I’m finally taking the leap from upgrading from a media drive sitting in my desktop PC to a self-build NAS. The parts are on their way and I have to figure out what to do when they actually arrive.
Current setup: Desktop PC with a single 20TB media drive (zfs, 15TB in use)
My knowledge: I use Linux as my daily driver, but I’m far from a power user. I can figure out and fix problems with online resources or the kind help of others like you
The goal: I want to move to a small NAS (2 additional 20TB drives are on their way). The system will have 32GB of DDR5 RAM. 1 disk parity for 40TB of usable storage
What will I use it for:
- Backup for Desktop PC
- Media server (Jellyfin)
- Arr stack
- (other small services int he future?)
My questions:
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What OS should I use? The obvious answers being Unraid or TrueNAS. The 40TB of storage (1 disk parity) will likely be enough for a couple of years. So adding additional drives is not planned for some time.
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How can I import the data from my current drive to the NAS? I am very new to the topic and my initial searches were not that helpful. With Unraid I should just be able to setup the first two disks and import the data from the other. I am unsure how to accomplish that with TrueNAS.
Some advice and tips would be great. Feel free to ask for more details if I forgot some crucial info.
Thanks for reading!
I’ve also recently built my own NAS and I’ve gone through similar considerations. One of my mayor decisions was not to use btrfs because it’s not recommended for Raid Z1/Raid 5. With that, I landed on ZFS and TrueNAS Scale. Note that RAID expansion should be landing in both very soon.
Things with TrueNAS were pretty easy, very quick, and everything worked nicely. However, I noticed that it was constantly accessing the disks and preventing them from spinning down. I really wanted to keep the power consumption low (<20 W idle), so I eventually decided to just go with Vanilla Debian + ZFS. I can recommend that if you want to tinker with things yourself. Otherwise, I’d recommend TrueNAS Scale.
As for migration, you might be able to create a degraded pool initially, copy over the data, and add the parity disk last. Raid expansion would ofc also help there…
I actually asked in the TrueNAS forum about this idea. According to some knowledgeable users this might work. For anyone interested, details here. The next major release (planned for end of October), should make this easier.