100TB in this TINY case

[t3ch_n1nj4]

This video came along at a great time, as I'm in the early stages of building a TrueNAS Core home server that'll also be running Nextcloud.

I tried to look on eBay for an Intel Optane MEMPEK1W032GA M.2 SSD, like the one shown in the video, but the (most likely) seller of that SSD - who had over 100 units for sale at one point - is sold out.

What other comparable options would one suggest for a good cache drive?

[barthshame]

So I think this is related, and hopefully you guys can help. I already have a Plex server running on my local PC between 3 drives of 26TB of space I have nearly 11TB of data. I want to move my plex server to a NAS, either on separate computer, or a stand alone, pre built NAS (I have the parts for the computer already lying around.) But I don't want to lose any data. I have no idea what I am doing honestly and would love some help.

[Nathanpete]

IMO, something like the ASRock H570M-ITX/ac and the i3-10100 would have A) been cheaper, B) Had a integrated GPU so there was no headache involving IPs and other CPUs. Similar enough performance, and would leave room in the budget for slightly higher capacity drives (not 100TB in the thumbnail ) or even an upgrade to G.Skill Aegis 32 GB (DDR4-2666 bc H570) as I'm seeing other users recommend higher RAM capacities than 16GB for the application that Linus presented. 

[dbx10]

3 hours ago, stab244 said:

Been looking for a compact case to build my future NAS but a little concerned about airflow and temps with this one.

 

Edit: Seems it's sold out now anyways. Should've expected that lol.

Fractal Node 304

 

3 hours ago, Mustahsin10 said:

Just wanted to know, is this NAS accessible in Local Network only or remote access is also possible?

If its local network only, then how to convert this NAS so that it can be accessible remotely? Any tutorial will be helpful.

For free, not securely unless you trust third parties with access to your internal network. For about 15$ a year, get a domain name registered and reverse-proxy it via cloudflare's free plan, and running nginx proxy manager on your NAS.

 

38 minutes ago, barthshame said:

So I think this is related, and hopefully you guys can help. I already have a Plex server running on my local PC between 3 drives of 26TB of space I have nearly 11TB of data. I want to move my plex server to a NAS, either on separate computer, or a stand alone, pre built NAS (I have the parts for the computer already lying around.) But I don't want to lose any data. I have no idea what I am doing honestly and would love some help.

If you install a NAS operating system or install your disks in a prebuilt NAS unit, the drives will be wiped. There is no getting around this. You'll definitely need a temporary media to store your stuff. Get a really large external drive from Amazon and return it when you're done maybe?

[Ultraforce]

I currently have a QNAP TS-230 as my NAS but I plan on converting my current desktop to be a NAS when I upgrade it I'll just probably want another SSD as I just have a 256 GB NVME even though the XPS 8930 supports 2 of them I believe.

[Egg-Roll]

45 minutes ago, Nathanpete said:

IMO, something like the ASRock H570M-ITX/ac and the i3-10100 would have A) been cheaper, B) Had a integrated GPU so there was no headache involving IPs and other CPUs. Similar enough performance, and would leave room in the budget for slightly higher capacity drives (not 100TB in the thumbnail ) or even an upgrade to G.Skill Aegis 32 GB (DDR4-2666 bc H570) as I'm seeing other users recommend higher RAM capacities than 16GB for the application that Linus presented. 

They could be using what was lying around in the stock room instead of actually buying things (at which time they shouldn't be saying they "paid" for it at current value, but state it's current price). However I do agree with your overall point, and what I did when my board for my old i5 died, I got a 3200G with a B450M DS3H V2 (cheaper than the 10 series with board).

 

One thing I am interested in however is how good the cooling on this thing is, also the over all vibrations of the drives being in close proximity of each other because many might just go for cheaper drives vs drives with proper vibration counter measures.

 

14 minutes ago, dbx10 said:

Get a really large external drive from Amazon and return it when you're done maybe?

Yes, then no... Yes get a big drive (and test it for issues), use it as a temp storage than rip it out and use the drive as more space within said server.

 

1 hour ago, barthshame said:

So I think this is related, and hopefully you guys can help. I already have a Plex server running on my local PC between 3 drives of 26TB of space I have nearly 11TB of data. I want to move my plex server to a NAS, either on separate computer, or a stand alone, pre built NAS (I have the parts for the computer already lying around.) But I don't want to lose any data. I have no idea what I am doing honestly and would love some help.

