Lower the minimum specifications of RAM

[SignedAdam]

I’d like to run hexos on a device which has 2GB of RAM, with proxmox I can have home assistant running, Plex and even a web server, on one device no nodes, I see no reason as to why hexos couldn’t do it. Just turn some of the extra software features off that people don’t need on these devices.

Edited December 3, 2024 by SignedAdam

[SignedAdam]

8GB is to high requirement, even for today! Think of all the big NAS manufacturers dropping support for there embedded devices, this could replace that

[FadingTempest]

Because it is based on TrueNas there is no way that is ever going to happen due to how it operates.

[darkwheel]

But here there is another thread: 

@WhyCheese got it running with 2 GB of RAM.

[jjoshlin]

with as cheap as ram is, why the fuss to support something so limited? IMHO this would be a waste of dev team's energy for a niche that very few have the need for. Most 1L systems from even 5 years ago came with 8gb.

 

[SignedAdam]

2 hours ago, jjoshlin said:

with as cheap as ram is, why the fuss to support something so limited? IMHO this would be a waste of dev team's energy for a niche that very few have the need for. Most 1L systems from even 5 years ago came with 8gb.

 

But it’s not a niche and being sarcastic won’t make you’re response any more correct than my request?

I dunno why people feel the need to put other people’s suggestions to bed, if you have nothing positive to say, say nothing at all 👍🏻

3 hours ago, FadingTempest said:

Because it is based on TrueNas there is no way that is ever going to happen due to how it operates.

it is based off truenas, that much is true 🤣 and they have made it very clear, they aren’t lowing the minimum requirements? however back in the day when truenas was at the beginning of development, the minimum requirements were much lower.

lots of big and small networking manufacturers, have made network attached storage devices (NAS products) most of these devices have seen support dropped from these big brands, netgear for example, so customers such as my self need a new operating system, in order to keep our devices secure online and up to date, so they can support the latest applications, some will try and argue this is a niche market! however you will be surprised by how many of these devices are still out there! think of windows xp, then windows 7 then 10 now 11 and how Microsoft force people to buy new hardware. 
 

my device, the readynas 422 isn’t that old supporting DDR4 which is just one generation behind in the DDR standard, by supporting these low end devices you gain users and free recommendations, you’d have to be extremely narrowminded and stubborn to ignore the market I am apart of! Yes it has a small amount of on board ram, which can not be swapped but it is still very functional, all the developers need to do is switch off the unnecessary services that will be running in the background, I’m sure none of you have probably bothered to look in service with in windows but I have and there’s a lot of stuff that can be turned off because it’s pointless! 
 

with that I rest my case!

 

 

Edited December 3, 2024 by SignedAdam

[SignedAdam]

I dislike the laziness excuse, if they are here to make a difference and a operating system for us all, then that is what they should do, it’s already been made clear most of the work has been done by another team. so I see no excuses concerning I’m now invested in this project 

[Wave]

It looks like someone tested it out with 2GB RAM and it worked.

However, keep in mind that HexOS is a wrapper functionality with TrueNAS still being the core thing running. By default, most users would want additional features enabled such as data deduplication, advanced caching mechanisms, and data integrity checks. You can get away with a minimum of 2GB of RAM if you turn off those features yourself using TrueNAS backend if you cannot wait for the developers to implement something easier. (it's just a bit more work on your end).

Last but not least, since TrueNAS uses ZFS, it definitely relies heavily on ARC (Adaptive Replacement Cache) to improve read performance. Larger ARC will benefit ZFS performance by reducing disk I/O which is probably the main cause of the high minimum RAM requirements. It will still operate but the performance will suffer a bit.

When you compare this to consumer-based NAS like Synology (good for moderate use/not so serious users), they use BTRFS which is less memory intensive and again it hasn't been proven enough at the large enterprise levels where ZFS has, thus again, high memory requirements for ZFS.

[jjoshlin]

I was not being sarcastic. I have several of the readynas devices still at my house in the dust pile. They were solid units 10 years ago but today they show their age. I do not discredit trying to keep gear out of the e-waste bin but you also have to be realistic about what time the DEV team has. Truenas isn't built to support them as much as I would like to see it; that is outside of the HEX team's scope. 

Step back and look at your scenario you want to build a low cost nas with 2 drives. In the LTT video they show doing that sub $100 before mass storage. Is it advisable for the dev's to delay other tasks that save yourself and maybe a dozen people $100 that are trying to reuse these old nas devices? Or would developing the feature set to edge the project closer to Alpha release be a better use of resources? 

 

You say you dislike lazy excuses, what have you done to work with trunas team to build support for older nas support? If they wanted one to test on, I would be willing to send it to them to dev with. Again none of that falls at HEXOS feet. 

