Ioannis

Hi there @DomSmith, I like your "think client" endeavors. I had can't across such an expansion card myself, but I was wondering "how do I power up the drives that I connect there?". How would you do that. Care to throw some ideas? I may end up using some in the future for my build. Thanks in advance, keep up! Cheers!

@Archion, I agree with Dylan above. Personally, I love when people are re-using HW instead of e-wasting. It's practical, amazing and environmental friendly! The only downsize might be power-efficiency, and even for that I am not sure! I also like that you replace an "EOL Synology DS412+" with what will be a beast 😛 haha. Keep it on! That being said, I also used 2nd hand all parts, except of the drives. I hope that my system will last me for 5-9 years and it can only get two drives (consequently they are mirrored). So just to be on the safe side I decided to get new drives.

So, probably the final HW update. (for now at least, for now 😉) Let's recap. I bought a second hand office pc HP EliteDesk 800 G5 SFF (250 swiss francs) CPU i7-9700 (8-Core) 16 GB DDR4-2666 (1 stick) 256 nvme SSD Upgrades another 16 GB DDR4-2666 (1 stick; now two empty, 34 euro) 2 x new Seagate IronWolf 6 TB, 3.5", CMR (for a total of 296 swiss francs) Special mounting screws were needed (18 euro; rip-off; I did not want to put zip ties) another 256 nvme SSD (15 swiss francs; to mirror the boot drive) Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express 1x expansion card, 2-port (29 swiss francs; the montherboard's ethernet port was not recognized;) ... and still exploring. Total (arpox.) cost in USD: System 360 + Drives 325 appart from the drives, which I hope I chose well The system is not cheap, not too expensive and although it can now only be expanded/upgrade through PCIe slots I hope it will last me for 5-9 years. Thanks to all for your great advice. Looking forward to

@PsychoWards Thanks for coming back to me! To your points. All my media are already contrained within the 2TB I already mentioned, gathered the last 5-9 years. This is why I assume that currently available space of 6TB. After I mirror the HEXOS boot drive, the case/pc will leave me limited options, but I have already ideas if needed. (1 sata, and several PCI slots available) Not sure yet, if I am going to need to create a VM for a windows machine. But unfortunately, the created of what I need does not have a Docker. These is the least of my concerns anyway, so I will check again, just in case. thanks for pointing it out. I am taking my sweet time indeed, but yet again, I can hardly contain my geeky side 😛 Furthmore, I already ordered a network card and some drives to mirror my HEXOS/boot-drive. I will update the thread after the instalation.

Haha! Got me good! Proof that it isn't only terms and conditions that I don't read!😅 (I should be more careful) Thank you @Joe4evr

I also want to make a mirror boot pool. Was there an option on during the HEXOS installation? I guess not, so if indeed not, then how did you do that? Through TrueNAS? If so, could you send me some good keywords so that I can search online for a relevant guide so that I can do this too? alternatively you already know where a guide is, and then I would love to have that link Thanks in advance for sharing

TL,DR: As @PsychoWards says, I am also expecting the HEXOS developers to create a tool for importing existing pools, and in the meanwhile if you reinstall HEXOS, as long as your pool is not damaged, TrueNAS will see the pool. My long story below: I am far from an expert, but I already had to deal with that, by doing what @PsychoWards describes above. Warning, below is not a guide, bur rather an account/journey of my exploration. After freshly installing HEXOS, I happened to get an error on my storage pool and Since my storage did not had any data at that point plus I did not know how to remake anew the storage pool (actually it is easy through HEXOS, but I was stupid back then) so I decided to reinstall HEXOS Now because of an error (which unfortunately I did not record so I cannot shared with the developers) HEXOS although it could see my drives, it could not make a new pool from them, without any explanation I decided to goof around, and I went to the TrueNAS interface - since I had nothing to lose anyway to do that, you go to you HEXOS settings, https://deck.hexos.com/settings and then I selected TrueNAS. It's quite obvious the "connection to the site is considered not secure", so you need to go advance options and select to procced to the page anyway On the TrueNAS logging screen Username: truenas_admin Password: <here you need to use the password you set up during the installation> Going forward, I suggest you search for real guides on TrueNAS. but since you are here, that's what I did. I went to Storage - https://<your server's ip>/ui/storage and among the options there, you have "import pool" and "create pool" You would need to go "import pool" and follow a proper guide - I went for "create pool" and tried to make a new pool TrueNAS gave me a wardning when I selected the drives, that there was already a pool there, so even there I got a warning of an existing pool now in my case the journy ended there, because Truenas could not create a new pool, but this is related to the error I mentioned before, the one I stupidly didn't recorded. in your case, you would not have this problem. TrueNAS would see your pool, and (i assume) by importing it you would be able to get all your data back