I'm using Unraid one suggestion is (for unraid, not sure about others) is set up a 1 to 1 setup initially and start dumping data onto it, afterwards assuming said drives are large enough (or you can remove drives without losing data after emptying one of them) you can take the 3 other drives and either put them in as extra storage or add the largest one as a second parity for more protection, which is what I did. I started off with 3 (1 parity, 2 storage) and increased it to 2/3 with one more I've been too lazy to add making it 2/4 lol...

[tim0901]

1 hour ago, Nathanpete said:

IMO, something like the ASRock H570M-ITX/ac and the i3-10100 would have A) been cheaper, B) Had a integrated GPU so there was no headache involving IPs and other CPUs. Similar enough performance, and would leave room in the budget for slightly higher capacity drives (not 100TB in the thumbnail ) or even an upgrade to G.Skill Aegis 32 GB (DDR4-2666 bc H570) as I'm seeing other users recommend higher RAM capacities than 16GB for the application that Linus presented. 

Yeah personally I'd have spent about half as much on the motherboard - a decent H610 board with an i3 12100 would be perfect for this sort of build.

[Luscious]

Cutting corners on price can lead you into a real predicament later if in fact something other than the drives die and you try to rescue your data. What happens if the OS gets corrupted? Can you even access it without a GPU after it is built? Would you be able to build an "identical" system and just swap the physical drives and get back up and running? Those would be the questions I would be asking if I really was mad enough to put 100TB into this thing.

 

When you're dealing with a NAS box (at least a simple one), plugging in the drives is pretty much all you do, and with two identical NAS boxes you can transplant drives and get back up and running. You might need to take a snapshot of the NAS's configuration screen and settings but that's pretty much it. Many hard drive data recovery outfits keep working NAS boxes on hand from multiple brands specifically for this purpose, not just to rescue data but help diagnose problems.

 

I recently had an old 2 drive Buffalo NAS quit on me. It was the drives inside that died making data recovery a no go. But had the NAS hardware died and the drives inside were still fine you could possibly get that data back with a 2nd identical NAS box.

 

That also raises the question can software like TrueNAS and Windows based drive partitioning software "recognize" when drives used in a previous same install get plugged in, or is your data at that point gone/wiped? In my current system I have four 8TB drives set up using StableBit DrivePool. It's possible installing the software on a second machine will get these drives recognized, but the only way to check would be to actually do it. A safer method I have found instead is to use one of those external sata-to-sata docks used for cloning drives and create a backup of your data that way. Think of it as a way to add drives to Windows, except you only plug in and power it on when you need it.

 

I now have a pair of 16TB drives with all the data from the four other drives backed up. The huge advantage of these external docks is that you can plug the drives into any system and they will work since they don't need partitioning software installed to be recognized or go through a NAS box - it's just a vanilla sata connection. Likewise since the one I have is USB I can run it through a laptop and not just a desktop. That also allows me to back up over wifi and access data over my home network.

 

With a server you may have even more configurability, especially if your backplane does not require RAID controller to work (JBOD). With two servers mirrored in failover you can connect as many drives as you need as single units. Now the backup is the actual hardware itself being duplicated. Even better, should one drive die, the mirror unit in the second server is not only still available, but can be plugged into any other machine, again since it's just a straight sata connection. The advantages to NOT using RAID mean you can get to your data very easily!

[dbx10]

6 minutes ago, Luscious said:

Cutting corners on price can lead you into a real predicament later if in fact something other than the drives die and you try to rescue your data. What happens if the OS gets corrupted? Can you even access it without a GPU after it is built? Would you be able to build an "identical" system and just swap the physical drives and get back up and running? Those would be the questions I would be asking if I really was mad enough to put 100TB into this thing.

 

When you're dealing with a NAS box (at least a simple one), plugging in the drives is pretty much all you do, and with two identical NAS boxes you can transplant drives and get back up and running. You might need to take a snapshot of the NAS's configuration screen and settings but that's pretty much it. Many hard drive data recovery outfits keep working NAS boxes on hand from multiple brands specifically for this purpose, not just to rescue data but help diagnose problems.

 

I recently had an old 2 drive Buffalo NAS quit on me. It was the drives inside that died making data recovery a no go. But had the NAS hardware died and the drives inside were still fine you could possibly get that data back with a 2nd identical NAS box.

