Should I use TrueNAS or is it over kill?

[davidzvi]

I posted in an older thread about using just one data drive to play and learn about TrueNAS. In that thread there were a few comments about "if you just want X there are easier ways". So I thought I would create a post about what I have and am looking to do, maybe TrueNAS isn't the best option for me.

I'm an old time tech that's probably forgotten more than I remember. I've upgraded original IBM PCs circa 1982 and I've built or upgraded a couple dozen systems over the years for myself, my kids, and family. I'm also in software development and was a professional photographer for a dozen years in the digital. I follow (with some modification) the old 3-2-1 system and used a hot swap bay in a custom image editing tower to make backups quick and easy.

My only point in relaying this is yes I know how to back stuff up, I know RAID (any form) is not a backup.

But I never really got into networking, UNIX, Linux, or much beyond the basics of server setup and basic maintenance. In these areas I understand a bit, but only know enough to get into trouble or really screw things up.

So on to today. My better half and I have just gone though a system upgrade, desktops to more portable and convenient laptops. My custom tower was an easy sale, especially in today's market since it had a reasonable GPU. But my wife's is an older i5-4570 based system with 8gb of RAM, support for an NVMe drive, and room for 4 drives. I could probably sell it with an old monitor, keyboard, and mouse for $200-$250. Or...

We don't really need a RAID system , everything that's going to on this is either already backed up offline and/or offsite. That's not to say that at some point if I go down the TrueNAS road it won't end up 3 or 4 6tb-8tb drives in it. But the main purpose is a general backup of the laptops locally, an easy and dedicated host to facilitate offsite backup*, and a media/Plex host.

I do like the idea of managing the system through a remote interface. And I do have a lot of movies and images that would be handy to have access to and my first thought was "get a NAS". But as someone said in the other thread "Install a vanilla Ubuntu server and install plex, it’s gonna take a total as l of 5 minutes".

Sorry for the long ramble, just trying to cover the questions and reasons for the thread title question. Thanks for any thoughts.

* I dislike the idea of having a cable plugged into a laptop for hours doing transfers. especially when I rotate my offsite drives.

 

[Arwen]

While it's not common, (or recommended by most here in the forums), you can run ZFS without RAID or Mirroring.

You would still get:
- Metadata, (aka directory entries, free space tables, etc...), duplication
- ZFS will TELL you which files are corrupt, and you can FIX them, live, without much effort, (restore, clear error)
- Built in data compression
- Built in encryption
- Dataset management, (turn off compression on Movie storage...)
- Snapshots
- And the ability to specify some datasets with TWO copies, (not quite Mirroring, but ZFS can fix one copy from the other)

Plus, some other features.

In my case, my current desktop & laptop run Linux with ZFS on Mirrored storage. My small media server also uses Linux & ZFS, mirroring part of each disk, (1TB mSATA & 2TB spinner), for the OS, but striping the rest for the media.

One risk of running a stripped, (meaning no Mirroring or RAID-Zx), is that complete loss of 1 disk, looses the whole pool. All data. In my media server's case, I have 3 or more copies that I can restore from. Some people try to mitigate that with multiple ZFS pools, 1 disk per pool. Thus limiting data loss to the failed disk.


You might just spin up a virtual machine and load TrueNAS CORE. Play with it using pseudo disks and see if the GUI works for you. It might not, as TrueNAS, CORE or SCALE, tend to be more Unix & ZFS oriented than other NAS software.

 

[davidzvi]

Thanks for the reply @Arwen. I have a test server up and running. It's running with the 8gb, 256gb SD, and an old 2tb WD green (the only drive I could easily wipe to create a test bed).

I do have an older 10tb NAS disk and a pair of even older 4tb NAS disks. The expense of adding another 8gb of RAM and the NVMe to replace the SSD are factors. Though the fact that I really should get 2-3 new NAS disks is the bigger issue.

 

[davidzvi]

Well I was able to snag a pair of Toshiba 8tb drives on sale, step one.

 

[Michael Wenyon]

I have been running a FreeNAS network backup server based on an early Intel Celeron NUC for the past 18 months.
I described the setup here. My FreeNAS Mini backs up to it automatically every night, using a replication task over the local network. It has its limitations but was a great way for me to experiment and learn about FreeNAS when I was afraid to do so on my FreeNAS Mini for fear of losing data.

Also it has SMB shares set up that mirror all the pools/datasets on my Mini. That is always available to my laptops/desktops and makes a quick way to go in and grab yesterday's version of a file when the need arises.

Edit: I also sometimes update the NUC before I update the Mini, giving me a chance to look around at the upgrade.