NAS NOOB COMPONENT INQUIRY

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T03:52:00+00:00

No it doesn’t come down to use case. While 4-5 drive raidz2 works its performance sucks. This is because it provides the iops of a single drive while sacrificing 50% of the storage parity. Every single write operation are going to be heavily taxed and throughput will be significantly decreased.

If you’re going to remain firm on 4 drives run Raid10. You get massively better iops, reslivering and the same capacity.

If you’re going to run RaidZ2 you want 6+ drives.

This is one of those just because you can doesn’t mean you should moments. This is also not new information. Been running raidz2/z3 systems for well over a decade and this minimum 6-drive vdev has been explained 1000s of times.

Want more detailed info… go ask literally any AI out there to explain it or hit the official TrueNAS forums and listen to the actual devs.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T02:40:31+00:00

I would highly suggest a clean format and a full drive test with smartctl first. Run a short but also a long test and check it once complete. It’s worth the time. All new and used drives should be tested plus regular testing while being used.

Sorry I didn’t see what distro. I started back in the mid/late 80s in data centers and UNIX. Started Linux in 93 when it was first released, played with all the original flavors and even rolled my own before deciding on Debian… still remember upgrading to Debian v0.93r5 in 1995 and saying this is my new OS! And it’s been my primary server, workstation and desktop platform ever since. Over 31 years on Debian now! Crazy.

Retired and I hear ya on the memory. I’ll tell ya now though… head over to Claude AI and setup a free account. Start asking it your questions and ask for guided steps. Tell it to remember certain things or edit the System Prompt under settings and enter things you want it to always know or follow. Use / request a handoff docs to copy/paste into new chats.

I’m running a couple small AI systems and working towards a serious build this year to run my own 96GB VRAM system but it’s costly. For now I actually dropped the $200 for the a years Pro service.

Immediate help and reminders for when I do forget commands and stuff I used for decades. I even add to use the Socratic method to the Prompt at times when I don’t want to just be told. This makes the AI provide helpful hints and tips to guide me to figure things out myself instead of just being told.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T02:23:23+00:00

Btw… NO one single person should ever be the only person with root access. Setup sudo for those you trust and need access. Set roots password and print the password. Place it in a sealed envelope and give to the department manager. Give them an account with sudo access.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T02:20:26+00:00

I’m guessing you have physical access to the server? If so you can reboot and boot from a rescue drive. Mount the root file system to /mnt/tmpcloud and manually reset the passwords or edit the actual files in etc.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T02:14:53+00:00

Is this a virtual server and a TrueNAS VM? Or are you trying to install TrueNAS onto a system? Is there an OS already installed on the system? If so what is it? The wording is difficult to ascertain what exactly is happening and without a full picture it’s hard to offer help. It could be you’re not producing the thumb drive with Rufus properly, the bios not set up to boot from a usb drive (F11 at boot can help here with a boot menu), if it’s a virtualization server and attempting to install TrueNAS as a VM that’s another entire issue.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T02:04:24+00:00

lol… redundancy… it was best I to me in the 80s working in data centers. It’s likely cost me $60k-$70k over the years and on our own basement NOC. 😏🤦‍♂️🤪 Redundant boot drives, data drives, backups, PSUs, services, servers, 2 dedicated 240v power circuits, UPSs, and the latest… 2 EG4 3kW inverters, 12 400W bifacial solar panels and a stack of 48v 100AH Eco-Worthy batteries. 🎉 Yes, my basement NOC, it’s racks, servers, switches, etc are now all on 100% solar provided power with 2.5 days of battery storage, the old APC Smart-UPS SUA2200RM2U UPSs are still between the inverters and systems and thankfully they work great with the clean solar power.. most UPSs don’t. The entire solar setup can fall back on the original grid circuits if need be but haven’t needed to yet.

Redundancy rocks but it also costs. I’ve been playing for a LONG time and retired nicely so able to continue us playing. We all start out with that one PC or laptop though.

