TrueNAS SCALE vs OpenMediaVault

[vn_mnm]

Hello everyone,

I am an amateur network hobbyist who looks forward to building my first homebrew NAS rig. FreeNAS 11 is supposedly fine for me, but it is quite selective on the ethernet NICs, thus might cost me a PCIe slot for an Intel one. (My motherboard comes with Realtek LAN port .) I am looking at TrueNAS SCALE vs OpenMediaVault as both are based on Debian Linux, thus should have no compatibility issues with Realtek NICs at all.

So, beside the seemingly obvious difference that SCALE comes with ZFS filesystem support out of the box and by default, whilst with OpenMediaVault I have to install the ZFS addon, what are the other differences that might affect my consideration between the two for the upcoming household NAS ? In addition, I hear the Internet says that ZFS support on Linux is quite a mismatch, has SCALE overcome this issue ?

Also, how is the power consumption of TrueNAS SCALE vs TrueNAS Core / FreeNAS ?

I still have a lot to learn from this forum. Please help me out. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[morganL]

OpenZFS has supported Linux well... the issue tends to be that most Linux distributions don't include OpenZFS by default.

TrueNAS SCALE changes this around by making OpenZFS the default file system and supporting it via APIs and WebUI. It is using Debian Linux and so there are drivers for newer chips and NICs. The ZFS side of SCALE has been very solid and gets extensively tested.

The power consumption and performance of SCALE seems to be very similar to CORE. Most of the software (ZFS, SAMBA , TrueNAS Middleware) is the same/similar. There will be more testing over the next few month, but no-one has reported significant differences, except for some bugs (on each) that can be or are resolved.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Why is using a PCIe slot for a separate NIC such a problem? Just trying to understand the reasoning ...

 

[vn_mnm]

OpenZFS has supported Linux well... the issue tends to be that most Linux distributions don't include OpenZFS by default.

TrueNAS SCALE changes this around by making OpenZFS the default file system and supporting it via APIs and WebUI. It is using Debian Linux and so there are drivers for newer chips and NICs. The ZFS side of SCALE has been very solid and gets extensively tested.

The power consumption and performance of SCALE seems to be very similar to CORE. Most of the software (ZFS, SAMBA , TrueNAS Middleware) is the same/similar. There will be more testing over the next few month, but no-one has reported significant differences, except for some bugs (on each) that can be or are resolved.

Thanks for the advice, buddy. Since SCALE originates from Debian, it shall have no problems supporting Realtek NICs, shan't it ?

OpenZFS has supported Linux well... the issue tends to be that most Linux distributions don't include OpenZFS by default.

TrueNAS SCALE changes this around by making OpenZFS the default file system and supporting it via APIs and WebUI. It is using Debian Linux and so there are drivers for newer chips and NICs. The ZFS side of SCALE has been very solid and gets extensively tested.

The power consumption and performance of SCALE seems to be very similar to CORE. Most of the software (ZFS, SAMBA , TrueNAS Middleware) is the same/similar. There will be more testing over the next few month, but no-one has reported significant differences, except for some bugs (on each) that can be or are resolved.

Thanks for the advice, buddy. There are still some questions about SCALE that bother me :

• Since SCALE originates from Debian, it shall have no problems supporting Realtek NICs, shan't it ? In addition, I will be using a Ryzen 7 2700 cpu for my NAS, so running SCALE means I will not have to mess with the BIOS settings related to C5, C6 idle states and others, will I ?
  
  
• I plan to build my homebrew NAS using SCALE so as to use it as a WebDAV disk drive with ZFS filesystem, and in case of having to access it remotely, a Raspberry Pi has already been acting as my secured VPN server. Since SCALE is still a work in progress, will the bugs so far been found in anyway break its functionality as a WebDAV drive (game-breaking bugs) ?
  
  
• The Ryzen 7 2700 is a 65w CPU, and the Nvidia GT710 is a 20w GPU, with 2x 8GB ECC UDIMM RAMs installed. What will be my approximate power consumption in terms of Watts per hour if I run FreeNAS / TrueNAS Core ? Should I look for the Ryzen 7 2700E with only 45w (this thing is like moon rock) ?

