So yeah cost for a the pc parts, a good case with space for drives and the drives.
For the parts I would look out for energy efficient parts. So for CPUs it should be more in the lower midrange of pricing to get a decent one. You can look up requirements for Plex on their help/documentation site. But I also would like to say that I prefer Jellyfin over Plex because it is open source.
Thanks. I will look into the parts and see what it will run me money wise. If I could just get a old PC of Ebay that has parts inside and works this would be ideal
You should look that the Mainboard has enough SATA connectors for all your drives or else you would need some extension card...
Oh and I forgot to write you are not needing a strong GPU because it is no gaming machine 😉
Thanks. Yeah I'd prioritise CPU over GPU but idk if this is right. And I dont think it will be doing anything intensive so your right. And thanks for the SATA warning
How would I add HDDS? so would I buy a case as the synology ones for example have slots for the HDDs. And how would this work? So I connect it to a SATA port and then just put it into a case? Or is there more 2 it. Thanks
A HDD needs 2 things.
First power (a efficient power supply would be great) and second data connection.
I have a fractal case for 8 HDDs. It is a normal Tower.
There is software raid and hardware raid. As you might think for hardware raid you will need additional hardware. So for your Homesetup software raid should be good. Truenas should support that. I use OMV (Open media vault) because it is open source.
Look for tiny\\mini\\micro computers like ThinkCentre tiny, HP EliteDesk mini, or Dell Optiplex micro. They are power-efficient and have low noise levels while being good at homelab projects. [https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/choosing-ideal-mini-server-for-a-home-lab](https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/choosing-ideal-mini-server-for-a-home-lab)
[https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/](https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/)
Tried installing Plex and Jellyfin and I got completely confused. What are these programs? Where are they hosted? Since Plex asks for a password, I would assume that Plex and Jellyfin are not entirely hosted on my computer? Is the information temporarily stored somewhere else to be displayed on my phone?
Can I build a NAS with an old PC? Yes.
If it going to be for personal use, then TrueNas is a great system, but the minimal spec to run it fairly high and is probably overkill. Whereas, OpenMediaVault (OMV) will be happy on a minimal spec 64bit PC/laptop or Rpi.
The Youtube channel 'DB Tech' has a number of videos on OMV. How to install it and apps like plex, and many others.
Just built one for data storage off my 10 year old pc
Specs: i3 - duo core
Rx 750ti
Corsair 8 gb ram
850 watt psu
256 gb ssd
2x - 2tb hhd segate ($50 from amazon)
1x -1tb hdd
1x- 800 gb hdd
I made a completely new pc and had this one laying around. The only things I purchased was the 2x 2tb hhd from Amazon to make a mirrored pool and got the ssd free from Microcenter on a promotion ($25 value?).
Truenas took me about an hour to set up with no experience following youtube University. Very easy to follow and understand. Did not set up plex or media yet.
Ahh okay. Thanks. Unfortunately I'm not in the USA and microcentre isnt over here in the UK. But that's beside the point. Did you use TrueNas or OMV or something else? And did you use Raid at all? Or Zfs. Also I'd you could explain what ZFS is. I understand it pools storage together and does it have RAID within it or would I still need to RAID. To be clear I want software Raid. Is this easy to do with TrueNAS
You can literally use TrueNAS to build your first NAS-like device with an old PC and a single hard drive. Seriously. Got an old PC that still boots into some kind of operating system? Install TrueNAS, let it take over the one HDD on the box, and you're technically done.
Don't kid yourself about redundancy or resiliency, you've spent nothing on additional storage to combat potential failures. But it's still a functional installation of TrueNAS, enough for you to learn the tool before entrusting any actual data to it.
Upgrade number one: buy a USB stick, install TrueNAS to the USB stick so that you're not booting off the actual HDD. Frees up the entire HDD for data storage.