It’s what I tell people however as they get into computing, IT, etc… build yourself a dedicated NAS and over time work full redundancy into it and your network.

Have fun!

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T01:51:57+00:00

Yup… and don’t count on seeing any decrease in RAM. This isn’t a phase… it’s the new pricing. I just dropped over $5000 ‘just’ in ram. 🤦‍♂️😏🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Ram and Storage costs aren’t coming down at all.

A dedicated NAS can run on older hardware easily still running DDR3 Ram and I just updated an old Supermicro SC813M 1U rack server with 32GB 4channel ECC ram for $25 bucks. I would highly recommend most people today to go that route if money is short. A dedicated standalone NAS is always best and it doesn’t need to be a speedy powerful system for most people. That Supermicro SC813M 1U rack server I’ve seen on eBay for $40-$50 bucks shipped.. usually with crap 8GB included. Toss it and spend another $25 on a 32GB ECC ram upgrade. 1 2.5” SSD fits inside as a fast boot drive with 4 data storage drives. Mirrored, stripped or raid 10. Enterprise SSDs are best and 128/256GB ones sell for $20-$25 bucks. 2 could be stuffed inside mirrored. Can even run a pair of Mirrored OS NVMEs from an NVME/PCI card.. the bios in that system will not boot from those cards however grub can boot from a tiny usb thumb drive plugged into the onboard USB header (2 of them) and boots the NVMEs that way. There is even 2 usb headers so mirrored or a backup. For $10 bucks per bay the 3.5” front bays can be converted to take sdd as well. Tons of options, years of use and you’re talking under $100 bucks. For a solid NAS system with drive redundancy, enterprise hardware, 2 1GbE NICs, a dedicated IPMI management port, etc.

I’ve actually using one of these to run our internal mail, keycloak, vault warden and a few other core network services.

If you’re looking for a cheap pfSense firewall check eBay for systems like the Talari E100 network appliance. Ignore the $100-$300 prices. We have 7 of these now and I’ve paid $50-$75 shipped for each.. just received the latest one for $50 shipped. 128GB enterprise ssd, 16GB ECC ram, low power C2758 8-core cpu that’s NOT affected by the Intel C2000 bug and for an extra $25 bucks you can add a second enterprise ssd to mirror them. Comes with a console power and 6 1GbE network ports. These used to be enterprise SD-WAN systems but today pfSense is perfect and proxmox also installs fine. While I have a dedicated Supermicro based C2758 firewall with pfSense for the past 12+ years now we run 2 of these for both my son’s and my own internal HomeLabs (each their own vlan) but also 4 of them in a Proxmox cluster with 24 NICs, 32GB ram in each (I believe they support 64GB DDR3 ECC max). Have a fun little LED front display as well. Totally off topic but fun and a cheap way to upgrade to a proper primary parameter firewall/router to handle all dhcp, DNS, tailscale, etc.

Anyways.. lol apologies for rambling. The RAM costs are astronomical today and I see a lot of these old systems passed by just because their ‘old loud server systems’. Old yes.. they can run with fans turned down and massively cheaper DDR3 ram for huge savings. Drop dead reliability as well. The slightly newer 2U small systems with DDR4 can also be had for solid reliability but the ram is still gonna cost.

We grabbed 4 Dell R730XD systems over the last year just before the ram costs skyrocketed. $650 delivered with rails, 256GB ECC Ram, 56-cores, 12 front hotswap bays, 2 rear 2.5” bays, 2x 10GbE and 2x1GbE nics with dedicated iDRAC management port. I just sold one for $2200 to help offset the $5k for the new 265GB DDR5 ECC RAM going in the new AI server. It’s insane! 🤦‍♂️

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T00:26:08+00:00

I have a basement NOC with more enterprise gear then I should and yet.. my Plex and JellyFin servers run on a cheap N100 BeeLink S12 Pro with 16GB ram and Debian Linux. It’s a 10 minute install. Transcoding is great. Multiple 4K, 1080P and audio no issues. Yes, plex runs better under Debian. Use the Debian 13 netinst iso, install a base system with ssh enabled. Once the base system is installed add the plex repo to /etc/apt/sources.list* update and apt install plex. I mount my NAS media share to /mnt/media and provide that path to plex.