Thank you very much for your time again, buddy.

 

[vn_mnm]

Why is using a PCIe slot for a separate NIC such a problem? Just trying to understand the reasoning ...

Hello buddy,

Thanks for your caring. Because I am using a household m-atx motherboard with a non-integrated-graphic cpu. 1 pcie slot has already been used by the GPU. I want to spare some space for the GPU fans to move air so as for the GPU to cool itself down. Thus, SCALE being based on debian, which is compatible with Realtek LAN port of the motherboard, is a blessing for me.

 

[ornias]

• Since SCALE originates from Debian, it shall have no problems supporting Realtek NICs, shan't it ? In addition, I will be using a Ryzen 7 2700 cpu for my NAS, so running SCALE means I will not have to mess with the BIOS settings related to C5, C6 idle states and others, will I ?

While linux support for realtek is an improvement over BSD, those are still shitty NIC you should evade like the plague.

• I plan to build my homebrew NAS using SCALE so as to use it as a WebDAV disk drive with ZFS filesystem, and in case of having to access it remotely, a Raspberry Pi has already been acting as my secured VPN server. Since SCALE is still a work in progress, will the bugs so far been found in anyway break its functionality as a WebDAV drive (game-breaking bugs) ?

Not that we know, but it's a BETA so you won't get any guarantees about that from anyone. Besides: it assumes someone does know all the reported bugs ;-)

• The Ryzen 7 2700 is a 65w CPU, and the Nvidia GT710 is a 20w GPU, with 2x 8GB ECC UDIMM RAMs installed. What will be my approximate power consumption in terms of Watts per hour if I run FreeNAS / TrueNAS Core ? Should I look for the Ryzen 7 2700E with only 45w (this thing is like moon rock) ?

Be mindfull that GT710 isn't supported for Container passthrough at the moment.
Your powerconsumption is irrelevant compared to the powerconsumption of a few spinning-rust drives.

 

[vn_mnm]

While linux support for realtek is an improvement over BSD, those are still ****ty NIC you should evade like the plague.

Not that we know, but it's a BETA so you won't get any guarantees about that from anyone. Besides: it assumes someone does know all the reported bugs ;-)


Be mindfull that GT710 isn't supported for Container passthrough at the moment.
Your powerconsumption is irrelevant compared to the powerconsumption of a few spinning-rust drives.

Thanks for the helpful advice, buddy. I am not thinking about running dockers on the SCALE yet, so the GT710 will still be fine, won't it ? For solely using as a household NAS via WebDAV interface, do you think a Realtek NIC alone is adequate ? Also, why is SCALE still in beta when it was supposed to be released for corporate usage already (TrueNAS Scale Release Plan | TrueNAS Community ) ?

 

[morganL]

Thanks for the helpful advice, buddy. I am not thinking about running dockers on the SCALE yet, so the GT710 will still be fine, won't it ? For solely using as a household NAS via WebDAV interface, do you think a Realtek NIC alone is adequate ? Also, why is SCALE still in beta when it was supposed to be released for corporate usage already (TrueNAS Scale Release Plan | TrueNAS Community ) ?

We changed our plans to include more features and remain in BETA state. Originally we planned to have RELEASE for a single node system while still being BETA for a clustered system. That is roughly where we are at, but 21.08 will include some UI improvements and an SMB ACL editor.

On the plus-side, the Apps/Containers is much further along than expected. General ZFS stability has been excellent. There are thousands of systems active, so the code is getting the testing that is needed.

 

[ChrisRJ]

For solely using as a household NAS via WebDAV interface, do you think a Realtek NIC alone is adequate ?

Well, a bad piece of equipment is a bad piece of equipment. If you, by accident, manage to evade all the problems for your scenario, nobody can tell you upfront. But in my view potentially spending many hours on trouble-shooting is time badly spent. And a used Intel NIC isn't very expensive.

