Best OS for most flexiblity?

[_Grid21]

Hey everyone. Got a question for you. I just build a home server that's got 40TB of RAID storage I am planning to use for a backup server for my workstation. Right now that server is just running Windows 10 Pro, since most of my home environment is Windows-based. The Motherboard is an old Asus Z87-A, 4790 CPU, and 16GB of ram with a 980Ti The issue I sorta have is that when I went to make the RAID 5 array with the onboard Intel Raid controller, while I understand it's stripe + parity, I am not seeing the full 40TB of the drives, which I understand why, but I wanted to know what better OS could I use for this home server that has better RAID support, maybe ZFS support, for this box. The reason the 980 Ti is in there was a I wanted to have the box serve is a potential streaming server too so it needs to support NVENC. My original idea was I was going to use ProxMox for virtual something like TrueNas/FreeNas to manage the drives, and then virtualize a Windows 10 machine with GPU passthrough, but GPU passthrough is ONLY supported for 4th GEN PCIe which this Asus board obviously doesn't have. Any suggestions of operating system that will allow me to get best of both worlds in one? Also, I REALLY DO NOT want to use Docker, hate it with a fiery passion as I had to use it in a government server testing lab and hated it! 

 

Thanks in advanced! 

[Blue4130]

2 hours ago, _Grid21 said:

 GPU passthrough is ONLY supported for 4th GEN PCIe which this Asus board obviously doesn't have.

Where are you seeing this? I am not aware of that.

[MrSimplicity]

TBH... Unraid. It doesn't handle raid in the traditional sense and yeah, it uses docker but you obviously don't need to use them, though since I've had it it's been flawless. If all you want is the OS to manage drives then use a VM for everything else then it should honestly work for what you need. There was a video on LTT about whether TrueNAS or Unraid was better for VMs and Unraid was without a doubt on top. It even support ZFS now. Ofc there's always the 30 day trial if you just want to test it out and see if you like it.

 

I've also never heard of passthrough not working on older PCIe gen lanes.

[_Grid21]

2 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Where are you seeing this? I am not aware of that.

I watched a video from CraftComputing and in one of his videos, I thought I heard him mention that GPU passthrough was only for Gen 4 PCIe. Plus I think it's something that Linus once said in a video about passthrough unless something changed.

[_Grid21]

2 hours ago, MrSimplicity said:

TBH... Unraid. It doesn't handle raid in the traditional sense and yeah, it uses docker but you obviously don't need to use them, though since I've had it it's been flawless. If all you want is the OS to manage drives then use a VM for everything else then it should honestly work for what you need. There was a video on LTT about whether TrueNAS or Unraid was better for VMs and Unraid was without a doubt on top. It even support ZFS now. Ofc there's always the 30 day trial if you just want to test it out and see if you like it.

 

I've also never heard of passthrough not working on older PCIe gen lanes.

So I could just use Promox, then install install a VM of TrueNAS? Wasn't there a NAS OS called OpenNAS? Or something like that? Also, would I have to build the raid in the OS level and not the hardware level with the Intel Raid controller?

[Blue4130]

31 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

I watched a video from CraftComputing and in one of his videos, I thought I heard him mention that GPU passthrough was only for Gen 4 PCIe. Plus I think it's something that Linus once said in a video about passthrough unless something changed.

You must have misunderstood what he was saying. Passthrough woks fine with older gen cards. If it didn't, then craft computing would not have been using the old quadro cards.

[_Grid21]

9 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

You must have misunderstood what he was saying. Passthrough woks fine with older gen cards. If it didn't, then craft computing would not have been using the old quadro cards.

So should I go ahead and install Proxmox and then virtual TrueNAS to handle my raid drives?

[Electronics Wizardy]

46 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

So should I go ahead and install Proxmox and then virtual TrueNAS to handle my raid drives?

I'd let proxmox handle the raid. It supports zfs and letting the host handle storage lets you be more flexable.

 

Then you can setup a container to do the network share. Look at the turnkey linux containers if you want a easy smb server with a web gui.

