So, I have 6 hard drives that are being repurposed to build a RAID6 NAS for a media server for PLEX and as a place to store files for multiple computers. I have tried using TrueNAS and I found it to be a major pain and quite confusing and frustrating to use.
I wanted to know if it is possible to use something like Linux Mint with it’s pretty desktop and build the RAID6/NAS in there? We do NOT want a distro (like TrueNAS) that can only be accessed via typing in a command through the web.
I am open to all ideas on what distro to use, but I want something that doesn’t require a steep learning curve. We have 6 hard drives, is RAID 6 the best option as it would give me 32TB of useable data with 16 for redundancy.
Shot version:
Which desktop version of Linux can be used to make a RAID6 NAS?
Why would you want a desktop OS for NAS?
If you’re going to use ZFS (for example) it’s pretty much is going to be very similar no matter what OS/distro you’re looking at.
You can set up software raid and share it over a network from any Linux distro, but you’ll be doing it from the command line and there will generally be much more of a learning curve than you would have with a purpose built tool like truenas.
Some people will argue that it’s easier that way, but they usually have a lot of past Linux experience and don’t want to learn a “new” system on top of what they already know.
I don’t know if any all-in-one NAS-focused Linux tools that have a UI that you only manage locally, but there are a LOT of projects out there that I don’t know about.
I’ve found TrueNAS to be really intuitive and have a nice GUI through it’s webserver. Were you using the UI or were you SSHing into the CLI of the instance? In my opinionTrueNAS (or Unraid, etc.) are dedicated solutions to file hosting and will be easier to maintain and keep rolling along in the long term than a linux desktop distro.
This response was helpful. Mint would be the ideal since it has the prettiest and most familiar desktop. I see people recommending TrueNAS…I get it…it is likely the best option. I guess I didn’t make it clear, but while serving as a NAS is this PC’s primary function, we don’t want it to exclusively serve that function.
But it’s just smarter to do a web interface of some sort - less resources and hassle. You do need to do a bit of command line regardless. Something like Open Media Vault could work here, perhaps?
Look, you can totally build a RAID6 NAS with regular desktop Linux. Linux Mint is solid for this - decent hardware support and you can get RAID6 going with the disk tools or just use mdadm. Ubuntu Desktop and Pop!_OS work great too, or check out OpenMediaVault** if you want something that’s got NAS stuff built in but isn’t a pain like TrueNAS. With your 6 drives in RAID6, you’re looking at 4 drives worth of actual storage (so 32TB if you’re running 8TB drives) and you can lose 2 drives before you’re screwed. Just throw your Linux on a separate boot drive, set up the RAID, get Samba running for file sharing and Plex for your media, and you’re good to go with a normal desktop instead of dealing with web interfaces all the time.