 

[stavros-k]

The Ryzen 7 2700 is a 65w CPU, and the Nvidia GT710 is a 20w GPU, with 2x 8GB ECC UDIMM RAMs installed. What will be my approximate power consumption in terms of Watts per hour if I run FreeNAS / TrueNAS Core ? Should I look for the Ryzen 7 2700E with only 45w (this thing is like moon rock) ?

If you don't plan using GPU for anything and your goal is to have the least power consumption. After the initial install of the system, remove the GPU and you are already -20w ;)

 

[ChrisRJ]

For CPUs that have come out in the last couple of years the max. TDP is not an indicator of power consumption when running idle. This was different 10+ years ago, but today a lower TDP wattage is only relevant if you have cooling constraints.

 

[ornias]

For CPUs that have come out in the last couple of years the max. TDP is not an indicator of power consumption when running idle. This was different 10+ years ago, but today a lower TDP wattage is only relevant if you have cooling constraints.

If you want low idle power consumption, intel 9th gen would be a much beter choice than ryzen though...

 

[vn_mnm]

If you don't plan using GPU for anything and your goal is to have the least power consumption. After the initial install of the system, remove the GPU and you are already -20w ;)

I wish I could do so, but this is a typical household motherboard, in particularly, the MSI B450M Bazooka Plus. Without the VGA installed, it can not pass the POST and the booting process will hang just right there (perhaps with lots of beeps).

 

[stavros-k]

Hmm, that's weird, i haven't seen any motherboard not be able to run headless in the past 5 years. Shame.. check a bios update might fix that.

 

[vn_mnm]

If you want low idle power consumption, intel 9th gen would be a much beter choice than ryzen though...

I would prefer the AMD Ryzen because of the smaller 7nm process which emits less heat and AMD's embracement of open-source softwares. In addition, I do not like Intel's price tag and their anti-competitive behaviour.

 

[vn_mnm]

Hmm, that's weird, i haven't seen any motherboard not be able to run headless in the past 5 years. Shame.. check a bios update might fix that.

Had the CPU come with an on-board graphics, sure the motherboard would boot headlessly. But the Ryzen 7 2700 does not come with integrated graphics.

 

[stavros-k]

Had the CPU come with an on-board graphics, sure the motherboard would boot headlessly. But the Ryzen 7 2700 does not come with integrated graphics.

I remember having CPU without on-board graphics boot in headless.
Check this out. MSI released a bios update that enables headless mode with cpu(not apu) and no gpu. Just be careful that the bios update that will enable this will still support your 2700, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuhWRoQ5v0E
4:27 says about the headless feature. Didnt watch the whole video, but his might help you :)

 

[vn_mnm]

For CPUs that have come out in the last couple of years the max. TDP is not an indicator of power consumption when running idle. This was different 10+ years ago, but today a lower TDP wattage is only relevant if you have cooling constraints.

Regarding cooling constraints, I will be using the Noctua NH-L12S for this NAS (NH-L12S (noctua.at) ). Will there be any constraints on my system's power consumption ?

 

[vn_mnm]

I remember having CPU without on-board graphics boot in headless.
Check this out. MSI released a bios update that enables headless mode with cpu(not apu) and no gpu. Just be careful that the bios update that will enable this will still support your 2700, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuhWRoQ5v0E
4:27 says about the headless feature. Didnt watch the whole video, but his might help you :)

OMG lucky me, I bought the B450M Bazooka Plus long before knowing this, and actually I have just learnt it from you ! Screw Asuck for their BIOS, MSI is the best now.

My 2014-built desktop is using an Asuck Z87 Pro + i7 4790K. My next-gen one will come with an MSI B550M + Ryzen 9 for sure.

 

[ornias]

I would prefer the AMD Ryzen because of the smaller 7nm process which emits less heat

Thats simply not the full story, like I said: when running idle Intel is king. That also accounts for heat production.
With these low-spec CPU's the load heat output in watts is pretty close.

Also: The 2700 is a 12nm CPU not 7NM, which is actually bigger than intels 14nm