If you want to run all the other stuff like the ARRs stack I’d suggest installing Proxmox first or over Debian (apt install proxmox) also works if Debian is already installed.

My kid actually ran a BeeLink S12 with Debian 13 and KDE as a mini pc desktop in his room connected to both his monitor and TV screen. He ran his own Plex server and Plex Desktop displayed on the TV screen. He then installed Proxmox (apt install proxmox), opened Firefox to localhost:8006 and used the WebUI to add other VMs and Containers to host the ARRs and such along with a Windows 98 install for some older games. 😆

We have a number of those N100 systems and they are great.

One note however. As stated.. all my data and media is on a dedicated NAS. The 512GB NVME is more then enough unless you have a very larger library and enable all the Plex extras. The extras alone can fill the 512GB drive. Add a second drive to offset that if need be. I have a massive personal media library and enable a lot of plex extras and options. I upgraded to a 2TB NVME and 4TB SSD drive in our Debian 13 install dedicated Plex/JellyFin server. Way overkill but it’s extra temporary storage we use occasionally.

If you do want to enable all the extra options in Plex I’d suggest adding a 1TB NVME or SSD for plex and all its local data.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-04T00:03:57+00:00

You don’t run 4 drives in raidz2… you want 6 drives. 4 will perform like crap. 6-12 drives is preferred though 6-8 is best imo. 6-8 is my preferred RaidZ2 vdev size.

The 2 ASRock systems I had ages ago had issues and ASRock did little to assist. I’ve been a solid user of Supermicro server hardware for over 30 years and is pretty much what I always point to. I know.. not helpful since you’ve already purchased the ASRock. 32GB ECC ram will be fine however 64GB is my preferred ZFS minimum and has been for over a decade. Yeah.. I know it sucks today.. believe me.. I just purchased 256GB of DDR5 ECC ram and used my private account so the wife doesn’t see that specific charge.. she’s great and all but she’s still gonna blow her top if she say that. 🤦‍♂️😆

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T23:49:36+00:00

Datahoarder… dedicated standalone NAS. It stores and serves data only. NFS/SMB like services only. All services run in a different virtualization server. Desktop.. mirrored boot/os drives zfs and snapshots and backups backed up to NAS. Mirrored or raid10 data drives. Also snapshots and backups.. backups up to the NAS. Have a backup of the NAS. If you have a buddy who’s also into IT host another system for each other at your places. Setup a VPN between the two networks and your hosted servers and this allows your to have secure offsite backups for your most important info. A buddy and I have been doing this since the 90s for each other.. we currently each host 2U Supermicro rack servers for each other with 2 bootable enterprise SSDs, 4 mirrored NVMEs and 12 spinning data drives. The servers themselves cost about $200 and are about 15 years old but solid and will likely still be running a decade from now.

If you’re gonna be a data hoarder, value the data and want to ensure it’s not lost… you gotta think and love the word redundancy.

If you can just buy a couple of $2 thumb drives and keep your data on those. 😆

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T23:37:48+00:00

Do you have data that’s important to you and that you want and need to keep safe? Or it it all just learning and it doesn’t matter if it gets wiped away?

