Move from QNAP to Truenas Core : HW Setup ?

[Mike68]

Hello,
I am currently using a QNAP 2-bay NAS and the age + recent events in my Ubiquity IPS (QNAP seems to love to call back home…) gave me the motivation to consider moving to Truenas Core.
My requirements are:
1. The NAS should be very quiet (it will be located in my home office room - I got more sensible to noise…; I am running WD Red Plus HDs in the QNAP; I can hear them spinning…)
2. I mostly need SMB file sharing (accessing from a Windows PC) with high data integrity - no VMs, games, mail-server etc. It is for private, personal data.
3. (some kind of automatic OS updates are appreciated…)

I had a hardware setup with a ASRock Deskmini X300 barebone with AMD CPU +16 GB RAM in mind. This barebone has the advantage of 2 SATA HW bays + 2 NVMe bays.
My understanding: I could use a SATA disk for bootup and make a datapool with two 2 TB NVMe SSDs - is that correct?

(Feels a little bit of performance overkill, but quite and fast performance feels nice…)

Any thoughts on this setup? Is there a problem using „normal“ NVME SSD? I do not expect lots of write traffic.

KR Michael

 

[danb35]

Many QNAP devices support TrueNAS natively, as long as they're Intel-based and have sufficient RAM, so that could be an option for you. Otherwise, you really should look into a true server rather than a repurposed desktop machine. If you want compact and quiet, my favorite is the HPE MicroServer series--I really like my Gen10+, but they've gotten stupid expensive lately. This one is just a little more than I paid for mine new, but it's used and doesn't include the power supply:

HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus (Intel Xeon E2224, 16GB) Server for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus (Intel Xeon E2224, 16GB) Server at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Not quite as compact or modern, but still quite capable and quiet, are the Gen8 models. You can get one used with a Xeon CPU for under US$400 shipped (to .us):

TRUENAS READY SERVER HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8, Xeon E3 2.30GHz 4 HDD SLOTS | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for TRUENAS READY SERVER HP Proliant MicroServer Gen8, Xeon E3 2.30GHz 4 HDD SLOTS at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Looks like you might do better in .de:

HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Intel Xeon E3-1220Lv2 2x 2,3GHz 16GB DDR3, ohne HDD | eBay

Entdecken Sie HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 Intel Xeon E3-1220Lv2 2x 2,3GHz 16GB DDR3, ohne HDD in der großen Auswahl bei eBay. Kostenlose Lieferung für viele Artikel!

www.ebay.de

Either way, you get four 3.5" drive bays (not hot-swap, though), an internal USB A port for a boot device, proper remote management (does require an add-on card for the Gen10+, about US$50), ECC support, and all the other server-y goodness we like to see, in a small form factor, quiet machine. If you really want to use NVMe for storage, either system will take a PCIe card that will let you add them. Or you could use standard 2.5" SATA SSDs with adapters in the drive bays--not as quick as NVMe, but still far faster than gigabit Ethernet will handle.

 

[Mike68]

Thanks for the prompt feedback. For clarification (I just happen to see an acceptable ebay offer for a Gen10 Microserver…):
1. It is also possible to put standard WD Red (Plus) drives into the HPE Microserver? They are not somehow locked for HP drives…?
2. Could I use one of the 4 bays for a Truenas (SSD) boot drive and two others for my existing WD Red Plus drives…(this would help in easing the budget questions… ;-) ). (And it is clear, that the WD Reds would be reformatted, data transfer should be organized taking this into account…)
KR Michael

 

[danb35]

It is also possible to put standard WD Red (Plus) drives into the HPE Microserver?

Sure, there are no restrictions on the SATA drives that can be used.

Could I use one of the 4 bays for a Truenas (SSD) boot drive and two others for my existing WD Red Plus drives

Sure. You might not want to, since you only have four bays that could be used for storage, but it's certainly possible. The other fairly-good option would be to connect a small SSD via USB, either to the internal USB port or to one of the external ports.

 

[Mike68]

Once again, thank you for your feedback, I am almost convinced… ;-) when researching the HPE Microserver options, two topics of concern between the Gen10 and Gen10+ came up - feel more than invited to comment:
1. I read in an Amazon comment (and in a HP forum…), that fan control in a Gen10+ device is somehow crippled (fan level is not driven by the temperature sensor, resulting in disturbing fan noise) because of a lack of driver support when running Truenas (as it is not officially supported by HP) - can you comment?
2. Once again: Someone commented, that within a Gen10+ Microserver you are stuck to HP drives - any comments from your side?
(3. Do you happen to have an energy consumption insights? The AMD CPU seems to be more economic, with 35W TDP)

KR Michael
PS: I feel like going for a used two year old Gen10, but the smaller footprint, the higher CPU performance and the warranty of a new device is interesting…)

 

[danb35]

that fan control in a Gen10+ device is somehow crippled

Can't really comment here; I don't run TrueNAS on mine (it's a Proxmox host). But in that context, I've found it to be quite quiet.

Someone commented, that within a Gen10+ Microserver you are stuck to HP drives - any comments from your side?

News to me--I have three SSDs and one spinner in mine, none of them HP.

As far as energy consumption, I had mine (with the Xeon) on a Kill-A-Watt for a while, and I remember seeing numbers around 35W.