Truenas with external 4 bay hard drive enclosure

[Khoomn]

So I want to make a NAS on my proxmox VM but since its a dell optiplex pc being reused, it doesn't have the internal space for the drives so I have to go external. I want to know if TrueNAS Core supports external drive bays like this one and this one. I just want to put the drives in, plug in my drives and run the TrueNAS os through a VM. Would that work or is there more to it? Would proxmox or truenas detect all drives through one cable?

[TimedPing]

1 hour ago, Khoomn said:

So I want to make a NAS on my proxmox VM but since its a dell optiplex pc being reused, it doesn't have the internal space for the drives so I have to go external. I want to know if TrueNAS Core supports external drive bays like this one and this one. I just want to put the drives in, plug in my drives and run the TrueNAS os through a VM. Would that work or is there more to it? Would proxmox or truenas detect all drives through one cable?

Theoretically yes, you can use it, just make sure the external drive bays (which is also called DAS/Direct Attached Storage) is support UASP (USB Attached SCSi Protocol), also, I believe in newer version of TrueNAS, you need to do some trickery to make your USB Drives can be utilized as Data pool instead of just backup drive.

[Khoomn]

4 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

Theoretically yes, you can use it, just make sure the external drive bays (which is also called DAS/Direct Attached Storage) is support UASP (USB Attached SCSi Protocol), also, I believe in newer version of TrueNAS, you need to do some trickery to make your USB Drives can be utilized as Data pool instead of just backup drive.

Not entirely sure how to check if its UASP compatable. They just have USB 3.0 and eSATA

 

Also would it be considered USB drives if i pass them through to truenas? wouldn't it just detect it as a regular hard drive?

[TimedPing]

1 minute ago, Khoomn said:

Not entirely sure how to check if its UASP compatable. They just have USB 3.0 and eSATA

ah my bad, I didn't click at the product you listed, I thought it's only using USB at first. so you gonna passtrough internal SATA port in the Dell or buy add in eSATA controller to the dock? no problem at all, just work like any internal SATA drives would

[Khoomn]

1 minute ago, TimedPing said:

ah my bad, I didn't click at the product you listed, I thought it's only using USB at first. so you gonna passtrough internal SATA port in the Dell or buy add in eSATA controller to the dock? no problem at all, just work like any internal SATA drives would

Yeah I have 1 spot left in the optiplex that i can put an eSATA PCIe card in. That should work?

[TimedPing]

1 minute ago, Khoomn said:

Yeah I have 1 spot left in the optiplex that i can put an eSATA PCIe card in. That should work?

Absolutely! just use more modern eSATA controller, preferably ASMedia ASM116x or JMicron JMB5xx based controller, and probably you gonna need TrueNAS scale for wider SATA controller compatibility (since its running Linux not FreeBSD in TrueNAS core)

[Khoomn]

11 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

Absolutely! just use more modern eSATA controller, preferably ASMedia ASM116x or JMicron JMB5xx based controller, and probably you gonna need TrueNAS scale for wider SATA controller compatibility (since its running Linux not FreeBSD in TrueNAS core)

Both of those controllers look like they are internal and not external.

 

Also what "wider SATA controller capability" do you mean? the two listed below are listed as plug and play

 

I was looking at these two

https://www.amazon.com/eSATA3-0-SATA3-0-Non-Raid-Controller-Support/dp/B09Y1PHD9P

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Port-Express-eSATA-Controller/dp/B00952N2DQ

[TimedPing]

4 minutes ago, Khoomn said:

Also what "wider SATA controller capability" do you mean? the two listed below are listed as plug and play

Plug and play is depend on what OS youre using, especially adding FreeBSD-based TrueNAS core on the mix, which is having some trouble with some controller that not officially supported by default FreeBSD driver set in the kernel. well, both controller card is supported but quite in the older side. I dont remember mentioning "external controller" words tho. Also, the external drive enclosure youre using is using SATA Expander, make sure the eSATA controller you're buying supports the feature.

[TimedPing]

11 minutes ago, Khoomn said:

Both of those controllers look like they are internal and not external.

