Internal Server Boot Medium

[CosmoKramer]

I have a HPE DL380 G8 that I want to use for a TrueNAS server. After reading the TrueNAS forums, they recommended that you do not use a USB drive for the boot drive. I do not want to waste a drive bay for just the operating system. What other internal storage mediums could I use? SATADOM? M.2 to USB?

 

Thanks!

[Blue4130]

22 minutes ago, CosmoKramer said:

I have a HPE DL380 G8 that I want to use for a TrueNAS server. After reading the TrueNAS forums, they recommended that you do not use a USB drive for the boot drive. I do not want to waste a drive bay for just the operating system. What other internal storage mediums could I use? SATADOM? M.2 to USB?

 

Thanks!

Pull the CD drive out and replace it with an ssd. 

[Slayerking92]

Doesn't that HP motherboard have a SD card slot?

[CosmoKramer]

1 minute ago, Slayerking92 said:

Doesn't that HP motherboard have a SD card slot?

Yes but TrueNAS is going to be reading and writing a lot and I do not believe an SD card could withstand that, same goes for USB drives.

[Needfuldoer]

A SATA DOM would be good, if you have a spare SATA port that's either powered or has a four-pin power connector next to it. (Or replace the optical drive with a SATA SSD adapter.)

 

You could also get a PCIe slot to SATA adapter like this one from Other World Computing, and throw a SATA SSD onto it. (I don't know if the HPE Gen8 servers will boot off NVME drives; my R720XD wouldn't even POST with an Optane SSD in a passive adapter.) That would mean using up a PCIe slot for your boot drive though.

 

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDACL6G.S

 

3 hours ago, Slayerking92 said:

Doesn't that HP motherboard have a SD card slot?

[snip]

Those are really intended for hypervisors like ESXi that rarely (if ever) write to their boot media. TrueNAS uses ZFS for its boot volume, and I've heard of it burning through SSDs if you use them in a boot mirror.

[Jarsky]

I'd second a SATADOM if you really need internal boot media and have a spare powered SATA port. Suitable for endurance writes. 

e.g https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-SATADOM-Internal-Solid-State/dp/B00NGBYUW4

[CosmoKramer]

Okay, I'll take a look into SATADOMS and replacing the ODD with a SDD (since who uses CDs or DVDs anymore)

[no.lens.cap]

For the love of uptime do not use SD cards. If anything PXE/iSCSI mount your boot from a reliable storage server. You could also check ebay for a Intel SLC SSD (not MLC), you can pick them up for really cheap and they last forever.

[Robchil]

use the smallest USB 3.0 thumb drive you can get.. easy to remove and if you want to make sure you have spare system. just copy it. to another drive same brand. 

 

i've used this for ESXi/vmware.