[_Grid21]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I'd let proxmox handle the raid. It supports zfs and letting the host handle storage lets you be more flexable.

 

Then you can setup a container to do the network share. Look at the turnkey linux containers if you want a easy smb server with a web gui.

Well let me ask you this then, could I create the data store with Proxmox, and since I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 license, let a virtual Windows Server share out that data to my network? Turn Key was WAY to confusing to me as I didn't understand what was going on or how to use it properly.

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Well let me ask you this then, could I create the data store with Proxmox, and since I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 license, let a virtual Windows Server share out that data to my network? Turn Key was WAY to confusing to me as I didn't understand what was going on or how to use it properly.

sure windows server can work as a nas too. 

 

I'd stay far away from 2012r2 as its almost eol now. 

[Blue4130]

9 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Well let me ask you this then, could I create the data store with Proxmox, and since I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 license, let a virtual Windows Server share out that data to my network? Turn Key was WAY to confusing to me as I didn't understand what was going on or how to use it properly.

You can, but a full win server install is quite bloated if all you are using it for is NAS duty. Linux or truenas or some other more storage focused OS would be a better choice. With that said, if you are more comfortable with Windows environments, it is doable.

[_Grid21]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

sure windows server can work as a nas too. 

 

I'd stay far away from 2012r2 as its almost eol now. 

Well, I don't have the money to pay the massive license price for a newer Windows Server. I don't technically need to have a VM for a virtualized Streaming server, it just seemed like an interesting idea. But since I barely play with VMs these days, should I go with TrueNAS? Or commit to Proxmox for the option to be flexible down the road?

[_Grid21]

1 minute ago, Blue4130 said:

You can, but a full win server install is quite bloated if all you are using it for is NAS duty. Linux or truenas or some other more storage focused OS would be a better choice. With that said, if you are more comfortable with Windows environments, it is doable.

I think what I am also trying to look for is an OS that can do the RAID 5 array but also not cut off so much of my storage. Technically by disk storage, I have 40TB, but as of right now, Windows says I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 29.1 TB. Which is really half of the entire drive set. So I didn't know if that's a Windows issue or the built-in hardware RAID system that the Z87-A Motherboard has. Does TrueNAS allow you to use more of that storage because RAIDZ, maybe I don't know, allow you to have more space?

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Well, I don't have the money to pay the massive license price for a newer Windows Server. I don't technically need to have a VM for a virtualized Streaming server, it just seemed like an interesting idea. But since I barely play with VMs these days, should I go with TrueNAS? Or commit to Proxmox for the option to be flexible down the road?

Windows server 2022 has a 180 day trial you can renew 5 times for about 2.5 years of trial. Then reinstall after than.

 

 

4 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

I think what I am also trying to look for is an OS that can do the RAID 5 array but also not cut off so much of my storage. Technically by disk storage, I have 40TB, but as of right now, Windows says I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 29.1 TB. Which is really half of the entire drive set. So I didn't know if that's a Windows issue or the built-in hardware RAID system that the Z87-A Motherboard has. Does TrueNAS allow you to use more of that storage because RAIDZ, maybe I don't know, allow you to have more space?

Windows server can do a raid 5 just fine, and give you the max space. Storage spaces is powerfull, but powershell happy.

 

 

I'd just do the container, turneky or settting up samba isn't really harder than truenas or windows for a file server.

[_Grid21]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Windows server 2022 has a 180 day trial you can renew 5 times for about 2.5 years of trial. Then reinstall after than.

 

 

Windows server can do a raid 5 just fine, and give you the max space. Storage spaces is powerfull, but powershell happy.

 

 

I'd just do the container, turneky or settting up samba isn't really harder than truenas or windows for a file server.

Does Windows Server 2022 support NVENC encoding? Just curious. And Storage Spaces isn't something I am familiar with, what is it exactly?

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Does Windows Server 2022 support NVENC encoding? Just curious. And Storage Spaces isn't something I am familiar with, what is it exactly?

Yup nvenc works on server 2022. 