[jjoshlin]

I do not assume you have any experience with truenas, as you state turn off the services not in use. Most of the services are already off by default and a system with 8gb of ram will function. I have one currently that can pitch content to 2 systems via plex okay. The thing is ZFS will utilize any non dedicated system ram to optimize the storage. I would like to see a "truenas core" that only functions as an SMB share to support these older devices, but until then consider an SFF. Similar footprint,  and power draw while having more resources and availability. 

 

A quick search found this one sub $100 shipped, that would enable you to use all of the features of HEXOS.  https://www.ebay.com/itm/135409898635?_skw=i5+7th+gen+16gb+mid+tower&itmmeta=01JE79T776T6EMTTPK7AVTWJVZ&hash=item1f870f148b:g:wZUAAOSwqwtnJTq0&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0HoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKlG8EwDA6DG89Gx2uuGy2NejVPYpfBElw56nEk6hOxOkD6Fx1XIS33IK01uAJMHHWm9QM27%2BBBU8jN%2FcY4CkVTDorTmEkGThHkUJCO92Zl2fqRudLCioqtEK1Dqk%2FwKjWi3htJp%2BXF%2Blre5oQfdfVebvY1Hf0rVmzULshhf75hsjWHf5Pmn7v8cg4cRqaJ1062UHJKSWqguEfGYTwrzQnge7JW280UsN7i45eb2KiY1chvc8%2BjwuTos3sdWASEypjw%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR9zz6OnxZA

[SignedAdam]

1 hour ago, jjoshlin said:

Step back and look at your scenario you want to build a low cost nas with 2 drives. In the LTT video they show doing that sub $100 before mass storage. Is it advisable for the dev's to delay other tasks that save yourself and maybe a dozen people $100 that are trying to reuse these old nas devices? Or would developing the feature set to edge the project closer to Alpha release be a better use of resources?

Who are you to decide what’s worth the developers time and not? 
 

 by adding more devices to this project, they add more customers, more customers = more investment in to the project, I’d say that’s definitely worth the developers time and that = you are WRONG!

[SignedAdam]

1 hour ago, jjoshlin said:

I do not assume you have any experience with truenas, as you state turn off the services not in use. Most of the services are already off by default and a system with 8gb of ram will function. I have one currently that can pitch content to 2 systems via plex okay. The thing is ZFS will utilize any non dedicated system ram to optimize the storage. I would like to see a "truenas core" that only functions as an SMB share to support these older devices, but until then consider an SFF. Similar footprint,  and power draw while having more resources and availability.

I do not mind giving ZFS a miss, and using raid instead, raid does not have such high requirements.

 

you should not assume what you do not know! The best part is no part, if I can get away with what I have on hand, then that is the best part, FYI I do not need to use google or eBay to work that out 

[Scyto]

1 hour ago, SignedAdam said:

I do not mind giving ZFS a miss, and using raid instead, raid does not have such high requirements.

 

fair opinion, not one that is on the roadmap, the point here is for this to simplify truenas, at least at this time the team are committed to using truenas scale as is with ZFS.  TBH there is zero point using truenas as a base if one is not going to use ZFS (for example see ZimaOS which uses normal mdraid and buildroot as its base).

So while your request is fair its unlikely to be on that gets serviced by this project. But hey fingers crossed 😉

[Bill M]

I aswell like to use older hardware and like to keep electronics out of landfills, but when you signed up for the beta they had minimum requirements. I’m just saying when you purchased the beta you knew the minimum requirements were 8GBs of ram, and now your mad HexOS doesn’t support your computers 2GB of ram. In my opinion the HexOS team has a lot more features they could work on that would have a bigger impact than adding support for lower hardware requirements.

[AleiCat]

I have a Supermicro H8SSL-i. It supports... 4GB of RAM. DDR-no-digit. I'd love to run HexOS on it, pull it out of mothballs -- but, being realistic, I don't want to turn off features I could potentially benefit from. I'll need to play with it to figure that all out, and I'm waiting for invite, so it'll be a while. Who knows? Maybe I'll find some config that would work for me and let me use the board; maybe you'll find a config that works for you and allows you to run at 2GB. I think if the devs state 8GB minimum and it can actually run as low as 2GB, then it's likely a case of, 'We don't really support this, but faff about with it if you like and see if it works. We probably won't be able to help you with much if anything, though. GLHF!'

Edited December 4, 2024 by AleiCat
Fixed a typo

[Makani Kai]

I think you should just try installing it and see if it already works. Might be “unsupported” but work fine. Worth a try?

Anyway, TrueNAS itself has a minimum requirement of 8GB so if you want this changed you’d need to start with them.

Edited December 4, 2024 by Makani Kai

[SignedAdam]

3 hours ago, Makani Kai said:

I think you should just try installing it and see if it already works. Might be “unsupported” but work fine. Worth a try?

Anyway, TrueNAS itself has a minimum requirement of 8GB so if you want this changed you’d need to start with them.

