Advice regarding a NAS I just built

[HeLiOn]

Hey there!

So I just finished assembling the build you see in the image below.
For those curious, it's fitted with a Celeron G4930 3.2 GHz CPU and 8 GBs DDR4

 

Its purpose is mainly to serve as a PLEX server. I could use some advice regarding the OS.
From what I've read FreeNAS (or TrueNAS Core) is popular. I tried installing it using a bootable USB to another USB that would basically serve as hard drive, but the installer kept failing to boot.
I'd like to know if it's possible to install FreeNAS on a USB drive using another computer, and just plugging the destination drive to the new rig. If it's not possible, I guess I'll have to borrow an optical drive.
Also, are there any better alternatives than FreeNAS? I'm trying to make this rig consume as less power as possible, so I'm open to any suggestions.

[n0stalghia]

Back when I was researching stuff for my NAS build I stumbled upon a claim that FreeNAS wants a GB of RAM for every TB of storage in your system because of how ZFS works. Does this still hold true?

 

I myself went with unRAID, because it is possible to expand your storage dynamically with time as the time goes with that (comes with it not being a RAID). It does however cost money, a one-time payment. 

 

In unRAID's case, I have the OS on a Sandisk Cruzer Blade USB stick (USB 2.0 version, since USB 3.0 tend to get too hot, which might damage the USB drive in the scenario of it being always plugged in)

[HeLiOn]

37 minutes ago, n0stalghia said:

Back when I was researching stuff for my NAS build I stumbled upon a claim that FreeNAS wants a GB of RAM for every TB of storage in your system because of how ZFS works. Does this still hold true?

You got that one wrong.

It's not 1 GB of RAM for every TB. It's 1 GB of RAM for every hard drive used.
You can read the detailed requirements here. Basically, the minimum amount of RAM required is 8 GBs.
It will probably need more if you use more hard drives and you plan to install virtual machines or several additional plugins.

[Jarsky]

8 hours ago, HeLiOn said:

From what I've read FreeNAS (or TrueNAS Core) is popular. I tried installing it using a bootable USB to another USB that would basically serve as hard drive, but the installer kept failing to boot.
I'd like to know if it's possible to install FreeNAS on a USB drive using another computer, and just plugging the destination drive to the new rig. If it's not possible, I guess I'll have to borrow an optical drive.
Also, are there any better alternatives than FreeNAS? I'm trying to make this rig consume as less power as possible, so I'm open to any suggestions.

 

Whats the error when it fails? Theres no reason I see why you couldnt prep it on another system, but you might run into NIC issues so you may just need to reconfigure the network adapter on the NAS once it's booted up. 

 

Have you considered just doing an Ubuntu/Debian system? Using a Linux kernel means if you want to you can leverage the iGPU for transcoding if you have a Plex Pass / Emby Premiere. You could then just run anything you want under Docker, the linuxserver.io team have an excellent docker container for Plex..

If you want a Web UI to manage Ubuntu you can also use Cockpit: https://cockpit-project.org/ 

[HeLiOn]

6 hours ago, Jarsky said:

 

Whats the error when it fails? Theres no reason I see why you couldnt prep it on another system, but you might run into NIC issues so you may just need to reconfigure the network adapter on the NAS once it's booted up. 

It's kinda hard to read, because there are 2 rows of text that keep getting spammed. Before that spam, it does say that the kernel cannot be loaded (or something along those lines)

6 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Have you considered just doing an Ubuntu/Debian system? Using a Linux kernel means if you want to you can leverage the iGPU for transcoding if you have a Plex Pass / Emby Premiere. You could then just run anything you want under Docker, the linuxserver.io team have an excellent docker container for Plex..

If you want a Web UI to manage Ubuntu you can also use Cockpit: https://cockpit-project.org/ 

I have zero experience with Linux, to be honest. I only wondered through its UI for a few minutes at some point, but that's it. I can look into this option as well, though. Any further details would be appreciated. I've just read through some FreeNAS tutorials, and I'm kinda bummed, cause i know nothing about jails or how they work. Is Linux easier to set up for PLEX or Emby?

As for the software itself, so far, I've tested the windows version of the PLEX server and it seems to work just fine. The TV app, though seems to have issues reading some of the movies I have.
Playing the movies through the app sometimes gives rainbow colors on the screen (like In the image I attached). Playing those movies through the TV's default player works just fine. If I can't get that thing to work, I'll give Emby a go as well.

