New server, what OS?

[Psittac]

I have a new server partially setup and I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with it.  I know that I want to run a couple game servers like palworld valheim and dcs but I want to also use it as a NAS and more than likely a Plex server with a little sailing involved.

 

So I was thinking of running it off truenas and launch a couple VM's but I'm not even sure if trueNAS can host VM's?  I've always gone bare metal in the past with windows server so this is entirely new to me.

 

Another consideration is that I want to be able to underclock my CPU and my GPU for power savings because this is my old main machine so it's not very power efficient.  I might run F@H too depending on power usage so underclocking is a must.

 

I've used Linux a few times over the years so may have a VM for that too.

 

System Info:

CPU: 5950x

RAM: 4x8g 3600

GPU: 2080s  (may replace this with an entry level arc for transcoding)

SSD: 2tb nvme + 512g nvme

PSU: 750-850w gold (can't remember exact size and it wasn't on the side of it)

HDD: 8x4tb

raid card: LSI 9260-8i

 

The raid card has become virtually unuseable in win11 so something that can handle it properly would be great, that or I need to work on getting that to function some more.

 

Another question: since all 3 of the games I want to run are steam games..... how do I run multiple servers on one account?

[Needfuldoer]

7 minutes ago, Psittac said:

So I was thinking of running it off truenas and launch a couple VM's but I'm not even sure if trueNAS can host VM's?

Yes it can. It's not as slick as Proxmox, but TrueNAS has both virtual machine hosting and Docker.

 

https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaletutorials/virtualization/

[LIGISTX]

18 minutes ago, Psittac said:

raid card: LSI 9260-8i

 

Make sure its flashed to IT mode for ZFS usage. You really, really, do not want an actual RAID card between your ZFS brains and the bare metal drives. IT mode will turn it into a dumb HBA which is what you want. 

 

Truenas can do it all, or you can go proxmox and virtualize truenas under proxmox and run everything else virtually next to truenas. This is what I do.

[Psittac]

1 hour ago, LIGISTX said:

Make sure its flashed to IT mode for ZFS usage. You really, really, do not want an actual RAID card between your ZFS brains and the bare metal drives. IT mode will turn it into a dumb HBA which is what you want. 

 

Truenas can do it all, or you can go proxmox and virtualize truenas under proxmox and run everything else virtually next to truenas. This is what I do.

*edit: nevermind I forgot that it's a Dell raid card and finally got into it and silenced that damned alarm!!!  Just need to rebuild or something

 

What would be the best way to get into my array using the LSI raid card so I can pull everything off I need to keep?  Will a VM of win10 have access to the array if I pass it through the VM?  Sorry if this is a dumb question but I haven't been able to access my array since going to win11

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, Psittac said:

What would be the best way to get into my array using the LSI raid card so I can pull everything off I need to keep?  Will a VM of win10 have access to the array if I pass it through the VM?  Sorry if this is a dumb question but I haven't been able to access my array since going to win11

Should, yea. Assuming win 10 has the driver.

[SteveBinLaden]

TrueNAS has been pretty good for me, though I do admit that it can be challenging to troubleshoot if you don't know what you're doing. TrueNAS can host VMs, and there shouldn't be any issue with that. You basically designate your display adapters and assign RAM and CPU cores to it and then upload the ISO for the OS you want to run. The one thing I would be concerned about is that you will likely run short on RAM with 32 GB running a VM AND game servers AND a NAS.

[GP781]

On 1/19/2025 at 5:20 PM, Psittac said:

I have a new server partially setup and I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with it.  I know that I want to run a couple game servers like palworld valheim and dcs but I want to also use it as a NAS and more than likely a Plex server with a little sailing involved.

 

So I was thinking of running it off truenas and launch a couple VM's but I'm not even sure if trueNAS can host VM's?  I've always gone bare metal in the past with windows server so this is entirely new to me.

 

Another consideration is that I want to be able to underclock my CPU and my GPU for power savings because this is my old main machine so it's not very power efficient.  I might run F@H too depending on power usage so underclocking is a must.

 

I've used Linux a few times over the years so may have a VM for that too.

 

System Info:

CPU: 5950x

RAM: 4x8g 3600

GPU: 2080s  (may replace this with an entry level arc for transcoding)

SSD: 2tb nvme + 512g nvme

PSU: 750-850w gold (can't remember exact size and it wasn't on the side of it)

HDD: 8x4tb

raid card: LSI 9260-8i

 

The raid card has become virtually unuseable in win11 so something that can handle it properly would be great, that or I need to work on getting that to function some more.

 

Another question: since all 3 of the games I want to run are steam games..... how do I run multiple servers on one account?

I mean I just throw proxmox on stuff and run whatever I want from there, also makes it really easy to test new stuff out, but I can see how this wouldn't work for everyone

[Dankyss]

I can +1 on the Proxmox, I switched from Windows server 2022 and im honestly glad I did

 

On 1/19/2025 at 6:20 PM, Psittac said:

Another question: since all 3 of the games I want to run are steam games..... how do I run multiple servers on one account?

Now the thing is running servers on steam is not like playing games, steam is mostly used to get the actual server runtimes and then you would go launch it from a terminal or however you prefer. Think of steam as a easier way to download the server files themselves. You'll have no issues!

[Lochie A]

This is more of a question than an answer but i'm planning on building a new NAS and was also looking at different OS's. Mainly I just want to use it as storage and then potentially run an arma3 server off it as well if my internet can handle it. I was thinking TrueNAS Scale as it's mostly for storage but is there much downside to running proxmox and then trueNAS inside proxmox, even if it is just mostly storage. I can't think of a reason why I would want additional VM's at the moment. 

[Psittac]

6 hours ago, Lochie A said:

run an arma3 server off it as well if my internet can handle it. 

The rest of your post is valid, but this is the part that got me.  I spoke with my buddy who is running a full on plex server with 3g up 3g down and he said that my limiting factor won't be my server, rather it will be my connection.