 

That also raises the question can software like TrueNAS and Windows based drive partitioning software "recognize" when drives used in a previous same install get plugged in, or is your data at that point gone/wiped? In my current system I have four 8TB drives set up using StableBit DrivePool. It's possible installing the software on a second machine will get these drives recognized, but the only way to check would be to actually do it. A safer method I have found instead is to use one of those external sata-to-sata docks used for cloning drives and create a backup of your data that way. Think of it as a way to add drives to Windows, except you only plug in and power it on when you need it.

 

I now have a pair of 16TB drives with all the data from the four other drives backed up. The huge advantage of these external docks is that you can plug the drives into any system and they will work since they don't need partitioning software installed to be recognized or go through a NAS box - it's just a vanilla sata connection. Likewise since the one I have is USB I can run it through a laptop and not just a desktop. That also allows me to back up over wifi and access data over my home network.

 

With a server you may have even more configurability, especially if your backplane does not require RAID controller to work (JBOD). With two servers mirrored in failover you can connect as many drives as you need as single units. Now the backup is the actual hardware itself being duplicated. Even better, should one drive die, the mirror unit in the second server is not only still available, but can be plugged into any other machine, again since it's just a straight sata connection. The advantages to NOT using RAID mean you can get to your data very easily!

In TrueNAS you can import a ZFS pool from any TrueNAS install to another regardless of hardware, as long as you can connect all the drives. The OS does not contain any data relative to the ZFS pool.

You can also save a snapshot of the OS partition to your mounted ZFS pool. In case of a failure, you can reinstall a fresh version of TrueNAS on another SSD and mount the pool to it, then write the snapshot you had of the previous install to your boot drive.

Another way is TrueNAS allows you to save the server config to a text file, including encryption keys and passwords. You can then upload that to any new TrueNAS install and reboot as if nothing was gone.

[Luscious]

7 minutes ago, dbx10 said:

In TrueNAS you can import a ZFS pool from any TrueNAS install to another regardless of hardware, as long as you can connect all the drives. The OS does not contain any data relative to the ZFS pool.

You can also save a snapshot of the OS partition to your mounted ZFS pool. In case of a failure, you can reinstall a fresh version of TrueNAS on another SSD and mount the pool to it, then write the snapshot you had of the previous install to your boot drive.

Another way is TrueNAS allows you to save the server config to a text file, including encryption keys and passwords. You can then upload that to any new TrueNAS install and reboot as if nothing was gone.

Those are some great features to have. I have yet to tinker with TrueNAS but if these do work it will be worth me taking a dive into with my next media server build.

[dbx10]

3 minutes ago, Luscious said:

Those are some great features to have. I have yet to tinker with TrueNAS but if these do work it will be worth me taking a dive into with my next media server build.

If you have questions, I've been running FreeNAS now TrueNAS for years, I'll be happy to help

[MultiGamerClub]

Only getting smaller and smaller.. Never thought it could be this small.

[RAHUL120]

Can you access the files in server from outside the network? Or should be in same as the server is?. Also, I am assuming this server can be access right?

[dbx10]

29 minutes ago, RAHUL120 said:

Can you access the files in server from outside the network? Or should be in same as the server is?. Also, I am assuming this server can be access right?

You can access locally via the file explorer in windows by typing \\{SERVER IP} in the address bar. To access it from outside the local network is a lot more work in order to make it secure, but it's not that difficult. I'd recommend getting familiar with the basics before venturing into software that can potentially open your local network to the internet, but it's not rocket science either.

[bluehawk]

7 hours ago, SidusSol said:

I'm currently running a Synology DS 415play (4 drives, 2 raid 1 sets) and I used to use it for backing up customer files for web design etc and a plex server. I now mainly use it for personal files and plex server and I've been thinking of making my own NAS for a while so this vid was perfect but I have a few questions. Does True Nas support Plex install or have a store like Synology for apps? Does this support transcoding on the fly for streaming or would need a different cpu? My PC has two network cards on board (2.5gb & 1gb) if I build with a board that has the same can I run a network cable direct(crossover maybe) to get 2.5gb performance as I don't have a 2.5gb switch yet. Can you host game servers (Minecraft/ARK etc) on true nas. Any answers would be great!

I think building your own NAS is the way to go. I stupidly got a QNAP cause it was easy but then the thing died on me but I can't just buy a new one and put my drives in because it would need to be the same QNAP I had which isn't made anymore. So annoying 

[Jarsky]

10 hours ago, Tabimeter said:

You kind of stole my idea. I'm building a Nas on plain Debain with CLI via ssh, but i wonder how you can boot without a GPU, do you set something in the UEFI or something? Current Nas state attached as photo .