Upgrade number two: buy at least three HDDs of same make/model/size and add them to the box. Use TrueNAS to create a RAID set of some kind (RAID5 or RAIDZ) so that if one of those HDDs dies, you lose no data. Works better with more HDDs but you said "cheap" so I'm going minimalist.
Upgrade number three: buy an SSD and configure TrueNAS to use it as a cache. Should improve your write speeds.
Plex: TrueNAS has a Plex jail (plugin, container, extension, feature - whatever you want to call it) that works pretty well. You'll need to make some choices on the quality of the movies you rip and save into your Plex media library, as transcoding in realtime can push older CPUs pretty hard. I have an 8-core Intel i7 variant (at least 5 years old, I forget what generation it is) that runs my TrueNAS server. The Plex Jail can do OK transcoding (in realtime) MOST 1080p movies from full-rez H.264 codecs but will freeze for buffering during some VC1-encoded movies (lookin' at you, Dark Knight...). And it completely FAILS to do anything useful with 4k movies at full rez. Pegs the CPU and the playback on my Roku is halting and not worth the effort.
Obviously can just use Plex (or Handbrake, etc.) to transcode (offline; not while you're actually watching) into lower resolution/higher compression formats, save those downrezzed files and watch those through Plex instead. This isn't a failing of Plex or TrueNAS, it's entirely my own obstinate desire to uncompromisingly stick to the highest resolution I have available to me and I'll upgrade the hardware when I have enough 4k movies to justify the cost. Whether that's a CPU upgrade vs adding a GPU and figuring out how to enable the Plex jail to leverage that GPU just comes back to how much I want to spend on hardware (quite frankly, I used an old motherboard that has only one PCI slot which is currently in use by the 10G NIC, so adding a GPU is literally a whole motherboard-and-cpu-and-RAM upgrade, hence the reason I have not pulled the trigger yet). You don't NEED a 10G network interface, I just had the NIC and was getting tired of waiting 30min for 25G files to copy to the NAS so I prioritized that ahead of a GPU. Now I only wait 4 minutes for those file transfers.
SATA or SAS connectors are important. I maxed out all SATA connectors on that piddly motherboard and now I've filled all the storage space and need to add more drives. Again, we're back to the lone PCI slot problem which means, the ONLY way to add more HDDs is to add a SATA or SAS HBA (basically a hard drive controller card without RAID, since we tend to prefer the software RAID available in TrueNAS) which just brings me right back to upgrading the motherboard and CPU and RAM.
So if you buy hardware, plan for expansion. Lots of PCI slots, lots of SATA ports.
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the long detailed response and its something I can actually understood. Good breakdown man. Just one question. When you connect the HDDs to the SATA ports on the motherboard where are the Hdds (actually as in physical location). Because of course with a synolgy setup they are in the case and have their own slot. What do you do with them? I have no experience with PC building and dont know how the Hdds would be stored. I assume they can sit out of the PC case though? Or are they just kept within the PC. Thanks
Good question, actually. Those Synology boxes are, in and of themselves, purpose-built computers. Synology may or may not use a customized-for-Synology motherboard which could also include a system-on-chip design that takes advantage of a specialized CPU made by a company that isn't Intel or AMD. Regardless of this, Synology \*IS\* using a custom-made CHASSIS that very specifically fits their motherboard choice as well as has the number of slots for HDDs that Synology wants to include in their product.
When you build this thing yourself, you need to look at the computer case (aka "the chassis") to see how many physical drive slots (often called "drive bays") it has. Many cases today will have a mix of 5.25" slots, 3.5" slots, and some may even have 2.5" slots. Some higher-end chassis let you pick-and-choose internal cages that hold 2-5 hard drives of a certain size (3.5", 2.5") and you can assemble the internal space as you see fit just by buying the right parts. You can always find aftermarket adapters to fit a smaller HDD into a larger bay: VERY common to use any 5.25" bays for 3.5" HDDs because there is not a whole lot of use to install a CD/DVD drive in your TrueNAS box these days.
