My First Big Boy NAS

[TwoStroke]

I had to open my NAS up to put some new 2.5" SSDs in it for my LANCache to run on as it had just been running on my HDDs as a test, so I figured what better time than now to take some photos and do a post?

Specs:

Case - Sliger CX3702
Motherboard - Asus Pro W680M-ACE SE
CPU - Intel 14600k
Cooler - Noctua NH-D9L
RAM - 2x Kingston 32gb ECC DDR5
HBA - LSI 9400-16i
Power Supply - Corsair 850W SF850L
HDDs - 2x 4tb Ironwolf Pro, 2x 16tb Ironwolf Pro, 2x 18tb Ironwolf Pro
SSDs - 1x 128gb 2.5" Samsung Boot Drive (This is an old SSD that I used to have in a PC?)
          - 2x 2tb NVME Drives
          - 2x 2tb 2.5" SSDs

Notes for people in future - If your rack is 18" deep and the server is 17.72", you won't have room for cables, so I needed to get some tin snips and cut a hole in the back of my rack so that ethernet and power would fit..

 

But then I used tape so it wasn't sharp on the cables! (Also, I promise I vacuumed those spider webs...)

 

Looks just like a bought one! 

Here's a photo before I tidied my rack, still has the old Synology on top of the new NAS before I transferred all my data. I'll add another photo after I get everything back in the rack, I have tidied things up a lot since then

 

Other items in the rack: Synology DS916+ (Replaced with this new NAS)
Intel NUC (Runs my Plex server until HexOS supports intel GPU passthrough)
Eufy Homebase (For my doorbell)
Raspberry Pi 4 running HomeAssistant (Only until HexOS official VM support comes!)
Unifi UDM-SE
Unifi 24Port Pro switch

Edited May 17 by TwoStroke

[TwoStroke]

Next item for me on the list is probably looking at a 10Gbps NIC, but at the moment 2 x 2.5Gbps on the motherboard has been plenty in a bond.

[ubergeek]

The tin snips broke my heart, Bring it to me so I can hit it with the plasma or 4in grinder lol

[Mobius]

very cool setup. 
One recommendation, since you are using a perviously used and older ssd as your boot drive, look into auto backing up your truenas config file maybe in the cloud.
In case the boot drive fails itll just make the process slightly less painful.

That said its probably a good idea for everyone to do this

[TwoStroke]

55 minutes ago, Mobius said:

One recommendation, since you are using a perviously used and older ssd as your boot drive, look into auto backing up your truenas config file maybe in the cloud.

Oooh this is  a *very* good idea. I will get onto this right away. Do you have any recommended tutorials on automating this backup to OneDrive / Google Drive?

 

I am under the assumption that as of right this moment, if it dies and I restore my TrueNAS I can't bring it back into Hex, but this will be something that will be possible in the future.

[TwoStroke]

2 hours ago, ubergeek said:

The tin snips broke my heart, Bring it to me so I can hit it with the plasma or 4in grinder lol

I should probably have thought of a grinder, but my rack is underneath an IKEA butchers block which is my desk, so I didn't want to set that on fire. Or the carpeted floor in my office....

[Mobius]

1 hour ago, TwoStroke said:

Do you have any recommended tutorials on automating this backup to OneDrive / Google Drive?

I haven't actually looked into how to do this myself. I'm still running a test server 😅
I would probably just follow along to a youtube video.

1 hour ago, TwoStroke said:

I am under the assumption that as of right this moment, if it dies and I restore my TrueNAS I can't bring it back into Hex, but this will be something that will be possible in the future.

Officially yes but there are workarounds for at least maintaining your storage. 
i'm not sure yet how nicely hexos plays with restoring app setups for config files.

[Sonic]

3 hours ago, Mobius said:

very cool setup. 
One recommendation, since you are using a perviously used and older ssd as your boot drive, look into auto backing up your truenas config file maybe in the cloud.
In case the boot drive fails itll just make the process slightly less painful.

That said its probably a good idea for everyone to do this

A backup of the Truenas config file is always a good idea. What you could consider is to buy two 128 GB sata SSDs and use them as OS mirror. You can buy a TLC sata 128 gb SSD for approx. 10 to 15 euros. I expect the $ price will be the same. You have a very nice system with pretty good components. I would spend the extra $30,-

Just my 2 cents

[Mawson]

@TwoStroke How are you liking the Sliger NAS case? Do you like the hard drive mounting system?

I have one of their 4u units for my main PC and I love it.