Jump to content

Build a small, high-performance NAS (6 bays) for only $392


Bingie

Recommended Posts

It works!

Glad I didn't f*@k it up :P

Sorry for these crappy pics, best my cheap phone can do, but no errors, that's the default BIOS screen.

Hardware list looks right, CPU temp, motherboard temp, cpu voltage, fan speeds, sees my 8GB RAM, my M.2 drive, my WD SATA drive.  I think we're good YAY!  Wow, even with the cover off, this thing is 100% quiet, can't even hear the fans.

I'll fiddle around with it, and leave it on overnight.  Tomorrow I'll start with all the BIOS updates, then install TrueNAS for Debian.  I'm excited w00t :)

Cheers

bios1.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Next morning, server is still fine.  Same temps as last night, same fan speeds.  Pentium Gold idles at 47C, motherboard at 40C, cpu fan 1450, big fan 560, small fan 1440.  Everything looks good.

I'll double check all the screws, make sure nothing came loose overnight, then get started on BIOS and software.

Today, install TrueNAS for Debian (aka TrueNAS Scale).  Play around with that for a while, make sure everything works good.  Then install Docker using the TrueNAS options/doc's.  Then install Emby, using the Emby for Docker install instructions.

First things first.  Coffee...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, that was quick!  Installing TrueNAS took less than a minute.

1.  Download the TrueNAS ISO it's about 1.5GB

2.  If you are using Windows on your desktop pc, download and use RUFUS to burn to a USB stick.  After you click GO, make sure you select the 'dd' option (always do this for linux USB boot ISO's)

3.  The installer is a very trimmed down (simplified) version of the Debian installer.  Basically just asks where to install, and what root password you want.

Finishes install, select shutdown, remove the USB stick, then turn it back on.

You can watch TrueNAS boot up at the console, but once it's up, it turned off my screen.  I guess we're done talking on the server!  I like that.  A server that does NOT install a GUI desktop.  Good job, guys at TrueNAS.  You got that one right.

Okay, I assume it grabbed an IP address from my dhcp server running on the router, so I login to my router's web interface, and sure enough, I see the truenas entry in the locally attached IP addresses.

I open a browser to the truenas IP address (192.168.0.221 in this case) and voila!

I get a login prompt.  User is root, put in password, and we're in!  I like it.

dashboard01.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Q-Droid

Some will say those temps look high but I think that when you're in the BIOS screen the system is not idle. After you install the OS you should see a drop in idle temperature and fan speeds.

The ASRock boards also have a fan utility in BIOS that you can run and it tests for the lowest and highest fan speeds then saves the cooling profile. Works quite well for stock setups.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TrueNAS is only using about 1GB of RAM.  The rest will get used up by ZFS as it caches files.  That's cool.

My guess is Emby will run just fine on this 8GB box, but I went ahead and ordered another 8GB RAM stick, upgraded to 16GB.  Emby only uses a few gigs anyways, so that should be plenty.  I won't be running anything else on this box, it's my dedicated media server.  I'll enable remote access after it's done.  That's about it.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Q-Droid said:

Some will say those temps look high but I think that when you're in the BIOS screen the system is not idle. After you install the OS you should see a drop in idle temperature and fan speeds.

The ASRock boards also have a fan utility in BIOS that you can run and it tests for the lowest and highest fan speeds then saves the cooling profile. Works quite well for stock setups.

 

Thanks, yeah I saw that.  Left BIOS to defaults for now.  I'll go back later and tweak the BIOS.  I'm not sure yet if TrueNAS will let me monitor the cpu/motherboard temp/fans yet.  I hope it does.  I never used TrueNAS before.  We'll see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You were right, cpu idle is at 30C now, according to the TrueNAS dashboard.  That's cool.

I guess the BIOS was busy, or not optimized to run with minimal resource utilization.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No updates?  That's surprising.  This is the first time ever I installed a linux distro from an ISO, and there are no updates!

This is the BETA ISO, was made 2 weeks ago.  I'm surprised there are no updates.  Hope nothing is wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You getting ready to setup your storage pools and install Emby?
Looking forward to seeing this as that's typically when people get a bit hung up with TrueNAS. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hmm TrueNAS is complaining that I only have one drive for main storage.  I was going to add a 2nd drive later, but I get the feeling I need to start with at least 2 drives, in a raid mirroring configuration.  I can force it to use just one drive, but it's admonishing me :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, cayars said:

You getting ready to setup your storage pools and install Emby?
Looking forward to seeing this as that's typically when people get a bit hung up with TrueNAS. :)

Yeah, how hard can it be?  If I can do it, anybody can.  Well, maybe not all the noobs that run Ubuntu LOL :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fun begins. :)

If possible setup 4 exactly same drives right from the start and save grief down the road.

BTW, congrats on the hardware build.

Edited by cayars
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, cayars said:

The fun begins. :)

If possible setup all 4 drives right from the start if possible and save some grief.

BTW, congrats on the hardware build.