 

Also what "wider SATA controller capability" do you mean? the two listed below are listed as plug and play

 

I was looking at these two

https://www.amazon.com/eSATA3-0-SATA3-0-Non-Raid-Controller-Support/dp/B09Y1PHD9P

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-Port-Express-eSATA-Controller/dp/B00952N2DQ

You know what? what of Optiplex are you using? is it using standard motherboard form factor? if that so, just transplant the system to the new case, maybe you need a new PSU and some ATX 24 pin to Proprietary Dell PSU adapter, but still cheaper than buying those external enclosure alone.

[Khoomn]

19 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

You know what? what of Optiplex are you using? is it using standard motherboard form factor? if that so, just transplant the system to the new case, maybe you need a new PSU and some ATX 24 pin to Proprietary Dell PSU adapter, but still cheaper than buying those external enclosure alone.

I forget the optiplex model but it has one of those weird MOBOs that is both front and back IO so it doesnt fit the standard.

 

22 minutes ago, TimedPing said:

Plug and play is depend on what OS youre using, especially adding FreeBSD-based TrueNAS core on the mix, which is having some trouble with some controller that not officially supported by default FreeBSD driver set in the kernel. well, both controller card is supported but quite in the older side. I dont remember mentioning "external controller" words tho. Also, the external drive enclosure youre using is using SATA Expander, make sure the eSATA controller you're buying supports the feature.

Also still a bit confused what you mean by "SATA Expander". The Listing just says "eSATA". Even on one of the listings it has the "frequently bought together" with one of the cards i sent as seen below.

[TimedPing]

1 minute ago, Khoomn said:

Also still a bit confused what you mean by "SATA Expander". The Listing just says "eSATA". Even on one of the listings it has the "frequently bought together" with one of the cards i sent as seen below.

well, if that the case, just buy it then , anyway, the sata expander part is in your Syba SY-ENC50104 Enclosure. Remember those controller only provide 2 SATA ports right? which mean 2x Hard drive in total, now, the Syba Enclosure have those SATA expander chip, to multiply those 2x SATA to 4x SATA for 4 hard drive. Those expander usually doesn't play nice with intel and AMD built in SATA port, thus you need external SATA controller that compatible with SATA expander, in this case, the controller that eBay recommend is having those features. And here's more about those SATA Expander part in the Syba Enclosure on the eBay listing:

[Gorgon]

2 hours ago, Khoomn said:

So I want to make a NAS on my proxmox VM but since its a dell optiplex pc being reused, it doesn't have the internal space for the drives so I have to go external. I want to know if TrueNAS Core supports external drive bays like this one and this one. I just want to put the drives in, plug in my drives and run the TrueNAS os through a VM. Would that work or is there more to it? Would proxmox or truenas detect all drives through one cable?

Likely NOT. These devices only have one eSATA port and thus to access all the disks they must have a Port Multiplier. These are problematic as they share a single 6Gbps eSATA connection.

 

What you likely want is a real 4-disk JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) SAS/SATA enclosure with a SFF Connector and a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) with an external connector as well as the appropriate cable.

[Khoomn]

15 hours ago, Gorgon said:

Likely NOT. These devices only have one eSATA port and thus to access all the disks they must have a Port Multiplier. These are problematic as they share a single 6Gbps eSATA connection.

 

What you likely want is a real 4-disk JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) SAS/SATA enclosure with a SFF Connector and a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) with an external connector as well as the appropriate cable.

So there is a synology 5 bay DAS at my work in the ewaste pile, seems to work fine, just need to buy an eSATA PCIe card that supports port multiplication. Is it still dodgy even though its through synology?

[Gorgon]

16 hours ago, Khoomn said:

So there is a synology 5 bay DAS at my work in the ewaste pile, seems to work fine, just need to buy an eSATA PCIe card that supports port multiplication. Is it still dodgy even though its through synology?

I must admit I have no idea never having attempted to use one of these devices. You'll have to do some research but, be aware, that as it is just a single 6Gbps eSATA connection you'll be limiting access from the OS to the Disks and likely limiting performance of the Array. For the DX517 expansion unit, for example, Synology states in the Specifications:

To have better performance, we recommend creating storage volumes physically located within the same NAS or Expansion Unit, rather than creating volumes across your NAS and Expansion Unit.