 

Not really stealing an idea, If you visit the Server & NAS sub forum theres plenty of builds there; and plenty of users to help out with things you have issues with  

Booting without a GPU is quite normal, especially when running in headless. If your system is Halting on no video, then check your UEFI / BIOS, typically the setting is with others such as Halt on No Keyboard. 

[Jarsky]

6 hours ago, t3ch_n1nj4 said:

What other comparable options would one suggest for a good cache drive?

 

Cache drives / L2ARC arent needed in 99% of home use cases. When FreeNAS first became popular it used to be a big thing because memory was limited with most systems being around 4GB of ram, SSDs were still in their infancy and HDD's were often far slower than modern drives. Technology has advanced a lot since those Athlon64 & Pentium 4 days. If you're running remotely modern hardware with 16GB of memory, then the automatically allocated 8GB of ARC is enough to take care of advanced functions like scrubbing / silvering / deduplication. Cache is rarely helpful for home users where the raid is *fast enough* for throughput and latency. 

 

3 hours ago, Luscious said:

Those are some great features to have. I have yet to tinker with TrueNAS but if these do work it will be worth me taking a dive into with my next media server build.

A cool feature about FreeNAS / TrueNAS is that you can mirror the boot device in TrueNAS itself. You effectively create the equivelant of a RAID1 'pool' with them. So if 1 boot device dies, you can remove it, swap it out, and resliver (rebuild) it. Its an extremely robust storage solution with very little need to access it locally. 

 

And as dbx10 pointed out, the pool configuration doesnt reside on TrueNAS, its on the drives. If you do have to move it to another system for some reason, you run a scan and import the pools. Theres been a lot of progress in compatibility between FreeBSD ZFS (TrueNAS Core) and Linux ZFS as well, so in most cases you could even plug it into any solaris or debian based linux, type a handful of commands and it will just work. 

[melbaylon]

Would to see power consumption numbers for server builds in the future. Maybe when LTT Labs is fully set up!

[spasme]

Hey! Not sure if this was covered but what does the idle power consumption look like on this build? 

[dbx10]

59 minutes ago, spasme said:

Hey! Not sure if this was covered but what does the idle power consumption look like on this build? 

for reference my NAS is sorta similar:

 

Ryzen 2600X, 32GB ECC UDIMMS

X470D4U

truenas core on a sata SSD boot drive

1x nvme SSD running Ubuntu server in a VM

7x 4TB drives

 

at idle it pulls about 80W. It's not insignificant but it costs about 3$ a month in power so yea, I don't mind.

[RZomerman]

well they could do a similar video - but then for an external GPU enclose - called Mantiz Saturn Pro 2 - its the exact same enclosure, but with a different IO board in there: Mantiz MZ-03 Saturn Pro EGPU ( V2 ) （ Ship from Feb 18th 2021 ) (mymantiz.com) .. 

 

and now I'm wondering if there are any Mini-ITX mainboards with TB3......

[RZomerman]

17 minutes ago, alifarshad275 said:

do i need to have a lot of internet to have a nas? internet is expensive in my region and its not unlimited.

a NAS is a storage device.. if you have internet or not .. it doesn't matter.. its just a place you can save your files on your network.. 

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, alifarshad275 said:

do i need to have a lot of internet to have a nas? internet is expensive in my region and its not unlimited.

Local storage on your network has nothing to do with your Internet connection (except for determining how fast you can fill it up with "Linux ISOs").

[GoodBytes]

This project is all nice and neat, however what Linus forgot to mention is that with Synology, part of the high price, is the built-in software.

If you only need a network drive, then yea, great. But if you need, say, picture gallery app that can be used remotely, via phones and PCs then sadly you are limited in options. OneCloud kinda has a gallery, but it acts more like a view mode where you see ALL pictures without categories, permissions, and so on. And the rest, to my knowledge. don't.

 

 

[Lurick]

41 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

This project is all nice and neat, however what Linus forgot to mention is that with Synology, part of the high price, is the built-in software.

If you only need a network drive, then yea, great. But if you need, say, picture gallery app that can be used remotely, via phones and PCs then sadly you are limited in options. OneCloud kinda has a gallery, but it acts more like a view mode where you see ALL pictures without categories, permissions, and so on. And the rest, to my knowledge. don't.

 

 

Exactly, you get support and the software as well which can be a good reason to go that route over a $10+/- difference between building your own and risking cramming it into that small of a case and breaking something instead of install drives and done.

Still a fun video but not a "great" value imo