[Jarsky]

13 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

It's kinda hard to read, because there are 2 rows of text that keep getting spammed. Before that spam, it does say that the kernel cannot be loaded (or something along those lines)

Perhaps its a UEFI issue...when you start it up check the Boot devices, and load the one that says something like UEFI USB

 

13 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

I have zero experience with Linux, to be honest. I only wondered through its UI for a few minutes at some point, but that's it. I can look into this option as well, though. Any further details would be appreciated. I've just read through some FreeNAS tutorials, and I'm kinda bummed, cause i know nothing about jails or how they work. Is Linux easier to set up for PLEX or Emby?

I wouldn't say either is easier than the other. FreeNAS locks you to ZFS, has less hardware support, and is limited in many ways when you want to use it for more than just ZFS storage. Linux on the other hand has far broader support, still supports ZFS if that's what you want to use, but also MDADM and other solutions. 

 

Ubuntu can install Docker during the initial setup, and you can install Portainer if you want for graphical management of Docker containers. 

You can also manage docker and storage and everything else in Linux by using Cockpit...for Ubuntu its a simple 1 line command

 

https://cockpit-project.org/running.html

sudo apt-get install cockpit

13 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

As for the software itself, so far, I've tested the windows version of the PLEX server and it seems to work just fine. The TV app, though seems to have issues reading some of the movies I have. Playing the movies through the app sometimes gives rainbow colors on the screen (like In the image I attached). Playing those movies through the TV's default player works just fine. If I can't get that thing to work, I'll give Emby a go as well.

I've honestly never seen that issue. 

I just started trialing Emby about 3 months ago, and I really like it. The interface is more intuitive than Plex, and you can switch subtitles and audio without pausing/rebuffering the stream which is really awesome. 

I'd recommend trying them both out to see which one you prefer

[HeLiOn]

54 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Perhaps its a UEFI issue...when you start it up check the Boot devices, and load the one that says something like UEFI USB

the UEFI sees both USB drives (the installer and the destination drive), but none of them seemed to be bootable.

54 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Perhaps its a UEFI issue...when you start it up check the Boot devices, and load the one that says something like UEFI USB

I wouldn't say either is easier than the other. FreeNAS locks you to ZFS, has less hardware support, and is limited in many ways when you want to use it for more than just ZFS storage. Linux on the other hand has far broader support, still supports ZFS if that's what you want to use, but also MDADM and other solutions. 

Ubuntu can install Docker during the initial setup, and you can install Portainer if you want for graphical management of Docker containers. 

You can also manage docker and storage and everything else in Linux by using Cockpit...for Ubuntu its a simple 1 line command

https://cockpit-project.org/running.html

sudo apt-get install cockpit

 

Now after I gave it a thought, I can definitely see myself using this unit for other things (small game servers and such), so I'll be looking into Linux.
Is there a version that works with no UI, just like FreeNAS, on which you also install cockpit? Sorry, I really know nothing about it.
If you have some materials that can get me started, I'd really appreciate it.

54 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

I've honestly never seen that issue. 

I just started trialing Emby about 3 months ago, and I really like it. The interface is more intuitive than Plex, and you can switch subtitles and audio without pausing/rebuffering the stream which is really awesome. 

I'd recommend trying them both out to see which one you prefer

I just tested the TV app. Unfortunately it seems to behave the same way with those movies.
This kind of display goes on and off throughout the movie. Again, loading the movie in the TV's default player works just fine.
This only happens with some of the HDR movies. Most of the content can be viewed without issues.
Anyway, Emby does seem more responsive and has more user friendly features, so I think I'll stick with it.

 

 

[Master Disaster]

There's actually a way to run Synology's DSM on any PC. I will admit it has its issues (mainly that you cannot update DSM until the launcher is updated to support the new version) however given all the benefits DSM has over other NAS OSes I think its a fair compromise.

 

https://xpenology.org/

[HeLiOn]

5 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

There's actually a way to run Synology's DSM on any PC. I will admit it has its issues (mainly that you cannot update DSM until the launcher is updated to support the new version) however given all the benefits DSM has over other NAS OSes I think its a fair compromise.

 

https://xpenology.org/

Is that legal?

[Master Disaster]

36 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

Is that legal?

Its a bit of a grey area but the general consensus is yes. Synology's license agreement states that you can only use DSM on an official Synology device however it also says that any part of DSM that are covered by the open source GPL license remain covered by GPL and Synology's license cannot supersede that.