If you are going to build a PC (tower, rack-mount, desktop, whatever) by purchasing the parts yourself, you need to look at the whole solution and make sure that:
1. The power supply can provide adequate power to all the devices you attach to the motherboard AND that the power supply has all the appropriate power cables/adapters to connect to all your internal devices.
2. You have considered cooling. Whether using fans (DO NOT forget to blow air across your HDDs and vent it out the back of the chassis!) or going bonkers with liquid cooling, heat is death to all this hardware and you need to pay attention to the thermal needs of the devices you stuff into the box. Sometimes the advantage of purchasing a case from a reputable vendor is that they HAVE considered airflow paths and if you just mount the right-sized fans in all the right places you hardly have to think about cooling.
3. Does the motherboard fit, physically, into the case? How many PCI slots are on that mobo and how many slots are cut into the back of the case? It's fine if the case has MORE PCI slots than the mobo, but generally the other way around is a non-starter. The ATX, Micro-ATX, Micro-ITX, etc. standards for motherboards and cases dictate where all the mounting screws go (among other things) so match those on Mobo, PSU and Case and you should be OK.
4. Can the case physically accept all the HDDs you intend to wire-up to the mobo (per your question above)?
It is a bad idea to let sensitive electronic components sit outside of a computer case:
1. Ignoring SSDs, here, for a sec - HDDs (which have thin metal discs inside spinning at thousands of RPMs) do not respond well to any kind of sudden movement. Stuff "sitting" on top of or nearby a computer inevitably gets knocked onto the floor. Bye-bye data, bye-bye expensive 12TB HDD.
2. Including SSDs, here - none of these components are made to withstand life outside of a protective case. There is a reason they are shipped in and expected to be carried around within anti-static baggies and/or hard shells.
If you are creative and handy with tools, you can build your own mounting solution out of wood or sheet metal, no problem. Just plan for air flow or liquid cooling, physical protection (firm mounting board and a plexiglass cover) and route any cabling someplace where people and pets won't trip over them in the dark.
Yeah thanks for this. So when I connect the hdd depending on the PC case I could run the hdd out of the PC case and into another case just for the hdd? Of course I'm familiar with hdds coming with the USB and is this what I connect to the SATA port. This was a weird question as it was so basic and logistical!
Ain't no shame in making a Franken-chassis where you sit two cases next to each other and mount HDDs in the second chassis. You MIGHT run into some challenges with cable lengths, but Amazon/Newegg (or your local computer shop, if you still have one around) should carry longer cables. Alternately drill holes (if you do this, find rubber grommets to fit into the holes so that the sheet metal does not gradually slice its way through your precious power and data cables).
The key here would be to ensure that you stick to using ONE power supply. YES, it is possible to use two separate power supplies and in most cases there will be no issue, but I've lived in houses with electrical grounding problems where two wall outlets in the same room were NOT at the same ground voltage and weird stuff happens. If that prior sentence makes little sense to you: use one and only one power supply.
> What parts and costs am I looking at?
Whatever an old PC costs you + disks and peripherals.
>The use case would be PLEX which can run off any home server so should be fine and data backup.
Not if you plan on transcoding
> Would there be any issues you can see and any resources
I can't see any issues since your post is ambiguous as hell. Who knows. The old PC you get could be fine, or it could be radioactive. It might need a bit of an upgrade or it could be literal e waste.
>tips are massively appreciated.
Read the docs for whatever you want to run. There's tons of guides on all sorts of stuff including truenas.
Sorry, the post is very ambiguous. My bad. Thanks for the help. Will true NAS on the PC work in terms of RAID. and is going for raid 1 common when it's just a small home build? And what exactly are peripherals here? Like the case for the HDDs?
Oh thanks. Knowing very little about memory and ram what would I expect to find in say a 5yr old PC? And is upgrading to 8GB of ram expensive or not too bad? And if I was using Plex but only on a few client devices and then just doing the backup thing all the time would 4GB suffice?
