What does HexOS "do"?

[steakboy]

I'm trying to conceptualize what HexOS (and TrueNAS) will do, and where it will fit in with my home lab setup needs. I know the main, marketed, talked about feature is storage. Setting up a NAS, raid'ing it, and managing the drives. But then I also see people talking about running Plex, Docker, and other apps. So could HexOS be a 1 stop shop for all my home lab needs? With the notion that if HexOS doesn't directly support it, I can still access the TrueNAS interface and do it myself?
NOTE: When ever I mention HexOS below, assume im also referencing the TrueNAS underbelly too.

I have other questions like:
Can I run a VPN on it?
Will I need to run additional hardware to run MagicDNS, DDNS, or K0p1's cloudflare-ddns-updater for my VPN? Or can I run that directly on HexOS?
People are talking about running VM's on HexOS. This makes me think that in general the answer to my question of "what does HexOS do" is "Anything a hypervisor can do". Are the VM's limited in anyway? (except for architecture limitations, like not running ARM VM's).
When people "install plex on HexOS", are they using a different machine to run plex, and just pointing that server to HexOS for the storage? Or are they actually running everything on HexOS.
People frequently utilize... 'extraneous tools' with their Plex setup, like Ombi or Overseerr. Are they/can they run Ombi or Overseerr on HexOS?
Except for redundancy, performance, or efficiency, is there any reason I would need to run different software on external hardware from HexOS? (Or is it just if I find an app that ONLY runs on something other than TrueNAS)

[PsychoWards]

I cannot exactly answer you what you can do in Truenas concerning Apps/VM, however there are 2 approaches which would likely fit your bill if you want to have 1 server running all your stuff. If NAS is your main purpose and you only need some Apps (Plex, Immich, Home Assistant, Bitwarden etc.) and don't need to run different VMs (some Linux Distro, Windows etc.) Hexos on bare metal should be your way to go.

However if you want to have different VMs running (Ubuntu for Docker, a Windows Server for Minecraft, Opnsense and Hexos) in that case you should use Proxmox as your OS and install Hexos in a VM, because Hexos is mainly a NAS with hypervisor capabilities, if however you need to run multiple VMs Proxmox is your better choice as the OS.

[ubergeek]

To answer short Yes, HexOs could be a all in one shop for a home lab, Hex/Truenas has it advantages and draw backs like other hypervisors. So far in my testing and playing besides the limiting factors on my hardware setup I mainly use it for small Apps , Plex and Immich while using a Dell R730 for my heavy lifting VM's. I have tested both windows and linux Vm's and it performed as expected from a hypervisor. YYou can run a VPN like TailScale or if you have a domain you can use CloudFlare to access things outside of your network with out any issues " it will need setup outside of the Hexos gui ". For the Plex comment  If you have older / slow hardware that would not be suitable to run as a nas and plex, it is easy to run 2 different computers to run plex and have it point back to the shares in HexOs. I have done this previously when I still was using a older Lenovo Ix2 Nas while using plex in a Hyper-V instance .

 

 

For reference this is what i am using my HexOS for at the moment 

[steakboy]

2 hours ago, PsychoWards said:

I cannot exactly answer you what you can do in Truenas concerning Apps/VM, however there are 2 approaches which would likely fit your bill if you want to have 1 server running all your stuff. If NAS is your main purpose and you only need some Apps (Plex, Immich, Home Assistant, Bitwarden etc.) and don't need to run different VMs (some Linux Distro, Windows etc.) Hexos on bare metal should be your way to go.

However if you want to have different VMs running (Ubuntu for Docker, a Windows Server for Minecraft, Opnsense and Hexos) in that case you should use Proxmox as your OS and install Hexos in a VM, because Hexos is mainly a NAS with hypervisor capabilities, if however you need to run multiple VMs Proxmox is your better choice as the OS.

Yes! Ok! This exactly answers my questions. I’m not technically un-savvy.  I’ve been in IT for over a decade, but since I’m young it’s all been cloud and SaaS based. Haven’t dealt with onprem hardware since college. 

[steakboy]

1 hour ago, ubergeek said:

To answer short Yes, HexOs could be a all in one shop for a home lab, Hex/Truenas has it advantages and draw backs like other hypervisors. So far in my testing and playing besides the limiting factors on my hardware setup I mainly use it for small Apps , Plex and Immich while using a Dell R730 for my heavy lifting VM's. I have tested both windows and linux Vm's and it performed as expected from a hypervisor. YYou can run a VPN like TailScale or if you have a domain you can use CloudFlare to access things outside of your network with out any issues " it will need setup outside of the Hexos gui ". For the Plex comment  If you have older / slow hardware that would not be suitable to run as a nas and plex, it is easy to run 2 different computers to run plex and have it point back to the shares in HexOs. I have done this previously when I still was using a older Lenovo Ix2 Nas while using plex in a Hyper-V instance .

 

 

For reference this is what i am using my HexOS for at the moment 

I do have cloudflare with a domain. Does cloudflare offer a free vpn solution? Or do you use tailscale with your cloudflare domain?

[ubergeek]

15 minutes ago, steakboy said:

I do have cloudflare with a domain. Does cloudflare offer a free vpn solution? Or do you use tailscale with your cloudflare domain?

Check out THIS VIDEO HERE