First server help

[scarecrow813]

Hello,

 

Looking for recommendation on a first home server setup. 

Below are my wants

• NAS with remote access
• Media server
• Home assistant
• Ability to add storage at later date (mismatch storage a plus)
• Data redundancy 
• Prefer GUI interface

 

Having a hard time deciding what operating system I need to achieve above wants. It seems unraid might be the best option, but if a similar solution without cost exists clearly prefer that. Any tips or recommendations is appreciated, thank you. 

[GhostRoadieBL]

with a lot of effort FreeNAS can *(assuming you have major linux skills) do home assistant things. ie irritating VM settings and lacking plugins.

Proxmox is probably your best alternative to unraid, it has a robust (not pretty) interface for zfs and NAS functions but I'd run a FreeNAS VM inside proxmox for the better interface and friendlier user experience.

[Hakarune]

Ghost's Proxmox solution would work well with VMs and what not to accomplish it all. 

 

You could also accomplish it with a debian based server and docker. Using Cockpit and Portainer for GUI. Reverse-proxy docker, VPN, or reverse vpn for remote access. 

 

Both solutions can do raid setups (though it sounds like you're just wanting JBOD with maybe a large backup HDD and not raid. 

[LIGISTX]

18 hours ago, scarecrow813 said:

Hello,

 

Looking for recommendation on a first home server setup. 

Below are my wants

• NAS with remote access
• Media server
• Home assistant
• Ability to add storage at later date (mismatch storage a plus)
• Data redundancy 
• Prefer GUI interface

 

Having a hard time deciding what operating system I need to achieve above wants. It seems unraid might be the best option, but if a similar solution without cost exists clearly prefer that. Any tips or recommendations is appreciated, thank you. 

Honestly… unraid may be your best bet. It’s a lot easier then the other solutions provided. This is coming from someone with a proxmox box and truenas running virtually under it (and many more things).

 

I very much enjoy my homelab and I am personally happy I didn’t go unraid and am using this solution, but I advise careful consideration of the pluses and minuses of ZFS compared to what unraid offers if you want easy expandability down the line. 
 

Both are good options, but unraid is “easier” and more flexible with adding drives, while a solution based on ZFS is less flexible but offers better data resiliency and a VERY well known track record (ZFS isn’t going to have issues, you may mess it up or screw things up… but ZFS is solid as a rock). Getting into virtualizing truenas under proxmox, it isn’t hard, but that’s a whole other layer, and you will need to buy an HBA (which is only like 50 bucks used on eBay, Dell h310 flashed to IT mode with some SAS to SATA cables and you’re good to go. PLENTY of google references for this). 

[Needfuldoer]

On 12/30/2022 at 2:48 PM, GhostRoadieBL said:

with a lot of effort FreeNAS can *(assuming you have major linux skills) do home assistant things. ie irritating VM settings and lacking plugins.

TrueNAS Scale is based on Debian and has extensive VM and container support. You don't have to bodge together BSD jails anymore.

 

https://www.truenas.com/truenas-scale/

 

https://truecharts.org/

[GhostRoadieBL]

2 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

TrueNAS Scale is based on Debian and has extensive VM and container support. You don't have to bodge together BSD jails anymore.

I may have to spin up a trial system with Scale to see how they have fixed the issues I have with Core VM handling.

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

I may have to spin up a trial system with Scale to see how they have fixed the issues I have with Core VM handling.

Yeah, it's all KVM and Docker under the hood. 

[Jarsky]

9 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Yeah, it's all KVM and Docker under the hood. 

It's kubernetes and Bluefin. Docker is just compatible with K3s pods. So it's a bit more complex than Docker under the hood 

 

I still prefer just using Docker for home lab with Portainer. I would second Unraid as well for its simplistic docker integration and its flexible storage with mixed drives and expansion

[voyager_]

On 12/31/2022 at 5:43 AM, LIGISTX said:

Honestly… unraid may be your best bet. It’s a lot easier then the other solutions provided. This is coming from someone with a proxmox box and truenas running virtually under it (and many more things).

Second here for Unraid, It is very easy to setup and manage through a web browser. I only log into the system when it happens to cross my mind just to check on it. It will support mismatched drives and later easy expansion is the main reason that I went with it. Plex works perfectly in a docker and supports ssd pathing for the database, GPU transcoding (you do need plex pass), and supports ram for transcoding. I also have Home assistant running in a VM, I tried the docker originally and ran into limitations running some addons. Running it as a VM was much easier and has been working perfectly for over a year and updates are smooth. Remote access/VPN is easy and there are many options to use.

 

There is great support and information available, it's worth checking out Space Invader and byte my bits on youtube. 

 

I also may be biased, I have two servers running unraid...