Poor/Lazy mans NAS, FrankeNAS!

I hope everyone is ready for a good laugh! I built this NAS a while back using a OptiPlex mini PC with a Intel® Core™ i5-9500T CPU running at 2.20GHz. I added two 16GB DDR4 memory sticks, but the ZFS cache consumes that quickly. I removed the Wi-Fi card and use 1Gb LAN copper connection for network, and I installed a 1TB drive in the Wi-Fi slot, along with a 1TB SSD above it for “fast storage” in RAID 1. The TrueNAS OS is running on the drive located on top of the OptiPlex, which is connected via USB, while the drives beside it serve as my “slow storage” 1.72tb of mixed storage in RAID1 but they read/write faster than I would of imagined. Once I got everything set up in TrueNAS, the transfer speeds on my home network are impressive!

My question is what now? I have it as a photo and pc backup; feels like I should be doing a lot more with it. I have a Debian VM with Docker and Portainor running on it as well. Any advice would be super useful, I don’t wanna waste this compute power on nothing.

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Does that unit have a PCIe slot? If so, get an external HBA, a disk shelf and cable between them, then populate said disk shelf with large capacity HDD’s and you’re off data hoarding :wink:

Disk shelf: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005901398655.html
Cable: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006615445631.html
External HBA: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004457790634.html

WD Ultrastar 16TB HDD: WD Ultrastar DC HC550 16TB SATA 3.5" Enterprise HDD WUH721816ALE6L4 0F38466 232 | eBay

HTH!

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I believe it has a small PCIe slot, thank you @Dutch_Master . This is exactly the ideas I was looking for. My Ryobi multi tool and 3d printer can made it look good.

Edit: That disk shelf is HUGH, I LOVE IT!!! Digitizing all my girlfriends DVDs and Blu-RAYS!!!

This scares me. I will open up that pc in the morning and do some research.

What exactly scares you about it?

That disk shelf is actually on the smaller side, there are 24 & 48-bay disk shelves if you look in the right places (and are willing to spend! :money_with_wings: )

Would it function with TrueNAS? I hate buying hardware not knowing if it’s going to work? Shelf will fit like a glove though.

I was incorrect, no PCIe, Lenovo’s this size have PCIe but not these Dells. It’s all good, I was trying to turn someone else’s trash into a useful device. Your links really opened my eyes to sick NAS possibilities. Is PCIe the only way to connect to a shelf like that?

Effectively, yes. In theory you may try via USB-C, but then you’d need an external device that translates USB signals to PCIe. I’ve never seen one of those and frankly, I doubt the chipset required even exists.

Having said that, you posted an overview of the system which stated there’s a GPU inside. But also onboard graphics. You may remove the GPU (it’s not like you’d be playing games on that thing, right? :wink: ) and use the slot for the HBA I mentioned.

[edit] the setup is totally transparent for TrueNAS. LMG has similar setups in production use with TrueNAS, browse the LTT channel on YT for more info.

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Thanks for the advise.

That’s a very decent NAS build. Too bad it’s running TrueNAS (yes, I’m very biased against it).

That’s fine. If the OS or other software needs it, zfs will just hand it back.

IDK, it’s up to you. DNS sink-holes are popular, you could install pihole / adguard home / blocky / notrack and set your home’s dhcp server to point to your own DNS proxy first (to block ads and trackers).

If you want to access stuff from the internet to your home, then maybe you could add tailscale to it (I never tried it myself, can’t vouch for it).

Want to host a shared password DB and you’re not using (or you’re not satisfied with) KeePass(XC)? Install VaultWarden. Do you have a movie collection? Format shift it and install jellyfin (note that in some jurisdictions format-shifting is violating copyright, check your local laws).

:man_shrugging:

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Tailscale, VaultWarden and movie collection if it’s legal. Thank a ton!

Thanks everyone for replying, ill just use it as a NAS and TailScale for now. Maybe ill eventually digitize the media i own and make a Plex/Jellyfin container out of it. When my needs out grow what i have ill look into options that have PCIe.

Congrats on your new nas/server, perfectly fine start.

From now on, every time you do something on your regular pc, ask yourself the question “Could my server do that for me?”.

Sometimes the answer is no. Ordering a pizza online is easier to just do on your pc rather than having the server doing it for you. Typing random nonsense on Level1Techs forums is easier to do directly on the pc.

Downloading updates for your pc, that sounds like a task for the server, might not save a huge amount of time in the long run, but do it as a challenge. Doing backups to the cloud, another great job for the server, let it do that during night time. Anything home automation, perfect task for the server. Torrenting, why not let the server deal with that? …and so on and so on…

Three months from now you’re no longer wondering what to do with your server, you’re wondering how the heck you got along without one in the past.

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I have also been meaning to create a Home Assistant Docker Container or a VM with HA on it, not sure if I will the Add-ons that you get only with the VM. I have already configured local backups to the NAS for my desktop and laptop, an occasional cloud backup would be nice too. I have not done any Torrenting in a long time but I like the idea. I will look into making it an update server as well for my PC’s. Thank you for the ideas @Strandvaskeren

This NAS should handle transcoding on Jellyfin correct? I get around 30-40 mbps while transferring files over my network and would never have more than one stream at a time.

38hm3e

do you have a vm server yet?
what about a media NAS?
what about a NAS for VM storage?