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This is well thought approach. One thing to keep in mind. HexOs only supports one pool at the moment. In the future it will support multiple pools. It’s still on the roadmap.

It makes sense, will think about it. Also I want to have a raid of max 4 disks, and if I need to expand, just do a second (HDD) RAID with new disks which I can then expand the system by swapping the disks in the future. So if I would have 4x 8TB, will swap the 8 TB disks with 20 TB in the future (example), that way I don't need to swap *all* disks at once, but can just do a few at the same time, while keeping my hardware (and software) the same.

@Dylan, Robbie is also reading your questions on the HexOs forum 🙂🙃 This is published tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMCHZVsAKdo

It was for more of a because i can since 3 still cost less than one of your previous boot ssd. Ofc you can just do 2 and you'll more than likely be fine. It's more of a future proofing, eventually if you'll want to expand you can expand with 24tb drives which will no doubt go down in price. And your final total capacity will just be that bit higher. Plus 5x24tb with 1 parity drive will use less power than 6x 20tb with one parity drive and give you a similar amount of storage. I first made my storage server around 5 years ago and filled up with 14tb drives now the only good way for me to expand is to get a second system since sata slots in my opinion are pretty valuable I just woke up so sorry if this didn't make too much sense

It looks like they don't sell directly, and I probably will go with the EXOS disks in the end since they are a lot cheaper. In Europe it looks like they are only selling through 3rd party resellers. (at least in my country) Although the disks are a lot lower, based on how they handle import taxes, and also the transport costs, it will be cheaper to get "new ones". Great tip for anyone who doesn't need to worry about this though! So simply put: if you run Linux, try to only use Intel cards? Thanks for all the tips there, Since I won't go for any Plex etc, and I have currently a preference of AMD over Intel (and AM5 is currently easily upgradable for the future) I will stick with AM5 for now. I saw you put the 24 TB disks there, and 3x a 128GB SSD. Why would you go for a 3x 128GB ssd for the OS, wouldn't 2 be enough even for a RAID 1 setup? Also the 24TB are (currently) a bit more expensive per GB, any big reason you went for those, other than: they are bigger? Thanks everyone for there 2Cents 🙂 I haven't decided yet when I will get it, but it's now getting more and more into shape. I might build it in a few months, and will definitely update once I received it how everything's going also with changes, and will share once finished.

BTW, Robbie from Nascompares announced that he will visit AOOSTAR in October 2025.

Let the reviews enter the room 😀. I think the WTR Max, the Zima Cube and the N5 (pro) are only the beginning of series of new NAS / SFF server innovations. I expect to see a lot of new concepts in 2025 / 2026.

So, here’s the link to my Raspberry Pi 5 walnut case. I’ll write more about the Pi in my own topic. https://barebaric.com/en/shop/barebaric-raspberry-pi-5-case-made-from-real-oak-or-walnut-wood-1#attr=14,2,3

If you haven't already i'd definitely check out serverpartdeals.com. Got 4 Exos drives from them and like others said cheaper per TB than Iron wolfs. and even with shipping International, in my case UK, still comes out cheaper.

I've been buying THESE direct from Seagate and have been really impressed with their performance. This also has the benefit of really low chance of counterfeit drives and WAY cheaper prices (though it appears you are in the EU so unsure how the price/shipping would work for you) Best of luck!!

That WTR Max is crazy. I'm really curious how loud that thing is under load (spinning disks/fans) especially compare to the WTR Pro's we have.

Not especially which is why I posted the question. Was hoping a few folks would chime in about new devices being considered. Glad I posted the question as there is really good feedback! Please share the link to the wooden case - that'd be cool to see.

See: https://nascompares.com/2025/02/21/updated-fake-used-seagate-ironwolf-hdds-now-reported-how-to-check-your-drives/ for more background info

This is not really a HexOs issue, It's the lack of good Realtek drivers for Linux based systems.

Review Nascompares: https://nascompares.com/2025/05/16/zimaboard-2-review/

I tried to keep to a similar budget and made the build i would rather have for the price. https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/Wb3wZc cpu: 12700k - cheapest cpu with intel uhd 770 igpu Mobo: asus something or other - has intel nic so theoritcally shouldn't cause you trouble and i like asus motherboards ram: gskill 64gb 5200mhz cl36 - slightly cheaper ram that is slightly faster and personally i like gskill ram, its the only brand i purchase ram from anymore cooler: thermalright peerless assassin 90 - its cheaper, should still fit in case and a reoccuring theme here, i like thermalright coolers os drive - cheaper ssd - its as big as you need, significantly cheaper, from a trusted brand and for fun i made it a triple mirror storage drive- 24tb exos, i like going with big drives and there are 4 of them because we can lol psu: went for a cheaper 750w psu because you have no need for a 850w even at max capacity, we could go even smaller but this one is very efficient edit: seems like i was typing this out before your newest post, so i'll look into it edit 2: i would say just take my list and adjust storage to your preferred budget you may even be able to find new exos drives for less on ebay but as i'm in a different part of the world than you its hard for me to check just make sure with any segate drives your purchase, regardless of how trusted the retailer is, you check the farm data to see if it actually is new.

