Subtext: “One More Computer Will Fix Me”
The Journey
The idea for building my own home network server has been building over time. For as long as I can recall, the idea of having a home based storage appliance has called out to me as being something to eventually pursue. The exact factors that brought me to the crossroads of feeling like I had enough tools to do something was a large hurtle. Within the “NAS” space two different groups of people really exist – people who pay for an out of the box solution and people who build exactly what they want and need. Each group has faults and shortsightedness. The names for the groups are going to be bought and built for simplicity. The bought group are buying pretty good components off the shelf and the total amount of overhead they have spent (time) is relatively low. I was nearly in the “bought” camp after being in the “built” camp for so long that my head was filled with more questions than answers. Each approach has pros and cons with it and each one of these factors should be weighted on an individual basis. The answer to all of the articles I had been reading for years was the TrueNAS Mini X+ or TrueNAS Mini XL+. A single click on Amazon would bring the unit to my doorsteps and all that would be required would be the physical disks. The units (at the time of writing and to the best of my recollection were $1500-$1800) The NAS was added to my cart and then I did some additional research regarding the components. The components didn’t seem like the best ROI for the money and this caused me to fall down an additional research hole to see if I could beat it.
The Problem
- Too Much Data
- Too Many Drives
- Too Many “Streaming” Services
- Too Much Cloud
The posts about my Great Grandfathers data aren’t too far behind me but the minds eye seems time as subjective. This data lives (lived) on a single 8tb disk inside of my main workstation as I continued managing it. This compounded with the data spanning additional hard drives that I have collected over the years yields a large problem. The dream of having this data potentially passed onto generations fades to dust when it is considered that the data will have been in around the same or worse state as when it came to me.
“Try and leave this world a little better than you found it” – Robert B Powell
As has been written many times over here or inside the walls of my own mind, the amount of data that we will continue to curate, create, or consume will only increase over time. This data should be stored and cared for if it is worth keeping. The library system / “Dewey Decimal Classification” was created for a reason after all. The amount of that data that is created in the form of memories / photos / videos isn’t going to go down in resolution or size. This data should be cared for! Currently some of this data lies with multiple cloud providers which don’t have the best track record for privacy or security despite the monthly cost.
This could be it’s own post entirely and maybe it will be in the future. Some of these problems have been created by myself and others have been imposed upon me. The core of my philosophy here isn’t what caused the issue but instead:
The Solution
Built, Not Bought. The solution (tool) is not always the best for the job, but if you enjoy using it and it works good enough – that’s perfection. Given that, the parts I used are great for me. Could things be modified / scaled larger or smaller? Absolutely. Take what works, leave what doesn’t given your own use case.
Parts List:
| Vendor | Purchase Date | Unit Cost | Quantity | Total | Condition | Item Desc |
| Amazon | 4/11/2024 | 60.99 | 2 | 121.98 | New | Kingston NV2 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe Internal SSD | PCIe 4.0 Gen 4×4 | Up to 3500 MB/s | SNV2S/1000G |
| Amazon | 4/11/2024 | 19.99 | 2 | 39.98 | New | Lexar 128GB NS100 SSD 2.5″ SATA III Internal Solid State Drive, Up To 520MB/s Read, Gray (LNS100-128RBNA) |
| Amazon | 4/11/2024 | 8.99 | 2 | 17.98 | New | MHQJRH M.2 2280 SSD heatsink, Double-Sided Heat Sink, with Thermal Silicone pad for PC / PS5 M.2 PCIE NVMe SSD or M.2 SATA SSD |
| Amazon | 4/11/2024 | 249.99 | 1 | 249.99 | New | SilverStone Technology CS382 8-Bay SAS-12G / SATA-6G Hot-swappable High Performance Micro-ATX NAS Chassis, SST-CS382 |