I believe the hexos team have more control than maybe even true nas team, true nas will be under some type of expectation from the community to keep all the default settings on, that are using up all the free ram, it’s just a matter of giving the user the control over these settings, or turning them off by default, hexos looks pretty different to truenas. We don’t need all the extra bells and whistles, the interface is all about simplicity for the user, why not the whole inner workings as well?

Edited December 4, 2024 by SignedAdam

[SignedAdam]

Right now it comes across as lipstick on a pig, why not slim down the pig a bit 👍🏻

[amaivt]

I don't think HexOS point is to be solution for all, actually, a custom solutions will always be better for edge cases or non-general thing.

Of course they could in future, and in far future make toggle for different features in installer, but to my understanding HexOS point is to be "plug & play" solution for most.

My NAS / home server runs on NixOS, which is heavily optimized to memory and CPU right now, and I don't think HexOS can even get ever as slimmed down as that, but I'm still switching for HexOS when I get key, to simpler management, and for that Plug & Play feeling.

If your requirement is to have minimal RAM / CPU I would recommend to look other solutions, most likely custom one would fit you best.

[hdd]

@SignedAdam can I suggest that have a look at OpenMediaVault, its might be more of what your looking for. I understand the frustration on the RAM and reuse side of things and have previously found this to be spot on.

Funny tangent, if your not already aware, OMV and TrueNAS (Prev FreeNAS) have a connection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMediaVault#Background

Edited December 5, 2024 by hdd
Adding common history between TN & OMV

[SignedAdam]

8 hours ago, StellarJay said:

Two+ decades of professional IT experience here and this statement is incorrect. HexOS is just as much an operating system as Windows 95 which was built on an MS-DOS foundation just like HexOS is built on TrueNAS. TrueNAS is the engine that runs the processes but it is HexOS that makes the requests and provides a more intuitive user interface for flipping all the various controls, dials and switches that tell TrueNAS how to go about doing things. There are TONS of options available for tailoring the TrueNAS processing for various platform uses and HexOS is precisely targeting home office and small business users who have aging hardware that should be repurposed with more modern software running them to not only reduce E-waste on our planet but to also lessen the burden of having to pay out the nose for hardware that is way more than what is required for those users and make these systems more secure. That leaves TrueNAS able to focus on it's core user base of Enterprise organizations who have Teams of IT professionals who can integrate TrueNAS into their organizations just as is.

That being said, nothing in this thread has precluded us from try to make these aging ReadyNAS boxes a viable option for running a barebones basic configuration of HexOS on and with Dev assistance it is absolutely possible to make an installation that could be easily deployed by some of the less tech savvy individuals who are very interested in the HexOS platform.

 

Edited December 6, 2024 by SignedAdam

[SignedAdam]

Just comes across as people making excuses to do less.

hexos needs to Diversify its self and distance its self from truenas, “be different” the vision set by the interface is a slimmed down operating system with less bells and whistles, while truenas its self has more bells and whistles, which sets the stage for what hexos is, truenas isn’t targeting everyone, truenas is complicated and hexos is looking to de complicate things, lowing the specifications, cutting the fat that’s in the operating system I’d say fits the vision that is hex os, more supported devices = more users and less complications, it also conveniently ends up with more funding, with people wanting licenses, I don’t quite get why people would say the opposite? And say they should focus their resources on anything else, the basics should be something that any operating system vendor should work on or someone that is looking to diversify an operating system like the hexos team are wanting to do here in this market.

[Magnus]

Hi there! Firstly a disclaimer: I'm a designer and not a developer, so I'm not vell versed in the TrueNAS/Linux underpinnings, what Im about to say might not be possible!
 

In the future we might be looking at options to reduce the system requirements for lets say a 2-bay NAS that only needs regular RAID, but its not in the plans right now.

[SignedAdam]

On 12/6/2024 at 11:15 AM, Magnus said:

Hi there! Firstly a disclaimer: I'm a designer and not a developer, so I'm not vell versed in the TrueNAS/Linux underpinnings, what Im about to say might not be possible!
 

In the future we might be looking at options to reduce the system requirements for lets say a 2-bay NAS that only needs regular RAID, but its not in the plans right now.

Great to hear you are considering it! my device has ddr4 ram but only 2gb of it with 2 bays! that’s not an old machine and should be supported especially as I can run other operating systems on it

Edited December 21, 2024 by SignedAdam

[DomSmith]

I think this probably comes down to support and the associated testing and verification.

Hex wraps TrieNAS which runs on Linux.

The underlying distro will almost certainly run on a tiny amount of RAM,

TrueNAS Scale seems to be aimed at enterprise grade use cases, where more resources are justified.

The issue with this is that you then need to be an IT-pro to understand how to configure it!

That's where Hex steps in and makes it easy for mere mortals to use.

 

The people over at Scale have set out the minimum requirements and support systems that meet them.

If Hex wanted to support lower minimum specs they would have to dedicate significant resources to testing and development, which is unlikely to be a priority at this stage.

 

If it is a priority for you then I'd say go do it, run it on whatever you've got, it might work just fine...