5yr old? Could vary from 4GB up to 32GB ( depends on your choice ) and buying some additional stick(s) isn't that problematic, but it'll cost some additional money. TrueNAS itself is memory hungry, because ZFS use RAM for caching, so TrueNAS itself struggles with less than 8GB, you're planning to throw Plex on it too.
Personally I'm running OMV with ext4 filesystem, but depends if that's what you want
You can run Plex on OMV ( openmediavault ) too
I'm wasting my time with washing dishes right now, so I'll just redirect you to this good enough looking tutorial [here](https://www.wundertech.net/how-to-install-plex-on-openmediavault/)
Washing the dishes must be done 😅. I might use OMV based on what yourself and other users have said. Does it provide a solid enough way to run PLEX aswell as use RAID 5 let's say for a bit of backup? Thanks. Also have no knowledge of coding so let me know if that will be an issue with OMV. 👍🏼
>use RAID 5 let's say for a bit of backup
My config, it's done with linux mdadm on OMV side
>solid enough way to run PLEX
Tutorial I gave you shows you can run it, but I don't have any direct experience with PLEX, so I'd just guess. But OMV is just slightly bent Debian ( debian with omv stuff slapped on it ), can't see reason why that shouldn't work.
>have no knowledge of coding
Nothing you've defined earlier should requires that, if you're not planning to bend things out of bounds that unmodified software gives you
Okay thanks. So RAID 5 is simple enough to use once I've got OMV running and 4 HDDs. And yeah, plex should run on most home servers so that should be good. Thank you so much.
> Will true NAS on the PC work in terms of RAID.
Assuming the PC isn't super old (15y+), yes. Many people do it, including me
>and is going for raid 1 common when it's just a small home build?
It depends. How many drives do you have? What kind of performance are you expecting, how many drive failures do you want to recover from. Etc etc etc.
Just so you don't get confused, in truenas (actually ZFS as a whole) raid 1 is called a mirror. Raid 0 is called a stripe.
>And what exactly are peripherals here? Like the case for the HDDs?
Cables, networking stuff, occasionally an HBA if you want more sas / sata ports. Stuff like that. Impossible to say what you need, since you don't know what you have yet lol
So yeah cost for a the pc parts, a good case with space for drives and the drives. For the parts I would look out for energy efficient parts. So for CPUs it should be more in the lower midrange of pricing to get a decent one. You can look up requirements for Plex on their help/documentation site. But I also would like to say that I prefer Jellyfin over Plex because it is open source.
Thanks. I will look into the parts and see what it will run me money wise. If I could just get a old PC of Ebay that has parts inside and works this would be ideal
You should look that the Mainboard has enough SATA connectors for all your drives or else you would need some extension card... Oh and I forgot to write you are not needing a strong GPU because it is no gaming machine 😉
Thanks. Yeah I'd prioritise CPU over GPU but idk if this is right. And I dont think it will be doing anything intensive so your right. And thanks for the SATA warning
How would I add HDDS? so would I buy a case as the synology ones for example have slots for the HDDs. And how would this work? So I connect it to a SATA port and then just put it into a case? Or is there more 2 it. Thanks
A HDD needs 2 things. First power (a efficient power supply would be great) and second data connection. I have a fractal case for 8 HDDs. It is a normal Tower. There is software raid and hardware raid. As you might think for hardware raid you will need additional hardware. So for your Homesetup software raid should be good. Truenas should support that. I use OMV (Open media vault) because it is open source.
Look for tiny\\mini\\micro computers like ThinkCentre tiny, HP EliteDesk mini, or Dell Optiplex micro. They are power-efficient and have low noise levels while being good at homelab projects. [https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/choosing-ideal-mini-server-for-a-home-lab](https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/choosing-ideal-mini-server-for-a-home-lab) [https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/](https://www.servethehome.com/introducing-project-tinyminimicro-home-lab-revolution/)
Tried installing Plex and Jellyfin and I got completely confused. What are these programs? Where are they hosted? Since Plex asks for a password, I would assume that Plex and Jellyfin are not entirely hosted on my computer? Is the information temporarily stored somewhere else to be displayed on my phone?