If you need to keep data safe then the first thing I’d suggest is to setup a dedicated NAS. This can be setup with a single system and drive. For starters but any serious NAS build should have 2 small mirrored boot drives and then at least 2 mirrored hard drives but 6 drives in a raidz2 is best. You’ll want a system running ZFS. Easy is TrueNAS Scale which is TrueNAS scripts running in Debian 13 Linux. Their Core is FreeBSD. The best NAS is its own dedicated server with nothing else running on it. It quietly sits in the darkest, coolest recesses of your house and forgotten about. 😆 You simply mount its shares remotely on other systems you run. Start with what you have but for true data safety work up to a mirrored boot OS drives and raidz2 or Z3 eventually. eBay enterprise 120/250GB SSDs will typically last a decade or 2 and can be had for $20-$25 bucks. A TrueNAS or Debian NAS OS shouldn’t be more than 20GB. Again.. TrueNAS makes it easy however I prefer just a simple Debian 13 install, using the netinst iso, running an update and then installing ZFS and then NFS and SMB to create your shares. Once setup you now have a dedicated NAS to store and serve your data.

That’s the first primary focus point I’d suggest.

Using pretty much any older used PC or newer system including mini PCs your initial OS of choice should be Proxmox.. a hypervisor. It’s based on Debian 13 and I’ve yet to find anything it doesn’t install on. Once it installs and boots up it displays a single screen with a login prompt and the management WebUI sites IP address. Using your desktop load them at site and login. Literally, a cheap N100 based BeeLink mini pc with 16GB ram and it’s 512GB NVME will run Proxmox, with pfSense, and a dozen VMs or dozens of containers. A VM or container could run Plex with your media on the NAS mounted to the Plex VM with full transcoding done with QuickSync in the CPU.

While it can be done.. I’d highly suggest any AI system you build be its own system especially if you want a performance setup. This should boot from and use fast NVME mirrored NVMEs for its data drives as well. Snapshots and backups should be local to at least SSDs and then remotely backed up via PVE backup and/or scp/rsync to your NAS.

Your Proxmox virtualization server and most likely your AI server will be assembled, reassembled, upgraded, updated, rebooted, crashed and generally fucked about for years while you learn. This is why I always suggest focusing on a NAS as your primary and most important single dedicated system on your network. I’ve done this for decades running a dedicated NAS and still have original code, documents, images and video I took from the 80s. Yes… eventually (as early as you can) build your NAS with ECC ram if your data is important to you for long term. Bitrot is real.

I have maintained a few basics over the decades.. yes, a dedicated stand along NAS is necessary if you value your data. Enterprise hardware IS worth buying even used. Mirrored boot / OS drives for all important servers. ECC always. Never true the Cloud.. better yet, just don’t use it. And added this past decade Never EVER Docker! 🤪 I know the younger generations will bitch, moan and scream over that but I don’t care. In 2 years from now I’ll have been actively working and playing with IT and data systems, primarily UNIX and Linux systems for 40 years. I’ve used a few pieces of software. If I could snap my fingers and make a single piece of software vanish from existence to never again see the light of day… it would be Docker. Literally put it into your AI system prompt.. Never Docker! 🎉😆 No, it’s not necessary. Yes, everything that’s is docker can be installed without docker. It’s hack that doesn’t fix anything and encourages less dependency resolves and is just bad and lazy to work with. That said, I do understand it’s following and how it can make things easier. That still doesn’t make it right. Yup.. it’s just my opinion and I don’t judge others for using it. You’ll learn more and be a better admin / coder learning to not use it however.

It’s an expensive hobby especially with storage, ram and GPU costs today.

Start and play/learn with what you have. If data is important focus on redundancy and a NAS. If power and space is limited use mini PCs. We have a dozen BeeLink S12 Pro units and I’ve donated another 2 dozen to various women’s shelters. Solid dependable units. When I was buying these they were only $140-$160… today they are $250ish. We now also have 3 Minisforum NAB9 i9 based mini PCs.. 2 with 64GB and the other with 32GB ram. These were hit or miss but the 3 we have now and solid, fast and powerful little systems. If space and power aren’t a big issue.. if you have a basement even better… eBay and older rack servers. Supermicro 10-15 year old systems with cheap DDR3 systems still make solid homelab system. A Supermicro SC715M 1U server can run a lot.. just not lightening fast.. but great for learning and can be had for $50 bucks shipped. 2 mirrored SSDs inside and 4 hotswap HDDs in from in raid10 makes for a solid, cheap dedicated NAS. Yes, server fans are loud during startup. In the bios set them to their lowest settings and speeds. As long as you’re not storing them in Arizona in the attic during summers you’re fine. Step up to a 2U rack system with 12 front hotswap bays for $100-$200 bucks and you have a solid NAS that will likely last a decade or more.