| Amazon | 4/11/2024 | 12.99 | 1 | 12.99 | New | lilila-ree 6 Pin Male to 3X 15 Pin SATA Female Hard Drive Power Adapter Cable for Seasonic Antec Modular Power Supply 20-in |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 26.9 | 1 | 26.9 | New | SATA Card, PCIE 3.0, 4 Port with 4 SATA Cable, SATA Controller Expansion Card with Low Profile Bracket, Non-Raid, Boot as System Disk, Support 4 SATA 3.0 Devices |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 194.99 | 8 | 1559.92 | New | Dell Exos X18 18TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200RPM 3.5-inch Enterprise HDD – ST18000NM002J (Renewed) |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 9.99 | 2 | 19.98 | New | ADCAUDX SATA-III Cable:0.5M,5 Pack SATA 6Gbps Cables Thin SATA Cable,Straight SATA SSD Cable,Flexible-SATA Cable for SSD, HDD, CD, DVD Drives,Blue (1.6FT) |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 8.99 | 1 | 8.99 | New | Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, High Performance Thermal Paste for Cooling All Processors, Graphics Cards and Heat Sinks in Computers and Consoles -1.0 Gram |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 89.99 | 1 | 89.99 | New | Seasonic Focus GM-550, 550W 80+ Gold, Semi-Modular, Fits All ATX Systems, Fan Control in Silent and Cooling Mode, 7 Year Warranty, Perfect Power Supply for Gaming and Various Application, SSR-550GM. |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 221.99 | 1 | 221.99 | New | Intel Core i7-12700K Gaming Desktop Processor with Integrated Graphics and 12 (8P+4E) Cores up to 5.0 GHz Unlocked LGA1700 600 Series Chipset 125W |
| Amazon | 4/8/2024 | 37.9 | 1 | 37.9 | New | be quiet! Pure Rock 2 150W TDP CPU Cooler | Intel-1700 1200 2066 1150 1151 1155 2011-3 Square ILM | AMD-AM4 for Desktop | Black | BK007 |
| Ebay | 4/4/2024 | 1 | Used | Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314 Micro ATX Motherboard LGA 1700 DDR4 W680 – #801 | ||
| Ebay | 4/4/2024 | 354.49 | 1 | 354.49 | Used | Kingston 128GB 4x 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 ECC UDIMM RAM Server Memory KSM32ED8/32ME |
Grand total: $3063.08 ,
Projected storage being:
- 131.04TiB Raw – $23.38/TB
- 92.59TiB Usable – $33.08/TB
The usable storage is less due to the RAIDZ2 configuration which I will cover next.
The Implementation
Hardware with no software to power it is like an engine that is missing a transmission. The software solution that is going to be running on the bare-metal (no other OS installed) above is Truenas Scale. Truenas / Freenas was intimidating to learn up until the introduction of Scale as it was based on FreeBSD. That is an operating system that I have no experience with and would have to learn as an additional barrier to entry. Truenas Scale is based on Debian which I have been using for the past ~10 years and removed this hurtle. Using Truenas Scale you can have virtual machines / docker containers / kubernetes containers to run applications and services that will help your clients and yourself better interface with the disks.
Software configuration was a breeze through the installer and the OS was installed to the pair of 2.5″ SSD’s listed in the parts section. These drives are mirrored which means if one drive fails the OS can still boot. The “pool” configuration is basically setting up your disks to work together and act as a team. I used ZFS2 for my pool which allows for 2 drives to fail before the pool is corrupted. The apps / containers / virtual machines run inside of the mirrored nvme drives for increased speed. I configured photoprism, syncthing and plex media server to begin with and it’s running flawlessly.
The Result
So, if my mission was contained in the following “The components didn’t seem like the best ROI for the money and this caused me to fall down an additional research hole to see if I could beat it.” – Did I succeed?
Absolutely.
Cost Comparison:
- Built (my way) was $3063
- Via IX Systems this would have cost $5698
Specs:
- The Built system CPU is 652% better on benchmark
- The Built system has an additional 64gb of RAM (aka 2x)
- The Built system has additional room to grow
- The Built system has slightly higher power consumption at 96-120 watts vs the bought system at 66.8 watts
- The Built system does only have 2.5g networking but it is across 3 ports and can easily be upgraded with an expansion card. The bought system has 1/10g natively.
This isn’t to dunk on TrueNAS as a company or iX systems, they provide a product that fits a niche. The DIY approach here is still very much the way to go for my money / use case.
I did it My Way (2008 Remastered)