specific cameras I should buy, software I should use?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Any input, comments or suggestions are welcome.
Regards,
Paul
I guess I should back up and explain the use case right?
I need a NAS to offload pictures, home movies, source media, an iTunes library, Plex and Unify, as well as provide a shared storage location to transfer files between all the computers in the house. My needs are actually pretty modest, only using less than 1TB for all the aforementioned workloads. But I also now want to install a bunch of security cameras around the house. At this stage thinking of getting 5 x Annke C800 4K devices (turret, no mic) or maybe the equivalent Amcrest 2669ew-ai devices. But I haven't settled on the cameras yet.
Current hardware is; Core i3-10105F on an Asus B560M-K, 2x8GB Corsair DDR4-3200, 3xSeagate 4TB storage disks (ST4000VX013-2XG104), 1xOS M.2 MZ-V7E250BW SSD 970 EVO.
To cut a long story short I thought I would try an appliance instead of a full-blown Linux distro. OMG, TrueNAS is unbelievably good! This thing does nearly everything I want right out of the box and it is ridiculously easy to setup and manage. I've got my SMB shares happening, the NFS mounts (assumed I would use that for the Cameras) and even got a Plex appliance happening (I can't believe how easy that was). Haven't set up my Unify controller yet, but it's on the to-do list.
So the problem is that I only bought 3 storage drives as I assumed I would make a Windows Raid5 array. But with TrueNAS it really sounds like I should get another 4TB disk and convert my storage pool to a zfs mirror deployment instead? If so what would be the best way to do that, drop one of the disks out of the pool (it's RaidZ, so should be safe) then build a new ZFS mirror pool, build my shares, copy content from old pool to new, delete old pool, expand new pool?
For backups, I was reading some content that advised if you care about your data you should have a backup for your ZFS pools. Should I get another single 8TB drive and use that as a backup disk, replicating the new pool to the backup disk? Thoughts, recommendations?
I have a spare 1TB SSD samsung hard drive, which I was hoping to re-use somehow. I tried to see if there was any value in using it as a cache volume for the ZFS pools, but this doesn't appear to be a legitimate use case. Is there anything I can do with this disk to help in some way?
One concern I have is that recording 4k cameras may fill up the 4TB disks I have pretty quickly. This is one of the reasons I wanted motion sensor cameras so it only records what is necessary instead of everything all the time. Any suggestions in this space, specific cameras I should buy, software I should use?
Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Any input, comments or suggestions are welcome.
Regards,
Paul