Total/Complete/Newbie

[DFergFLA]

Hello, I am a newbie. Total newbie. I recently decided I wanted to setup a home sever to share may data on my network between devices and have a Plex Server and also some VMs for running different OSes. After watching what feels like 100 hours of videos on YouTube talking about Proxmox, OMV, Rockstor and on and on. I came across TrueNas Scale. On the surface it seems to be exactly what I am looking for. A NAS that also has Hypervisor. It appears to be pretty simple to use. I do understand some of terms having worked on this type of thing in the past. Like way, past... stone ages ago. I have watched some videos and done some reading and I just need to clear up some questions in my head that I can't seem to find the answers to. Just to note. I have not installed anything as of yet. I am in the process of leaning as much as I can before I tackle it.

I want to install TrueNAS Scale onto an SSD as recommended. The hardware I will be using will have one single NVME SSD for installing the OS. Also this SSD is going to be over 256gb. The system requirements are for 16gigs of space. This leaves me with like a lot, I mean a lot of empty space on a nice, fast SSD. I would like to be able to install VMs onto the same SSD as TrueNas is running so that I don't waste hundreds of gigs of space and have to use a spinning drive for my VMs. Using a spinning drive to run an OS is a step way too far backwards. On the hardware I will be using I only have one NVME slot to use. So putting in two NVME is not possible.

As this is a home server I will only have one storage drive for data. The requirements state that two identical drives are required. Is this true? While I understand the point in creating an R1 or greater. I simply do not need it for my home use. I have a large backup drive I backup all my data too, so I have a copy. If the drive ever did go down, I would not loose any data. As it is a home server having that redundancy is not necessary for me. So... do I really have to have two drives in an R1 for data? Or can I just use one?

Thanks guys.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Welcome aboard!

I want to install TrueNAS Scale onto an SSD as recommended. The hardware I will be using will have one single NVME SSD for installing the OS. Also this SSD is going to be over 256gb. The system requirements are for 16gigs of space. This leaves me with like a lot, I mean a lot of empty space on a nice, fast SSD. I would like to be able to install VMs onto the same SSD as TrueNas is running so that I don't waste hundreds of gigs of space and have to use a spinning drive for my VMs. Using a spinning drive to run an OS is a step way too far backwards. On the hardware I will be using I only have one NVME slot to use. So putting in two NVME is not possible.

As this is a home server I will only have one storage drive for data. The requirements state that two identical drives are required. Is this true? While I understand the point in creating an R1 or greater. I simply do not need it for my home use. I have a large backup drive I backup all my data too, so I have a copy. If the drive ever did go down, I would not loose any data. As it is a home server having that redundancy is not necessary for me. So... do I really have to have two drives in an R1 for data? Or can I just use one?

Thanks guys.

You need 2 drives minimum, because Scale has to be installed on 1, and the other will be used for your data. However, they don't need to be the same size. You can use a small SSD for the OS, and reserve your 256G NVMe SSD for your data.

 

[DFergFLA]

Welcome aboard!



You need 2 drives minimum, because Scale has to be installed on 1, and the other will be used for your data. However, they don't need to be the same size. You can use a small SSD for the OS, and reserve your 256G NVMe SSD for your data.

 

[DFergFLA]

Running the NAS OS from an older SATA SSD is good then? I had not even though of doing that. I have plenty of SATA connectors to do that.

Thanks :)

 

[DFergFLA]

I am sorry to beat this one. But on this page: https://www.truenas.com/download-truenas-scale/ Under the part that says "TrueNAS Scale Hardware Requirements" it says ".....2 identically sized devices." As I have said I will only have one spinning drive for data, not two. Is the "... 2 identically sized devices." Do I really have to have 2?

 

[Samuel Tai]

For data safety, the manual recommends a mirror pool at the minimum. However, you can create a pool with a single disk.

 

[DFergFLA]

For data safety, the manual recommends a mirror pool at the minimum. However, you can create a pool with a single disk.

Thank you. That is what I needed to know.

I will probably do use this configuration when I do this.
One SATA SSD for the TrueNAS OS install.
One NVME SSD as a pool for VMS.
One spinning drive to hold Files.

 

[Davvo]

One SATA SSD for the TrueNAS OS install.
One NVME SSD as a pool for VMS.
One spinning drive to hold Files.

You won't have any data redundancy (very risky), make sure to not keep important data without solid backups. Also, make sure to properly test your single disk and pray It won't have infant mortality.
I would strongly suggest to go with ECC Memory, especially for future upgrades.
Finally, a lesson I earned the hard way: triple check compatibility between everything. The forum Is your ally.
Have fun!