What NAS Pathway to Take?

OfficialBaKa on 22/05/2023 - 22:48
Last edited 22/05/2023 - 22:54 by 1 other user

Hey all, I previously had a HP Z640 that I used mainly for hosting my Plex Server that I shared with some close friends & family. I used the 240gb ssd boot drive to install TrueNAS with an 8TB hard drive for the storage pool. So in my infinite wisdom, I did not have any redundancy setup - alas, my boot drive failed and I have yet to be bothered to get it replaced.

So following the recent lifetime pass for Plex, I want to get my NAS server up and running again, however, I thought I would seek advice regarding the system I am using to host Plex and the other services I use.

What I use: Plex (sharing to several people, maybe a group watch of 4-5 concurrent viewers sometimes), Sonarr, Radarr, (the arr suite). I also occasionally may want to host a game server (Minecraft, 7 Days to Die, Assetto Corsa, etc.)

My priorities: Sound (after using the HP server for a while, the sound is a little bit annoying. Although from what I understand, This is just something that comes with NAS servers because of the HDDs).

I guess my main question is, do I bother getting a new boot drive(s) and extra storage for my HP server, or is there another NAS server that may suit my needs better? I would prefer something that can run TrueNAS as I am familiar with that currently, but open to suggestions as well.

Any help at all for my monkey brain is appreciated greatly, thanks in advance.

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  heynik on 22/05/2023 - 23:04

  +1

  Definitely look at Unraid. Similar to TrueNAS but it has much better community support.
  I built mine from spare parts that were available from my friends.
  The best thing I love about Unraid is the Parity / redundancy drives and you can use any different drive sizes etc to build your NAS.

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  smashman42 on 23/05/2023 - 00:05

  +1

  Honestly, basically all of the NAS distros do the stuff you want, so if you're familiar with FreeNAS/TrueNAS, what is the benefit of changing and what are the downsides?

  Just be glad it was only the boot drive and not your data drive. I wouldn't fix what ain't broke and just fix what is if I were you, then plan to prevent this outcome again.

  The little boot SSD is cheap as chips anyway, so why not buy two and once you get the thing setup right, clone it to the spare one and do so periodically as well - that way its both a backup and downtime prevention.

  Then for the 8TB data drive, you could get some massive cheap USB drive and either run it USB or shucked as a backup drive - if it is large enough you could have a daily rsync folder of the entire 8TB drive and then a weekly rsync folder too. After that consider a 2nd 8TB or similar drive for mirroring (or whatever the ZFS name of that is) for downtime prevention if you have a prob with the 8TB drive (assuming it doesn't corrupt the mirror, RAID/Zx isn't a backup, etc)

  You could even use this as an opportunity to upgrade the data drive to larger drives and use the 8TB as one of many backup drives I guess? How long is a piece of string/how much do you want to spend?

  At the very least, plan some sort of backup solution to prevent this in future

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  garetz on 23/05/2023 - 03:44

  +1

  Low rpm disks reduce the noise it emits, if you are happy with the hp, then get a new boot drive and expand the storage as much as needed.

  personally i prefer an all in one solution like a synology nas. It all depends on your budget and how easy you want it to be.

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  Noppy on 23/05/2023 - 08:23

  +1

  Drive group buy is starting up again check that out for some replacement drives when some parts and prices are listed.

  On the noise front can you look to move the HP to somewhere that it will bother you less?