Need a OS first time builder of NAS

[Nena Trinity]

Specs:

* Xeon E5 2666 v3

* X99 board

* ECC memory 32GB

* GTX 960

* 120GB SSD

* 4TB NAS Drice

* ATX case

* 650w PSU

 

[Needfuldoer]

The most commonly recommended options are TrueNAS Scale and Unraid.

 

Personally, I run TrueNAS Scale. It's Linux-based, has built in support for Docker containers, there's an extensive community plug-in library, it supports ZFS out of the box, and it doesn't cost anything.

 

Unraid is free to try, but costs $30 to keep. It's been in a few LTT videos, but I haven't tried it myself.

 

OpenMediaVault is another Linux-based option, but it doesn't get the wide adoption and fanfare TrueNAS does.

[Nena Trinity]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

The most commonly recommended options are TrueNAS Scale and Unraid.

 

Personally, I run TrueNAS Scale. It's Linux-based, has built in support for Docker containers, there's an extensive community plug-in library, it supports ZFS out of the box, and it doesn't cost anything.

 

Unraid is free to try, but costs $30 to keep. It's been in a few LTT videos, but I haven't tried it myself.

 

OpenMediaVault is another Linux-based option, but it doesn't get the wide adoption and fanfare TrueNAS does.

Which one is most plug and play? 

 

Which one is most reliable? 

[tikker]

I run Unraid. The basic license allows for 6 drives and it's currently running 19 TB for me. I use its Docker support to run Plex, some databases and my NextCloud instance. I picked Unraid because it seemd like the simplest one to slowly expand over time. The data is parity protected (with >=2 drives of course), but each drive is still independently readable outside the array as well and it allows you to mix drive sizes. The latter is not ideal really, but it allowed me to also reuse a couple of 1 and 2 TB drives I had lying around while saving for larger capacities.

[Quantum Noisemaker]

10 hours ago, Nena Trinity said:

Which one is most plug and play? 

 

Which one is most reliable? 

"Which one is most plug and play?" Only have experience with Truenas, so can't speak for Unraid, but I find Truenas simple enough, though Unraid may be more plug and play.

 

"Which one is most reliable?" Now this is a loaded question, and it really depends on how your configure each instance. If you are purely after the most reliable NAS, I'd point to Truenas Core over the other two, but Truenas Core doesn't support docker (it's FreeBSD) and isn't as scalable. But realistically, all these options are going to likely be plenty reliable for what you are doing.

 

What is your use case precisely (e.g. a pure NAS, a home media server with plex, some VMs or game servers?)

 

Edit:

See this post from LIGISTX on a recent thread, think it's an excellent summary in this case (note: Freenas = Truenas)

On 7/7/2021 at 10:03 AM, LIGISTX said:

Freenas is great, mostly because ZFS is the file system of the decade (facetious, but, also… it is lol) since it will work harder then almost any other system to retain your data. But ZFS isn’t designed for consumers in mind; it’s designed for the enterprise. With that, it can be difficult to add storage since you have to add new storage via adding new vdevs, each vdev requiring its own redundancy, or you can swap one drive at a time on your current vdev until all drives are of a larger size.

 

This is where unraid comes in. Unraid is a very flexible and home user friendly option that may fit the bill. Don’t bother with OMV, just do freenas or unraid.