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Hi All, I'm super excited about this project and I finally have all the components I need for my new NAS, I wanted something small, quiet and with decent power, here is the breakdown: TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus 48GB DDR5 RAM - TerraMaster says it only supports 32GB, but it seems to work fine 8 x 8TB WD Black SX850X NVME drives 512GB NVME Boot Drive - This is a 2230 nvme inside a small USB case and connected to the internal USB port on the motherboard where the TOS USB drive lives. The only downside is that this is only USB2. Things to note: There seems to be an incompatibility with the Debian backend which resulted in the system to go into a boot loop. To fix this I had to make the following changes in the BIOS Disable Secure Boot Disable VT-d Disable ‘Boot TOS first’ Once this was done I was able to install HexOS, all 8 nvme drives were detected and setup with raidZ1 giving me 56TB of total storage. The RAM and 10GB NIC also function correctly, though the dashboard icon displays it as 5GB, however I was able to confirm it is actually 10GB from the terminal. I've setup my first shared folder and performed some basic copy and paste tests, I'll do some proper performance testing and report back. As the Intel processor has an iGPU I will also get Plex installed and test some transcoding. I'll probably wait until version 1 is released before making the jump and migrating all my data from my Synology NAS. Until then, I look forward to testing new features as they are released. Keep up the good work HexOS team 🙂

It happens and welcome to HexOS!

issues is solved for me. Turned out that i had a typo in my registered mail address. Support fixed the issue. Thanks again.

I agree, dockge is like a pocket knife whereas portainer is more of a swiss army knife

@Mobius To be honest, I don't plan on slowing down any time soon. The only factor will be cost. The 12x8TB SSDs I currently have cost me a bit over $300 USD each just one year ago and now cost over $550. Would I be able to expand my pool by slipping in some additional, less expensive, brand/model of the same capacity I wonder?

@jamaican.mekrazy that's a great collection of media but i didn't think you should stop just here. I think i have around 2000 shows and a few hundred movies and i only think about doubling it lol

Hello Nerds! About me...okay, here goes. I acquired the nickname Bull when my boss saw me at work after having cut my hair and shaved my head, He thought I looked like Bull Shannon (Richard Moll) of Night Court. I'm a nerd, through and through and currently live in Maine. I became interested in science and technology in middle school (grades seven and eight), starting with astronomy, photography and later, astrophotography (anything space). At the time the family was living in a ~150 year-old farm and I had set up a little b/w darkroom in the basement. By junior-high, personal computing was just starting out (this was in the early 70's) and I fell in love. I always wanted an S100-bus computer like the IMSAI 8080 or SOL-20, but could never afford one and ended up buying a Radio Shack Model 1 which sported a whopping 4kB of RAM, a monochrome monitor and a cassette tape recorder for permanent storage. I remember learning Basic and a little Assembly and writing my first real program - a simple planetary statistics database. In the late 70's my sister and I were lucky enough to have access to the Bates College Computing Center as mom was employed with the college. From the main terminal room located in the old Corum Library I was able to access the Dartmouth College Time Share and was introduced to what would soon become the internet. I remember spending hours on a program called Xcaliber, chatting with students at Dartmouth, as well as kids of family members there. I even wrote my own chat program that allowed more than the 20-person limit at the time. It was there that I was introduced to C, PL/1 and CPL (Command Processing Language - kind of like Primes version of PowerShell). After school I worked at various places and ended up working for Bates College in the computing department as an electronics technician during the day (doing board-level work as well as assembling PCs for the campus and network wiring) and as a systems operator for a few hours a night doing full and incremental backups of the twin PR1ME 9750 mainframes to high-speed tape. The mid-80's is when I built my first x286 and also selling them to friends through word-of-mouth. It was at this point when I also wrote some software, just for curiosities sake (a database management system, a word processor, a file encryption utility (using an algorthm provided by the very smart son of the Bates College Computing director, as well as a video store POS system for my mom and sister's business). I haven't done much since then, aside from my own personal journey in tech and my love for film and music. And this leads to my confession... I am a data packrat, which is why I became interested in NAS's in the first place. I started storing my photography, movies and music on a 5-bay DAS box in JBOD-mode, but always knew that was a disaster waiting to happen. I currently have over 5,000 films, 200 television shows/streaming series, 500 documentaries, 51,000 songs from 5000 albums covering 377 artists, not to mention my photography library, NFL Superbowl collection, 800 music videos and hundreds of concerts and rockumentaries. I know, I need an intervention. Of course I haven't viewed all of this content. I guess I'm just an archivist at heart. Besides, I'll need something to watch once I retire.

@ubergeek I wish. It's a Briggs & Stratton 12kW (01938-0) propane standby generator that my folks had installed when our 2-story Cape was built back in '89? I think. It gets yearly servicing and is still going strong.

I believe in the HexOS cause as much. Glad to see all my hours of burning midnight oil on the internet condensed into an easy to use platform for everyone to to jump onto the self hosting train. I mean, who doesn't love the peace of mind knowing that comes with knowing your data is safe from prying eyes on a local and fail proof device? Please consider adding ActualBudget to the list of curated apps. I currently have it running on docker + linux and its handy to have for managing personal finances.

