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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)

#171

Post by bluGill »

cm2187 wrote: post #111
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m running an 8-drive ZFS RAIDZ2 pool. I’m wondering if you know — are the free space recommendations around ZFS cargo or real? Like I’m already giving up two full drives for redundancy (which saved my ass - I recently had two drives fail on me in quick succession — both SSDs from what looks like an identical batch) but then the advice is kinda saying I need to keep at least another drive worth of space free for the…

For home usage, if you have backups raidz1 is fine (just do an incremental backup at the first sign of trouble). If you don’t have backups, then you probably shouldn’t be running a NAS in the first place.

For most people snapshots are enough backup. It is still useful to have an offsite backup, but realistically fire is rare enough that you can risk it, and that is about the only risk most people have (you can have your NAS in a location likely far from where a fire might break out to reduce the risk farther).

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

#172

Post by MrDOS »

xattt wrote: post #126
MrDOS wrote: post #122

Some other things I find useful on NASes: Install avahi-daemon. Samba will automatically register with it to advertise SMB/CIFS to macOS and Linux clients over DNS-SD. Install wsdd2 so that your server will be auto-discovered by Explorer on Windows 10+ clients with SMB 1.0 disabled, too. Your Linux hostname is probably lower-case, but by default, Samba publishes a capitalized rendering of the hostname to NetBIOS and…

For Samba, add a separate entry for the user home directory because the homes directory default triggers some sort of OCD.

Yeah, the default [homes] share is really not necessary on a home network where you really just want a common share. On my home storage server, I just have a “files” user, and a corresponding, anonymously readable/writable share:

  [public]
     vfs objects = catia fruit streams_xattr
     fruit:encoding = native
  
     comment = Public share
     path = /home/files
     force user = files
     force group = files
     guest ok = yes
     browseable = yes
     read only = no
     create mask = 0644
     directory mask = 0755
  
     readdir_attr:aapl_max_access = no
The default [homes] share is still there in case I need it for anything, but it's “browseable = no” so it doesn't confuse visitors.

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

#173

Post by j1elo »

I'd love reading some blogs about what's the best usage for actually minimal computers, any suggestions?

It always gets me how the world of self-hosting is usually introduced from claiming that you can start giving a second life to a Raspberry Pi or a forgotten laptop, and suddenly the next blog you read calls "minimal" a beast machine meant for racks and semi- or professional environments.

Bought a ThinkCentre M910q with an internal SSD and 16 GB of RAM for €200 a couple years ago... Right now I got it chugging along with TrueNAS + 2 USB disks in ZFS Mirror (sitting in a closed cupboard so no chance of cable disconnections).

For me, "minimal home server" means a small computer that fits on a cabinet on the living room, is practically silent, and has a very small power consumption profile (less than a decent Hetzner otherwise the cost wouldn't be worth it). I have a mini-PC in mind, but people think of Dell PowerEdges. Even if given for free, I would never install at my home a PowerEdge for a home server.

I guess it must be the difference between living on a flat vs a 2 story house :-)

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

#175

Post by fluoridation »

dotancohen wrote: post #69
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would kill (figuratively, anyway) to have no AI whatsoever. No slop machine threatening to replace my job, or turn my job into babysitting its stupidity, and hardware would be reasonably priced? That would be awesome. AI has brought me nothing but downside.

AI has freed most people I know from the tedious job of writing actual emails and birthday greetings - leaving then more time to e.g. wash dishes or clean the floor. Seriously, if arts and creativity is what sets humans apart from other animals, then AI has almost completely displaced our capacity to even consider doing these activities ourselves. People reach for AI when they should be composing a birthday greeting…

Are you being sarcastic? There's no way you believe people couldn't wash dishes or clean floors because of all the emails and birthday greetings they had to write, or that people have almost completely lost the ability to consider making art.

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

#177

Post by dwedge »

j1elo wrote: post #173

I'd love reading some blogs about what's the best usage for actually minimal computers, any suggestions? It always gets me how the world of self-hosting is usually introduced from claiming that you can start giving a second life to a Raspberry Pi or a forgotten laptop, and suddenly the next blog you read calls "minimal" a beast machine meant for racks and semi- or professional environments. Bought a ThinkCentre M910q…

> ThinkCentre M910q

I love these machines. I have 3 of them and an M720Q. Needs changed so only one of each is actually in use, but they are so low profile and quiet that I'm considering deploying the other two at home just in case I ever get the urge to play with K8s or something. The only thing I'm missing is a splitter so I can use one plug socket instead of three - not sure if something like that exists.

One nice little fact about the M910Q is that they are rated to maximum 32GB but I have two of them with 2x32GB no problem. Recent RAM prices and forever regret is the only reason the third one doesn't have the same. The M720Q only takes 32GB though.

You can also run 2 SATA off of the M2, and someone created a 3D printable enclosure for them: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1280680-thinknas-2x-hdd-enc...

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

#178

Post by Cyph0n »

cm2187 wrote: post #111
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m running an 8-drive ZFS RAIDZ2 pool. I’m wondering if you know — are the free space recommendations around ZFS cargo or real? Like I’m already giving up two full drives for redundancy (which saved my ass - I recently had two drives fail on me in quick succession — both SSDs from what looks like an identical batch) but then the advice is kinda saying I need to keep at least another drive worth of space free for the…

For home usage, if you have backups raidz1 is fine (just do an incremental backup at the first sign of trouble). If you don’t have backups, then you probably shouldn’t be running a NAS in the first place.

The middle ground I go with is to structure the pool using datasets and zvols, and then periodically backup the critical ones using zfs send. For example, I can live without my movie collection, but I cannot afford to lose personal photos.

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

#179

Post by sgarland »

wolrah wrote: post #168
realityfactchex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not a great time price-wise to be building a NAS That under-states the matter. It is a terrible time, price-wise, to build a NAS. I'd almost rather have no AI whatsoever and have storage 1/10 the price of pre-AI times. (If there were a magical choice between having AI and significantly more expensive storage, and having no AI and some program to dump that investment money into getting and somehow leveraging signifi…

> I'd almost rather have no AI whatsoever and have storage 1/10 the price of pre-AI times. Almost? ALMOST!?!?! If you handed me a button that would make it like LLMs had never existed I'd be slamming that button so hard Sam Altman's clothes would spin around. Return memory and storage prices to normal, undo the sloppification of ~everything, remove all these annoying "features" that are so useful they have to force t…

Same. Every time I think about this, I come back to the fact that I was excellent at my job before AI, and even enjoyed aspects of it, so I would be fine if tomorrow it all blew up.

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

#180

Post by kartoshechka »

embedding-shape wrote: post #128
kartoshechka wrote: post #51

I found cockpit to be incredibly useful for managing NAS and VPS. Even though any configuration is not an issue with LLMs, having a dashboard with toggles, formatted logs and such is helpful, and I can even run shell commands on phone without ssh. In the NAS case, you can easily see the results of backup/maintenance cronjobs, manage samba (which is a huge pain in the ass to get to work properly on iPhone), and monito…

> and I can even run shell commands on phone without ssh. How do you do the authentication to cockpit, basic HTTP auth in front or something? I've always ended up making my phone SSH-capable rather than dropping down to anything else but public/private keys for authentication to my servers, guess I have a bit of conspiracism when it comes to that.

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