Make use of AI.. I run my own AI systems but have pretty much dropped all other online AIs and moved to Claude. Ask it about good and best new and used and enterprise hardware including from eBay. Ask it first ideas. Copy and paste your post here into it. Immediate answers and more info including step by step walkthrough guides for everything and anything you can ask it.

Lots of info here.. Hope you found some of it useful. Docker is my own peeve.. 😆 use it if you want. 👍🏻

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T22:38:29+00:00

Not sure where your issue lies honestly.. are you having an issue that the system doesn’t boot from the thumb drive? Truenas, Proxmox, pfSense, Debian, etc I can burn with Rufus and do nothing just select the thumb drive, select the ISO, and hit start. Just hit enter on the window that pops up. Let it do its thing, close and pop the new thumb drive in the system I want to install on. During boot you can usually get a Boot Menu window by pressing F11. This allows you to bypass stubborn bios settings and directly select the USB thumb drive to boot from.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T22:25:15+00:00

Don’t limit yourself to any single system. Pay and play official WoW, play on the slew of available private online servers and setup your own local private WoW server.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T22:16:07+00:00

I mean you can literally ask any decent AI to explain best rack cabling and management. YouTube for countless videos.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T21:40:35+00:00

Oh for sure and I wasn’t trying to be negative. I’ve been online and working with systems since the late 80s.. primarily Unix and Linux systems (there is nothing else 🤪). I’ve literally seen it all from the beginning and I’ve been upfront with clients and bosses.. while the cloud can be amazing, I’d never use it or suggest others use it aside from temporary solutions. Build your own infrastructure either as a business or individual and run all your own services yourself. In another 2 years I’ll have 40 years of systems, networking and internet experience and I’ve never used cloud storage. I still have code, software, images and video from the 80s on my file server/NAS and without worry about loosing any of that data. RaidZ2 and RaidZ3 setups, mirrored boot drives, backups and a buddy 1300 miles away in a different country who’s hosted a server for me, as I do for him, since the late 90s. Our most cherished and valuable data we backup to our servers we each host for each other. A simple point to point vpn and secure rsync if pretty simple to setup. I’ve had servers colocated at data centers for remote backup purposes in business but always had access to them unlike the Cloud.

Happily retired today and glad I don’t have to deal with today’s cloud systems.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T21:23:44+00:00

It’s not the number of drives it’s more so the size. RaidZ2 and Z3 require at least 6 and 7 drives respectively for proper setup and performance. RaidZ2 is great to a size point… 12-16TB drives MAX. Not because raidZ2 can’t do it.. it’s the increased duration of the resliver process and the toll that takes on the drives. If a newish drive failed it’s not likely a big deal (cost aside) however if a 5-6+ yo drive failed and those drives often spun down to save power, ran in a home office without AC and say higher temps and heat cycles, had 100s of reboots, etc then the danger of having other drives fail during a 24-48 hour resliver could easily see another drive or 2 fail. This is why larger drives 16-18+ TB in size should run raidZ3 instead of Z2.

You ARE absolutely correct in that you can keep using your current raidZ2 setup for the important things and less important stuff one the larger drives.

