What is the recommended boot disk size?

[consideringTrueNAS]

Hi, somewhere I read that TrueNAS requires a dedicated boot drive for the TrueNAS system and for data, I need to add additional separate physical drive(s). Is this really true? If that is the case, what is the recommended size for the boot drive? Also, if there is a need for more boot drive space in the future, is it as easy as just cloning the original boot drive to a larger capacity drive and just swap the two?

 

[Arwen]

Yes;

I have to waste an entire drive just for booting?

This resource was originally created by user: jgreco on the TrueNAS Community Forums Archive. Please DM this account or comment in this thread to claim it. With the advent of TrueNAS Scale, we seem to be getting a large number of people from the Linux community who are not quite grasping what...

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That does not go into size. In the past, 16GB was more than enough. Today, if using SATA HD or SSD, or M.2 SSD for boot, I would say 32GB is the minimum. But, if you keep your prior boot environments in check, (aka deleting really old ones), their should not be a problem with 16GB.

No, you do not clone your original boot drive. The simplest way to grow the boot device, is backup your configuration, (and encryption passphrases if using encryption), re-install TrueNAS and restore the configuration.


So to clarify, data drives are completely separate from the boot drive(s), (which can be mirrored, if desired).

 

[danb35]

somewhere I read

You've been starting a number of threads here asking questions--which is fine, as that's what the forum's for. But have you given any thought to reading the docs? Because many of your questions would be answered there, and more quickly and authoritatively than by posting a thread here. Here's where the CORE docs answer this:

CORE Hardware Guide

Describes the hardware specifications and system component recommendations for custom TrueNAS CORE deployment.

www.truenas.com

...and SCALE:

TrueNAS Hardware Guide

Provides information on system hardware and minimum requirements (CPU, memory, etc.). Covers storage considerations, media, controllers, device sizing and cooling, SAS expanders.

www.truenas.com

 

[Whattteva]

Boot drive doesn't need to be large at all. I allocated 8 GiB to my VM, but it doesn't even use 2 GiB. That being said, you should probably get at least 16 GiB drive as I believe that's the recommendation. Actually, I'm not even sure they even sell SSD's that small anymore these days, so you probably have zero need to worry about size in practice.

 

[consideringTrueNAS]

BOot drive doesn't need to be large at all. I allocated 8 GiB to my VM, but it doesn't even use 2 GiB. That being said, you should probably get at least 16 GiB drive as I believe that's the recommendation. Actually, I'm not even sure they even sell SSD's that small anymore these days, so you probably have zero need to worry about size in practice.

That is one confusion when I read a few GB somewhere. I think the smallest SATA or NVMe SSD is 250GB. Even for thumb drive, 8GB is hard to find these days.

Are you running TrueNAS in VM?

 

[Whattteva]

As you can see in my signature. I run both in a VM (NAS1) and baremetal (NAS2). You can see from the specs of the systems. It kinda' shows my knowledge progression as I gain more experience in running these things and the HW quality improves over time.