EXOS is definitely a lot cheaper, and makes a lot of sense, thanks for that tip! I looked into the differences, and what I read, but I am not 100% certain, is that the EXOS is bought in higher bulk, thus is cheaper, as well as that there are a few firmware features that are added to the Ironwolf (Pro) that can make them more expensive. But this is all assuming and not fully certain. I am running Plex as a separated VM, and might add a video card for that machine to help with it, so no Plex / Jellyfin will not run on HexOS. For the network card, thanks, I didn't know that that one was not compatible. I thought that all of the newer generations kind of were supported. Does this have to do, that it's not an intel chip for the network cards? For those who want to follow the updated list is now this: https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/YkMCkf

I personally would go with intel if you plan on hosting a plex or jellyfin server. If you don't it doesn't really matter what you go with. One thing to keep in mind the network interface card (nic) on your motherboard is not compatible with hexos. the cheapest compatible one i could find is this one https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/product/WQTp99/asus-rog-strix-b650e-i-gaming-wifi-mini-itx-am5-motherboard-rog-strix-b650e-i-gaming-wifi However that one is short on sata ports. like your original pick so you will still need a hba card. you should go with the seagate exos drives that are higher end and cost less. (don't ask me to explain why its like this because i have no idea)

Hi all, First of all thanks for all the developers with all the time and effort in this product. I can really see the vision, and hope you will be able to have full 1.0 available soon. While we're waiting for this, I currently am already looking (and maybe already go install it) on a DIY system, which I want to get to replace my Synology (I really hate the direction they are going into now). With this in mind, I am wanting to build a full DIY system since my Synology is also almost nearing it's end of life and possibly I would need to replace it anyway in the next few months / years. This is a work in progress list on what I am going for: https://nl.pcpartpicker.com/list/86bFyW Explanation on what I have with this build: 2 SSD disks, which will be used for HexOS installation. I prefer HexOS to also have a redundant disk. 2 NVMe disks, for supper fast-storage / VM's I might run 3 HDD disks for general storage, I don't need speed for that, but want to make sure it's durable. What I want to keep from the list: 3 HDD's for 20 TB (or more) since I think it's currently the sweet spot for storage per GB. These disks I require to be "NAS" based disks. 2 NVMe disks. I think the 2 TB is the sweet-spot, so I am selecting these. I don't need the fastest, since it won't run much etc, but prefer to have it like this The case I really like. If there is something similar to this case which you'd recommend, please let me know, but I kind of already want to have this case. Everything else is up to debate. I don't want a *to* power hungry system, but I want to run at least a few VM's. it would be like 1 or 2 VM's i'm running, only for backup if my main server would suddenly die, and I need to recover files. The amount of memory is a bit based on the amount of storage that's used + a little overhead for the VM's. If you'd recommend less, tell me why, if I should need to do more, please explain 🙂 . I am leaning more towards AMD since I think their performance is slightly better than Intel right now, but I am not saying I won't go for Intel. Also, I prefer to go with new so I know that I'm the first user, and not that someone already used almost everything, as well as have the warranty with it. What is the thoughts of other people? Did I pick good? did I do overkill, did I pick something that's not good enough? What would you recommend etc. Thanks in advance!

Did you also spot some interesting new hardware?

excellent platform to try a lot of things. 2,5 gbe NIC's is a really nice upgrade. Also nice to experiment with 3d printed cases

I'm very new to HexOS and any type of NAS and I had the same issue as you and others. I tried changing the DNS settings like @CuppahJoe shared. It didn't seem to work at first. I left it along and this morning I tried installing Plex and Immich and they worked! I don't know if there's something to waiting a long time before trying again, but that helped. Your post was almost a month ago. Were you able to get it working, or did you still need help?

I'm backing the new ZimaBoard 2 and look forward to trying many things. One is to get HexOS running on Proxmox.

i have over 50tb of personal blu ray rips and linux isos with so many more blu rays i want to add. I'm eventually gonna combine my old server and current hexos machine (which has an empty 50tb) into one bigger 100+ tb server. once it gets that big itll also be used to replace google photos and computer storage. I'd get to stop purchasing anything more than the base storage for macbooks and phones.

Heh, no apologies, definitely needed some micro-stress reductions in this blog!! Just nice to warn people.. I'll not forget that episode of the wan show that began with a load of swear words... I was watching with my daughter who was just learning to talk 🤣