BlueAsphalt

From what I've read, truenas doesn't spin down HDDs since they're constantly being checked for errors

You can try using pcie to SATA expansion cards to accommodate more hdds in your first build

Try your luck messaging support explaining the misunderstanding

My rough idea is to go with the raidz1 minimum specs for now but with 16gb ram and minimum power. So three hdds, a boot drive, 16gb ram, and cpu that can handle 2 users on plex simultaneously.

Do you rip each DVD one by one or do you have a ripping machine that works on multiple DVDs at once? I was wondering how much time it would take to build a digital library like this

Could you please post the power consumption and which drives you use? I'm looking into a low budget low power system myself too and this has the added advantage of being small

I second this

Some other things I learnt. To expand storage, you can replace the existing drives one by one within a vdev (the lowest common drive capacity within the vdev will be counted for each drive) or you can add more drives by creating another vdevs. "You can combine differing size vdev's together in a single pool. You only lose the available space on a drive when you combine different sized drives in the same vdev." Once a vdev is created, you cant remove it. And failure of a vdev means the pool will be irrecoverable. Therefore make sure to have higher raids (raidz-2 or higher is preferable) within the vdevs. If I would like to add ssds to my nas (for apps like VM and game servers), it's better to create another pool with them instead of adding them to the hdd pools to take advantage of the higher speed. Got the suggestion from this thread https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/can-you-specify-the-vdev-where-data-is-saved.12963/ There are cache drives in zfs but using RAM is recommended. More ram, the better. Also ECC ram is a high priority https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/ecc-vs-non-ecc-ram-and-zfs.15449/ Powersupply sizing guidance https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/ Also CMR drives > SMR drives, helps while rebuilding raid array (a bit controversial topic) (At this point, this thread is not just about zfs but also intro to hardware but i'm not sure how to edit the title) After picking the right hardware (including disks), how to spot failures early on https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/ Personally, as a newbie, I am not wiling to invest so much money into getting the right hardware so i'll just use old desktops laying around and instead backup to another system regularly so I dont lose data (3-2-1 backup rule !)

This needs to be cleared further as buddy backups was one of the major selling points. Say i create another NAS for buddy backup and place it offsite, it would be natural that the people offsite would like to log into it as well and use its services.

I've been reading up on topics like pools, vdevs, drive testing, how to deal with drive failures, etc on the True NAS forums and came across the resource that does an intro for folks like us with zero knowledge of True NAS and its file system. Link to the forum page: https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/introduction-to-zfs.111/ An other site that had helpful illustrations https://blog.victormendonca.com/2020/11/03/zfs-for-dummies/

This is inappropriate

I would love a guide on what hardware features to look for each of the applications. So what kind of cpu and how much ram would be preferable for which application

second this

i would love this as well

For the average Joe NAS user, being able to add drives which ever is on sale and cost-effective would be an amazing feature. Plus most of us have old desktops which often have mismatched drives so breathing new life into systems without worrying about huge costs down the road (when one would have to upgrade drives) would be amazing! Moreover drive failures are to be expected so dumpster driving drives from old systems would make the maintenance costs more stomachable..... Sorry for dumping so much of my thoughts, thanks for the work being done!