HexOS as a media server?

[markrieder]

Hello, is Hex only suitable as a media server? I heard that ZFS is not energy efficient and disks cannot go into sleep mode, so all disks are always spinning, which is not efficient when I only want a media server. Is that so?

[Jack Kennedy West]

I think it is geared towards Media/Backup. However it is TrueNAS underneath so has VM functionality and all the included apps/docker containers with that.

 

What are you wanting to use it for?

[Mobius]

You can manually set the drives to spin down but in general its not recommended since drives die faster that way.
spinning up and down causing additional wear is not exclusive to zfs.

An all ssd system would likely use much less idle power but that expensive for other reasons.

[markrieder]

Pred 3 hodinami markrieder povedal:

 

First of all, it will serve as a media server. Jellyfin and immich will be installed along with tailscale and that's it for now. I am now using a btrfs based system which supports disk hibernation. If I wanted to set the same thing on Hex where I have, for example, 6 disks, they all have to rotate and consume more energy than the system I'm using now.

Edited February 5, 2025 by markrieder

[Jack Kennedy West]

I suppose that would be a drawback then in your usecase. This thread points out that ZFS can fault drives if they don't spin up fast enough:

 

Guess it's just wether or not it's worth that extra energy to run/having the disks run all the time. Personally i would say the benefits of ZFS outweigh the drawbacks.

 

[Sonic]

I use 5400 RPM HDDs and I setup HDD spindown in the TrueNas interface without any problems. It saves a lot of energy

[markrieder]

For now, I will stay with the system that has everything I need. It offers RAID, docker, VM, disk hibernation, UPS support... I don't even need more. I will patiently wait for Hex to develop.

Edited February 5, 2025 by markrieder

[Sonic]

1 minute ago, markrieder said:

For now, I will stay with the system that has everything I need. It offers RAID, docker, WM, disk hibernation, UPS support... I don't even need more. I will patiently wait for Hex to develop.

You are absolutely right!