 

DSM is built on Linux and Linux is very much covered under GPL. Admittedly there's some custom software in DSM that would not come under GPL however.

 

Xpenology has existed for several years now, Synology are more than aware of its existence and to date they have never attempted to shut the project down which means either they don't care about it or they know that DSM is really Linux which they cannot license.

 

As with all things like this though, don't expect any support from Synology if you get an issue.

[HeLiOn]

4 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Its a bit of a grey area but the general consensus is yes. Synology's license agreement states that you can only use DSM on an official Synology device however it also says that any part of DSM that are covered by the open source GPL license remain covered by GPL and Synology's license cannot supersede that.

 

DSM is built on Linux and Linux is very much covered under GPL. Admittedly there's some custom software in DSM that would not come under GPL however.

 

Xpenology has existed for several years now, Synology are more than aware of its existence and to date they have never attempted to shut the project down which means either they don't care about it or they know that DSM is really Linux which they cannot license.

 

As with all things like this though, don't expect any support from Synology if you get an issue.

Given the extra possibilities, I'm more inclined to just go with Linux. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
 

[Jarsky]

12 hours ago, HeLiOn said:

Now after I gave it a thought, I can definitely see myself using this unit for other things (small game servers and such), so I'll be looking into Linux.
Is there a version that works with no UI, just like FreeNAS, on which you also install cockpit? Sorry, I really know nothing about it.
If you have some materials that can get me started, I'd really appreciate it.

 

Yeah if you use Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Server install has no desktop environment by default. Then just make sure the SSH Server feature is added during the installation process (i think it is by default). Then you can just use PuTTy or similar to connect to a terminal session remotely for anything you may need outside of the WebUI

 

If you go this route and you want docker, i'd personally install Docker after Ubuntu is installed, to get the official docker.io rather than docker-ce (open source community edition). 

 

So after Ubuntu is installed, to get it up and running just run

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker-ce
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo apt install cockpit cockpit-docker -y
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

You may need to allow the port through the firewall, which in Ubuntu would be

sudo ufw allow 9090/tcp

 

Everything should be installed then, and persistant through a reboot, then you can access the Cockpit UI at http://myservername:9090 

 

[HeLiOn]

1 hour ago, Jarsky said:

 

Yeah if you use Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Server install has no desktop environment by default. Then just make sure the SSH Server feature is added during the installation process (i think it is by default). Then you can just use PuTTy or similar to connect to a terminal session remotely for anything you may need outside of the WebUI

 

If you go this route and you want docker, i'd personally install Docker after Ubuntu is installed, to get the official docker.io rather than docker-ce (open source community edition). 

 

So after Ubuntu is installed, to get it up and running just run

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker-ce
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo apt install cockpit cockpit-docker -y
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

You may need to allow the port through the firewall, which in Ubuntu would be

sudo ufw allow 9090/tcp

 

Everything should be installed then, and persistant through a reboot, then you can access the Cockpit UI at http://myservername:9090 

 

OK, then... I'll take this route, and mark this one as solved.
If I encounter further issues, I'll be sure to create a topic in the appropriate section.
Thank you very much for your time.

[Master Disaster]

On 9/18/2020 at 9:22 PM, Jarsky said:

 

Yeah if you use Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Server install has no desktop environment by default. Then just make sure the SSH Server feature is added during the installation process (i think it is by default). Then you can just use PuTTy or similar to connect to a terminal session remotely for anything you may need outside of the WebUI

 

If you go this route and you want docker, i'd personally install Docker after Ubuntu is installed, to get the official docker.io rather than docker-ce (open source community edition). 

 

So after Ubuntu is installed, to get it up and running just run

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker-ce
sudo apt install docker.io
sudo apt install cockpit cockpit-docker -y
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo systemctl enable docker

You may need to allow the port through the firewall, which in Ubuntu would be

sudo ufw allow 9090/tcp

 

Everything should be installed then, and persistant through a reboot, then you can access the Cockpit UI at http://myservername:9090 

 

Does Docker also install a webserver as part of the package?

 

My only experience with it is through my Synology NAS and that handles everything though the already included Synology Web Services.

[Jarsky]

2 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Does Docker also install a webserver as part of the package?

 

My only experience with it is through my Synology NAS and that handles everything though the already included Synology Web Services.

 

No docker has no web interface, it's managed through the docker socket. Personally I use Portainer to manage dockers from a web interface