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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a plan on what you’re going to move to?

I’ve used (and still use) UnRaid before but switched to Synology for my data a while back due to both the plug-and-play nature of their systems (it’s been rock solid for me) and easily accessible hard drive trays.

I’ve built 3 UnRaid servers and while I like the software, hardware was always an issue for me. I’d love a 12-bay-style Synology hardware device that I could install whatever I wanted on. I’m just not interested in having to halfway deconstruct a tower to get at 1 hard drive. Hotswap bays are all I want to deal with now.

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Not OP but TrueNAS is a good alternative - both the software and their all in one NAS builds.

I have an unraid on a usb stick somewhere in my rack, but overtime it started feeling limited, and when they began changing their license structure I decided it was time to switch, though I run it on a Dell r720xd instead of one of their builds (my only complaint is the fan noise - i think 730 and up are better in this regard)

Proxmox was also on my short list for hypervisors if you dont want TrueNAS.

I also have a TrueNAS, but because of its limitations (read-only root file system), I came to the conclusion that, if I ever need to reinstall it, I would switch to Proxmox and install TrueNAS as one virtual client, next the other clients for my home lab.

I have found workarounds for the read-only root file system. But they aren't great. I have installed Gentoo with a prefix inside the home directory, which provides me with a working compiler and I can install and update packages. This sort of works.

For running services, I installed jailmaker, which starts a lxc debian, with docker-compose. But I am not so happy about that, because I would rather have an atomic system there. I couldn't figure out how to install Fedora CoreOS inside a lxc container, and if that is even possible. Maybe NixOS would be a another option.

But, as I said, for those services I would rather just run them in Proxmox and only use the TrueNAS for the NAS/ZFS management. That provides more flexibility and better system utilization.

I use TrueNAS Scale as root OS and have it run a Linux VM, which is easily done via their 'Virtualization' feature. No need for Proxmox. Afaik it works a lot better to give zfs direct access to underlying hdds. TrueNAS also has an 'Apps' feature, which are basically glorified helm chart installs on k3s that TrueNAS installs for you. But I prefer more control so I have k8s on the Linux VM. Whats also great is that the k8s on the Linux VM can use the TrueNAS storage via democratic-csi.

https://github.com/democratic-csi/democratic-csi

I was using Truecharts before k8s was deprecated.

The deprecation caused me to move to something more neutral and stay away from all 'native' apps of TrueNAS and migrated to ordinary docker-compose, because that seem to be the most approachable.

I was also looking into running a Talos k8s cluster, but that didn't seem to be as approachable to me and a bit overkill for a single-node setup.

I run Proxmox on the bare metal and pass the HBA through to the TrueNAS VM (so it gets direct access to the attached drives).

> I also have a TrueNAS, but because of its limitations (read-only root file system)

It isn't really the case. TrueNAS wants you to look at it as an appliance so they make it work that way out of the box.

On the previous release, they had only commented out the apt repos but you could write to the root filesystem.

On the latest release, they went a little further and did lock the root filesystem by default but using a single command (`sudo /usr/local/libexec/disable-rootfs-protection`), root becomes writable and the commented out apt repos are restored. It just works.

But AFAIK, updates will overwrite everything, so installing anything is just temporary.

I have both of these releases running side by side for multiple years by now. It will not auto-update between releases anyway similarly to how nobody would do a dist-upgrade on you automatically. Neither have ever overwritten my changes to enable rootfs rw + apt repo fix and other changes to the filesystem, no more than a normal Debian would. Enabling apt actually gets you a more up to date system than you'd get otherwise.

I've been mostly happy with a Terrmaster DAS attached to a mini PC running UnRaid. The bays are hotswappable and overall it's been solid.

I say "mostly" happy because I almost returned it. The USB connection between mini PC and Terramaster would be fine for a few days and then during intense operations like parity checks would disconnect and look like parity error/disk failure, except the disks were fine. Eventually realised the DAS uses power from the USB port as well as the adapter plug and the mini PC wasn't supplying enough power. Since attaching a powered USB hub it's been perfect.

Explanation of symptoms and solution, in case anyone is considering one or has the same problem: https://forum.terra-master.com/en/viewtopic.php?t=5830

I had the same issue, same solution worked for me too.

It works well, but USB connection could be faster, and it bogs down when doing writes with soft-raid. I've been thinking about going for a DAS solution connected directly via SAS, instead. Still musing about what enclosure to use, though.

I haven't used them personally so I can't vouch for them, but UGREEN's NAS line is the same form factor as a Synology unit, but it lets you run any OS. I'd probably put straight Debian on mine and handle it all manually as I do now. I wouldn't be surprised if you could put Unraid on it.

Pretty sure Asustor also allows installing any other Linux you want.

I use a qnap TL-D800S for 8 bays connected to my home server. You could use as many as you have available PCIe ports.

No plans yet. My current NAS setup should be fine for another 2 years.

If it were now, I'd probably look deeper into Asus, QNap or a DIY TrueNAS.

There are a lot of NAS cases you can buy. I have a Jonsbo that I've been pretty happy with for a year or so.

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