Thanks :)

I only own 2x 10TB drives, and one of them is currently in use on my windoze emby server.  This one is the backup drive.  Was going to build this test server with 1 drive, then after done testing, take the drive from the old emby server and add it to this one in a raid mirroring configuration.  I sure hope I can switch from 1 drive to 2 mirrored later.  That would really suck if I have to start with 2.  I'm planning on backing up all of my media to an off-site system anyways.  TrueNAS offers the service, I was thinking of using theirs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"MAIN" pool created...

Up to this point, I've been winging it.  I might have to start reading some documentation LOL :P

Nahhhh I'll just keep going.  I think I'll turn on samba access, and move something over, just for yuks.

main-pool.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just noticed my web browser connection is not secure.  That's not cool.  They shouldn't allow people to remote login to the management interface over an insecure connection.  Looking now to turn that on.  Yes, I'm at home, and nobody *should* be snooping my local LAN, but still, it's just the right thing to do.  My router doesn't force a secure connection either.  Very annoying.

I'll report that as a bug.  I'm sure they are aware of it, but an official bug request might motivate them to turn it on by default.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, had to actually read a little bit to get samba working :P

Before you can turn on samba, you have to add what they call a 'dataset' to the pool, and set it to SMB.  So I deleted the old samba config, created the dataset, then added a new samba config, and voila!  The local users I created now have access to the samba share.  That's cool.

Still can't ssh into the box, haven't found the screen to turn that on yet.  I know how to do it manually via command line, but I don't want to bypass their rather brilliant management interface.  It's gotta be in there somewhere.  I might have to read a doc for this one too :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay that was easy.  Figured out how to turn on ssh.

Went to the services screen, clicked on ssh to turn it on, clicked on option to start it automatically, and viola!  I can now ssh into the nas w00t! :) 

I'm really digging TrueNAS for Debian so far.  It does tend to use a lot of memory though, but this is still beta.  They will probably optimize memory utilization for the general release candidate, which is supposed to start next month in October.  I'm getting in at the right time!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The web interface needs a filesystem browser.  It does have a shell though, can login and look around.  I was using that alot actually, before I figured out how to turn on ssh.  Now every time I set something using the interface, I look in the shell to see what it did.  Pretty cool.

Almost ready for docker.  Might read a little bit first.  Nah...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

did a remote vnc connection to my windows emby server, and made sure it can connect to the truenas emby server.  Works great!  I think samba is done.  I copied a movie over, so I have something to start with, before I install Emby on docker on truenas.  Went ahead and created the samba directory structure on truenas, for all my media libraries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Holy crap, installing Emby on docker was easy!

Just click on the truenas "Launch Docker Image", it has a bunch of option screens, but I just left everything default.  You have to tell it the proper name "emby" (case sensitive) and the repository "emby/embyserver" and that's it.  Leave the rest default, hit the go button, and trunas fetches the package, installs it and launches it automatically.  Viola!

Here is the description it gave me before I hit the go button:

    Application Name: emby
    Version: 2109.0.0
    Docker Image:
        Image repository: emby/embyserver
        Image Tag: latest
        Image Pull Policy: Only pull image if not present on host
    DNS Policy: Use Default DNS Policy where Pod will inherit the name resolution configuration from the node.
    Provide access to node network namespace for the workload: false
    Security Context:
        Privileged Mode: false
    Update Strategy: Create new pods and then kill old ones

 

Checking it out now.  I'm sure it will need some tweaking, but that was nice and easy.

emby.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

went back into the emby docker (edit) and added port forwarding of both tcp and udp from 8096 to 9096, and now I can remote connect to the emby app.

 

docker1.png

docker2.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

almost there, my roku can connect and login to the emby server on truenas, but i'm still trying to get the permissions right to access media libraries... i'll get it eventually, the docs for this stuff on truenas don't exist yet, so tinker tinker tinker :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

w00t my 2nd 8GB RAM stick was just delivered :) I popped it into the server, and as expected, TrueNAS instantly consumed it as NFS cache LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

truenas# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  openzfs
The following packages will be upgraded:
  container-plugins cxgbtool inadyn intel-pcm k3s kube-router libnvpair3
  libuutil3 libzfs5 libzpool5 linux-headers-truenas-amd64
  linux-image-truenas-amd64 linux-truenas-libc-dev middlewared migrate113
  migrate93 minio multus-cni nfs4xdr-acl-tools openseachest python3-aiodocker
  python3-aiorwlock python3-catalog-validation python3-fenced
  python3-glustercli python3-kubernetes-asyncio python3-libzfs
  python3-licenselib python3-midcli python3-netsnmpagent python3-pydevd
  python3-pyroute2 python3-remote-pdb python3-sgio python3-uritemplate
  python3-zettarepl sedutil swagger-ui-dist throttle truecommand-stats truenas
  truenas-binaries truenas-files truenas-samba truenas-webui zectl zfs
  zfs-initramfs zfs-test
49 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 292 MB of archives.
After this operation, 1881 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

I just checked if debian has updates, and discovered truenas says none, but apt-get is showing there are apps to be upgraded, and truenas is holding back the openzfs package.  If I did a manual upgrade, I'd probably break something in TrueNAS.  If that's the case, then I can't really install the debian docker and/or emby as a debian app.

I might have to run a VM, to protect the TrueNAS install, which kind of defeats the entire purpose of docker.  Hmm...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...