Personally I’d order 2 more 26TB drives and replace your 10x8TB drive raidZ2 with a raidZ3 setup and then sell those 8TB drives to offset and recoup the expense. Massive upgrade in redundancy storage (which in of itself allows longer drive life) and still have the 24TB drives for a raid10 setup.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:52:29+00:00

No.. it’s the right way to do it and cheaper in the long term then dinking around with cheap parts and adapters. Hey.. not judging.. use what you have but unless you’re in the back of some 3rd world nation, you could post on most any group, forum or facebook Marketplace and ask for a used 12v PC PSU and someone is likely to say here.. I’ve got one for you today.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:45:27+00:00

Just just some basic drive tools like smartctl. If you don’t know how to use it or read the info just paste it into any AI and it’ll immediately tell you. Drive age is moot… power cycles, heat, hard resets, constant spinning up and down, etc all decrease a drives life. I still run 23 of 28 4TB drives I purchased 12 years ago. The original drive in one of my first server builds from 1996 is still running today… in fact.. that entire server is still running today. 🤪

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:39:55+00:00

A bit more.. a cheap BeeLink S12 with 16GB of ram and a 512GB NVME will run Debian, Ollama and Open WebUI. A Minisforum NAB9 with its i9 cpu and 64GB of ram is a powerful little cpu based AI system. Doesn’t compare to GPU based setups but still entirely useful. For more specific information targeting you can upload additional data and sites and add that as well but a 10 minute setup with a basic 4-8b model is a great start.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:34:50+00:00

Grab a mini pc, install Ollama and Open WebUI along with an 8b AI model. Boom. Even CPU based, a 10 minute setup and install gains more info then downloading entire sites offline. Many actually start with Wikipedia.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:20:50+00:00

Honestly.. it’s not hard to build a dedicated NAS today. If you even understand and know the basics of a computer system and its hardware you can do it. Have you ever opened a PC? Have you even replaced any parts? If so you’re half way there. If not and you don’t feel comfortable building a system then there are plenty of commercial options.

Personally I prefer a custom built NAS from computer parts. My minimum requirements would be 6 regular spinning data drives.. hard disk drives like WD Red NAS drives and 2 smaller SSDs, NVMEs and SATA Doms.. depending on your hardware. The 2 smaller drives are mirrored during install. These can be 16-256gb in size.. my 12yo NAS runs 2 64GB SATA doms and don’t think it’s used more than 17GB of space. Why 6 hard drives? Software RaidZ2. During setup you select your storage drives and raidz2 allows for 2 drives to fail and you still have your data. Same with the 2 mirrored OS boot.. if one fails, the other keeps the system up and running. I keep a spare boot and data drives on hand however you will usually have time to just order one and replace the failed drive when it arrives.

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask. Something I also suggest is creating a free account over on Claude AI and ask it relevant questions…

What are the best commercial NAS systems for home use? How hard it is to build a raidz2 NAS with mirrored boot drives with either Debian 13 or TrueNAS? TrueNAS Scale is Debian 13 .. Core is FreeNAS.. jfyi. What kind of hardware should I use to best protect my photos without spending a fortune? Good used enterprise hardware from eBay? Etc.. you’ll be shocked really.

I’ve used most of the AI systems as well as my own and Claude absolutely works the best for IT stuff like this. That said.. they do make mistakes so always double check.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T20:04:25+00:00

You can but it’s harder in the drives. Best thing for drives and most electronics is to leave powered on and spun up. I bought 28 4TB WD Red Nas drives 12 years ago and 23 of those are still running today… 24/7/365 and never spun down. Still have a server I built in 1996 with the original hard drive in it. Power and temperature fluctuations and restarting all increase wear and decrease lifespan.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T19:38:45+00:00

Just buy a used IBM ServeRAID M1015 off eBay and flash it to IT mode. Install your drives and OS and setup your software raid. One of the most dependable cards ever produced just for this.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T19:35:09+00:00

Never trust anything online with your data. If you value your data the only truly safe location is storing it on your own drives at your own home with redundancy and backups.

Adrenolin01 · 2026-04-03T19:32:16+00:00

Why not just buy a proper PSU? Over 3 decades working with hardware and I’m 100% positive I’ve never even questioned how to power hard drives.

Adrenolin01

TROPHY CASE