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How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

neil.computer

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Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#11

Post by burner420042 »

Khaine wrote: post #2

Can anyone recommend a good server for a homelab to use for a storage purpose like this?

I'm sure there's better options now but the HP ProLiant MicroServers (used).

They support ECC ram, 4 caddies, one extra PCIe slot, and to my knowledge you're not cpu limited for a zfs file server usecase.

Keep in mind though, all you need is linux* support, iDRAC, ECC if you're a snob, and drive bays ... and that's basically any free server.

In my extremely opinionated opinion I would only get used enterprise server gear, because a zfs file server will just work unless hardware fails. And a UPS.

*ZFS will be a more natural choice on FreeBSD. It's better documented, and will meet Linux 1:1 in hardware compatibility for this.

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#12

Post by bombcar »

tamimio wrote: post #8

Yeah no. When it comes to backups and data storage, I would rather use a proven reliable system that’s been used and tested by millions of other users, keep these hacky stuff for your hyperland set up.

I've lost more data to "proven reliable systems" than to my homegrown hacked-up stuff (which may be because I trust the latter much less).

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#13

Post by denkmoon »

beagle3 wrote: post #3

I still pay for snooty, and the reason for that is that when a disk goes bad (not if; when) I pop its tray out, replace the disk, pop the tray with the disk back in, click a couple of widgets, and that’s it. I know it will be rebuilt properly. (And I know I have to do that, because when the disk fails it beeps and lights a led near the bad disk) It’s easy to build a NAS such as the one described in this article, but…

That is kind of exactly how zfs works though. The guide isn't complete, sure, but "rebuilding" the array is just replace the disk and run a single zfs command.

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#14

Post by AceJohnny2 »

Tangential, but about this:

> I am creating a RAIDZ1 (RAID 5) zpool. That means 1 drive redundancy in-case of failure

A friend once told me that RAID5 has a high latency cost, because every Write requires a Read to update the stripes across all drives, and while this made sense when drives were expensive, nowadays you might as well do a RAID10 instead, and trade space for latency.

Is this still true with ZFS RAIDZ1?

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#15

Post by ggm »

naturalmovement wrote: post #10

[flagged]

Run ZFS backed filestore on FreeBSD, have migrated it to/from Debian. At work and home, not petabyte scale but certainly multi hundred terrabyte. Over 15 years, on over 50 hosts/NAS/SAN instances, different hardware.

Run ZFS on Raspberry Pi, on home builds, on Intel, on AMD, on other ARM chipsets.

I think you're over-stating things. Debian is fine for this. I do think FreeBSD is a better platform for myself.

The code bases adhere (modulo ZFS version numbers) to a spec and you can safely migrate the pools between OS. I've done it multiple times both directions.

You can not do this with BTRFS and other Linux things, I consider this feature of (Open)ZFS a killer-context for me: It's OS portable. I wish Mac OSX hadn't walked out of the room when Oracle went legal.

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#17

Post by colordrops »

splitbrain wrote: post #6

I came to the same conclusion when I built my NAS. Just Nix for the system, zfs for raid and docker compose for any service I might want to run. https://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2025-08/03-diy_nas_on_nixos

Same, using NixOS as a NAS, though it kept growing and now I'm trying to share it with other people. I use BTRFS on MDADM though. It's ended up being an all-in-one home server and router now because I was tired of the noisy power hungry rack I had in my closet.

https://HomeFree.host

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#18

Post by watermelon0 »

Confiks wrote: post #7

Not a great time price-wise to be building a NAS, but I have been doing so for the last two weeks. Inside a Jonsbo N6 case, which is pretty nice with an 8x SATA backplane and drive bays (unlike the earlier Jonsbo variants). I ended up on shucking 4x the 14 TB WD Elements Desktop. They contain helium drives, the WD140EDGZ in my case, and are about a third cheaper than 4x the 12 TB WD Red Plus drives (which are air-fil…

I've been thinking about building my own NAS as well. Mind sharing how much did you pay for those hard drives, and what motherboard did you choose?

Re: How to Build a Minimal ZFS NAS Without Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS (2024)

#20

Post by simondotau »

Khaine wrote: post #2

Can anyone recommend a good server for a homelab to use for a storage purpose like this?

Not strictly a recommendation, but Terramaster is a good brand to look at if you want Synology-shaped hardware which can run TrueNAS or Proxmox or any flavour of Linux you want.

Along with various other devices (including a large Synology which I wouldn’t buy today), I run Proxmox on a small two bay+two nvme Terramaster. I have a bare bones Ubuntu LXC running Samba configured for Apple Time Machine, an VM running Scrypyed, and PBS for Proxmox backups. Nothing on it is critical so I don’t bother with any storage redundancy.

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