Thank you so much @PsychoWards. Much appreciated for the detailed explanations and suggestions. Everything you wrote seems to click in place like a perfectly placed Lego. In the near future, I will go and work over everything you said with diligence. The "for the moment status": I had only heard of ZFS, without understanding the significance and difference with Raid. Thanks for letting me know. I will do as you say for the boot drive, getting a second and letting the OS to handle it. For the networking card, Iwill think it strongly. I was also leaning into that idea. My geeky side wants so much to have the ability to extend the drive pool, but my rational side says "no, not yet at least" because: Last 9 years I accumulated less than 2TB, thus I expect the 6TB that I have available in the current mirrored pool to last at least another 5-7 years. After 5-7 years, I am expecting to accumulate some experience with this current built-NAS, and I will be happy to make a new project then. Conciquently investing in a newer, better and more power efficient system. Or maybe not. To be seen. Currently, I wish to restrict everything within this office PC i bought, and I cannot put more 3.5" drives in there. But again, thanks for pointing this out, because although I had already decided on that, I did not know of it (when I was making the decision) and now I know better!!! As for the windows machine. I want the option to run a complicated server, that someone compiled for a windows machine. Maybe i will never do it. Thanks for letting me know. Reading your answer I now know that "running Windows in a VM in Hexos/Truenas if this would be a valid approach" and I will investigate further on how to VM in Truenas a Windows machine. if not for the server I mentioned, I will make the VW just for the "LOLs" and learning. I never thought about SSH. Now that you mention it though it sounds so naturally, and yes I will look into that soon. I will update the thread once take actions, though it will take time since I have limitted time. so much appreciated❤️

Thanks for the reply. I will slowly (as I find time) try to adress your points. Seems reasonalbe all you said, and I will check them out. Thank you for the tips @ubergeek

Maybe you can suggest me: apps to install for a simple family nas a way to access some linux like terminal to try and identify why the motherboard's ethernet port is not working is it already possible to raid 1, two drives, for the OS/boot drive Is it possible to dual boot with Windows? i guess it is not adviced because windows updates might mess up the boot? Alternative? Sorry for asking damn question/suggestions. I am a noob on deep waters, and that's why i wanted and paid for HEXOS

Dear all, To start with: I am a noob with limited time available I have functional needs from this NAS I want to learn, a few things Thanks HEXOS team for this project I came here, from LTT! I bought a second hand an office pc ,HP EliteDesk 800 G5 SFF. After a few upgrades CPU i7-9700 (8-Core) 32 GB DDR4-2666 256 nvme SSD (already there) 2 x new Seagate IronWolf 6 TB, 3.5", CMR System cost - PC 250 CHF + 2x drives 296 CHF I barely have time to spare, but still my target is to learn a few things, built my own NAS and host several other helpfull services. I want everything to be local, not accessible online For the moment, 6TGB (raid 1), are more than enough I got Immich running, which is kind of awesome (local only) I am looking to learn how plex works I am also trying to installed MeTube I would need to check in the future the buddy back-up. To be seen. Problems to solve ahead, and or suggestions/requests I would have form the developers. I cannot connect through my ethernet port. -> mitigation I am using an ethernet to usb adaptor I am currently limited to 100 MBit. I know I should be able to go up to 1 GBit. I am trying to identify the bottleneck. I wish to connect through my motherboard's ethernet port. I am trying to find out why. I have redundancy on my drives, but on the OS/boot drive. I am a noob, and I want to set it and forget it. so I would like to see two things from developers. ability to use two drives for the OS, or create somehow a recovery disk or something be able to recover a previously created pool, if I install again the OS Have fun all! Kindest regards, Ioannis