I like Dockge. Compared to Portainer feels Dockge more lightweight.

Dockge is much easier to use than i thought and I one button push for deploying gluten, my entire arr stack and qbittorent is really nice.

UPDATE: As of 11/8, we have updated the ISO installer to run on version 25.04.2.6 of TrueNAS SCALE. Existing users should NOT reinstall to get this version. You can update from within the Activity card on the Dashboard (or the Notification). Hello and thank you for joining the HexOS beta program! You are an elite and vital part of this project and your participation is greatly appreciated. This post contains all the information you will need to get started with HexOS and how to communicate with our team during your beta experience. Disclaimer Beta Products, Software, and any related Services are still in development, and therefore, you are advised to safeguard important data, to use caution, and not to rely in any way on the correct functioning or performance of the products, software, or any related services. Beta Products and Services are provided to you “AS IS”, without any warranty whatsoever. Expectations During your participation in the beta, we expect you to do the obvious: use and test the software. But we also expect you to communicate with us when things don’t go right or if you’re having trouble. Please post feedback and let us know about your experiences, good and bad. That being said, please remember that this is beta software and early access. HexOS has a long and healthy roadmap ahead. Quickstart Guide For those that just want to get started, here’s the TLDR: Download the ISO here: https://downloads.hexos.com/TrueNAS-SCALE-25.04.2.6-HexOS.iso or https://hexos-downloads.sfo3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/TrueNAS-SCALE-25.04.2.6-HexOS.iso (SHA256 Checksum: e8ed99a322affe0969b82b866161a9f6acbc1561e3cc7b2efb2bf120ffe2e856) Use a tool such as Balena Etcher to image a USB flash device with the ISO. Boot your server from the flash device and install the OS to preferably an SSD. When given the option, opt to create the admin password in the installer (do not select the option to "Configure using WebUI"). Remove the flash device and reboot your server when the install is complete. From another device (mobile, tablet, desktop) that is on the same LAN as your server, login to https://deck.hexos.com using your HexOS credentials. Follow the instructions to complete your server configuration. NOTE: As of the 24.10.2.2 build of this ISO, configuring the admin password via the webUI option has been removed from the installer. However, if you select to create an admin password, but then attempt to "cancel" that process, the ISO will proceed with an installation with no admin password set. This is a known bug and the TrueNAS team will be addressing this in a future update to the ISO. Just don't cancel out of creating the admin password in the installer ;-). Hardware Requirements Booting HexOS is designed to support a wide variety of x86 hardware (Intel or AMD). The minimum requirements are a 2-core 64-bit CPU, 8GB of memory, and a 16GB or larger SSD boot device. However, depending on your needs for performance and applications, more resources may be required. Storage Pools Pools are made up of storage devices based on size and type (HDDs vs. SSDs). Storage devices in each pool need to be roughly the same size*. The OS boot device cannot be a part of a pool. Expandable pools require a minimum of 3 devices and can be grown one device at a time. Non-expandable pools can be created with 2 devices. Initial pool width should not exceed 8 devices. Maximum expanded pool width should not exceed 12 devices. At least one storage pool must be created to use HexOS. *In the event of slight variations (e.g. 240GB and 256GB), devices can be grouped, but total capacity for the pool will sacrifice the larger device’s excess storage. Build Recommendations HexOS has been designed so that a relatively modern PC can be easily transformed into a very viable home server. This means using standard HDDs/SSDs and using onboard controllers for storage/networking. However, since we’re based on TrueNAS, our hardware support is actually rather vast. For more detailed hardware recommendations for advanced builds, please refer to the TrueNAS SCALE Hardware Guide. Installing in a VM As HexOS is based on TrueNAS SCALE, it can be installed as a virtual machine as well. While the process should be fairly self-explanatory, please see the TrueNAS SCALE documentation for additional instructions on VM installation. Setup and Configuration Once the OS has been installed and rebooted, you will use a web browser on the same network as your server to register your system and complete the setup process. This can be a PC, tablet, or mobile device. Using a capable browser, login to https://deck.hexos.com. Beta 1 Features Our first release is focused on providing a streamlined user experience for setup and configuration and laying the framework for what’s to come. The main features of Beta 1 include: Setup and configuration wizard Configure your home server in minutes with ease. Analyze system health, with warnings for SMR HDDs. Auto-configure storage pools to safeguard against device failures. Securely manage your server remotely via Command Deck. Storage device management Detect error states and conditions and report through the dashboard Highlight individual storage devices and their respective faults Replace devices from storage pools due to failure or preventative maintenance Expand pools as little as one device at a time Folders and users Create and share folders over your local network. Easily manage permissions for secure access. Apps One-click deploy Immich as a personal photo library app. One-click deploy Plex as a home media server. Automatic folder creation for app storage. Dashboard / UI Access key statistics like CPU, memory, network, and storage usage at a glance. Monitor storage health and see alerts for errors or degraded pools. Manage multiple servers from a single, unified interface. Enjoy mobile-responsive design for effortless navigation on any device.