 

Storage spaces is the software raid(and other stuff like ssd tiering/caching) system.

[_Grid21]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yup nvenc works on server 2022. 

 

Storage spaces is the software raid(and other stuff like ssd tiering/caching) system.

Well Windows Server 2022 needs a TPM, and the Z87-A Motherboard doesn't have one built in. It's starting to sound like, maybe Proxmox might be my best bet? How difficult would GPU pass-through be to set up down the road if I commit to Prox?

[Blue4130]

18 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

I think what I am also trying to look for is an OS that can do the RAID 5 array but also not cut off so much of my storage. Technically by disk storage, I have 40TB, but as of right now, Windows says I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 29.1 TB. Which is really half of the entire drive set. So I didn't know if that's a Windows issue or the built-in hardware RAID system that the Z87-A Motherboard has. Does TrueNAS allow you to use more of that storage because RAIDZ, maybe I don't know, allow you to have more space?

It doesn't really matter which sorage solution you use, if you are using parity, you are going to loose space. If you do single parity, you will loose basically one drive's worth of data (raid 5, z1, unraid single parity) and each level of parity that you add will basically equal another disk worth of space.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

Well Windows Server 2022 needs a TPM, and the Z87-A Motherboard doesn't have one built in. It's starting to sound like, maybe Proxmox might be my best bet? How difficult would GPU pass-through be to set up down the road if I commit to Prox?

Pretty sure it isn't checked if the system has a TPM, so I don't see any issues running server 2022 on that hardware. Drivers can be a bit of fun at times as some will complain if its not 10/11, but normally will be fine.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, _Grid21 said:

So should I go ahead and install Proxmox and then virtual TrueNAS to handle my raid drives?

For the record, this is what I and many others do. There is no right way to do this, just many options that you can pick from that are best for you

[_Grid21]

2 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

For the record, this is what I and many others do. There is no right way to do this, just many options that you can pick from that are best for you

That's the issue. I am not sure which is the best solution. Also the reason why I know picking windows, say Pro 10, is because I know the support is going to run out. But because I don't always feel so comfortable with Linux, had to deal with it at a former government server testing lab, I am scared to death of screwing up and losing something because I wrote 1 wrong command or pushed 1 wrong button But I need an OS that will do the job without the fear of support running out.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, _Grid21 said:

That's the issue. I am not sure which is the best solution. Also the reason why I know picking windows, say Pro 10, is because I know the support is going to run out. But because I don't always feel so comfortable with Linux, had to deal with it at a former government server testing lab, I am scared to death of screwing up and losing something because I wrote 1 wrong command or pushed 1 wrong button But I need an OS that will do the job without the fear of support running out.

Just saying, you can use windows 11 on that hardware(un offically, but I have ran a lot of system systems without issue).  Then you get the windows world with 10+ years of support.

[_Grid21]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just saying, you can use windows 11 on that hardware(un offically, but I have ran a lot of system systems without issue).  Then you get the windows world with 10+ years of support.

I thought it screams at you if you don't have a TPM and won't even let you install it? Also would it even activate at all?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, _Grid21 said:

I thought it screams at you if you don't have a TPM and won't even let you install it? Also would it even activate at all?

There are lots of ways to bypass the TPM requirement. Use rufus to make the iso and check the box to bypass the requirements is probably the easiest way.

 

It should activate with the same license as 10. You can also run it unactivated without issues(can't change desktop pic or other customization, but will run server apps without problems)

[LIGISTX]

8 minutes ago, _Grid21 said:

That's the issue. I am not sure which is the best solution. Also the reason why I know picking windows, say Pro 10, is because I know the support is going to run out. But because I don't always feel so comfortable with Linux, had to deal with it at a former government server testing lab, I am scared to death of screwing up and losing something because I wrote 1 wrong command or pushed 1 wrong button But I need an OS that will do the job without the fear of support running out.

Something like truenas is really not going to let you mess it up, there shouldn't be any interaction with CLI unless you are an advanced user trying to do something "fancy". I have not used the command line in truenas in literal years, its all just webUI based... And its extremely stable.