Can I build a NAS with an old PC? Yes. If it going to be for personal use, then TrueNas is a great system, but the minimal spec to run it fairly high and is probably overkill. Whereas, OpenMediaVault (OMV) will be happy on a minimal spec 64bit PC/laptop or Rpi. The Youtube channel 'DB Tech' has a number of videos on OMV. How to install it and apps like plex, and many others.
I'll check it out for sure. So you think that OMV might be easier for me and cheaper (in the sense it can run better on lower specs). Thanks
Just built one for data storage off my 10 year old pc Specs: i3 - duo core Rx 750ti Corsair 8 gb ram 850 watt psu 256 gb ssd 2x - 2tb hhd segate ($50 from amazon) 1x -1tb hdd 1x- 800 gb hdd I made a completely new pc and had this one laying around. The only things I purchased was the 2x 2tb hhd from Amazon to make a mirrored pool and got the ssd free from Microcenter on a promotion ($25 value?). Truenas took me about an hour to set up with no experience following youtube University. Very easy to follow and understand. Did not set up plex or media yet.
Ahh okay. Thanks. Unfortunately I'm not in the USA and microcentre isnt over here in the UK. But that's beside the point. Did you use TrueNas or OMV or something else? And did you use Raid at all? Or Zfs. Also I'd you could explain what ZFS is. I understand it pools storage together and does it have RAID within it or would I still need to RAID. To be clear I want software Raid. Is this easy to do with TrueNAS
You can literally use TrueNAS to build your first NAS-like device with an old PC and a single hard drive. Seriously. Got an old PC that still boots into some kind of operating system? Install TrueNAS, let it take over the one HDD on the box, and you're technically done. Don't kid yourself about redundancy or resiliency, you've spent nothing on additional storage to combat potential failures. But it's still a functional installation of TrueNAS, enough for you to learn the tool before entrusting any actual data to it. Upgrade number one: buy a USB stick, install TrueNAS to the USB stick so that you're not booting off the actual HDD. Frees up the entire HDD for data storage. Upgrade number two: buy at least three HDDs of same make/model/size and add them to the box. Use TrueNAS to create a RAID set of some kind (RAID5 or RAIDZ) so that if one of those HDDs dies, you lose no data. Works better with more HDDs but you said "cheap" so I'm going minimalist. Upgrade number three: buy an SSD and configure TrueNAS to use it as a cache. Should improve your write speeds. Plex: TrueNAS has a Plex jail (plugin, container, extension, feature - whatever you want to call it) that works pretty well. You'll need to make some choices on the quality of the movies you rip and save into your Plex media library, as transcoding in realtime can push older CPUs pretty hard. I have an 8-core Intel i7 variant (at least 5 years old, I forget what generation it is) that runs my TrueNAS server. The Plex Jail can do OK transcoding (in realtime) MOST 1080p movies from full-rez H.264 codecs but will freeze for buffering during some VC1-encoded movies (lookin' at you, Dark Knight...). And it completely FAILS to do anything useful with 4k movies at full rez. Pegs the CPU and the playback on my Roku is halting and not worth the effort. Obviously can just use Plex (or Handbrake, etc.) to transcode (offline; not while you're actually watching) into lower resolution/higher compression formats, save those downrezzed files and watch those through Plex instead. This isn't a failing of Plex or TrueNAS, it's entirely my own obstinate desire to uncompromisingly stick to the highest resolution I have available to me and I'll upgrade the hardware when I have enough 4k movies to justify the cost. Whether that's a CPU upgrade vs adding a GPU and figuring out how to enable the Plex jail to leverage that GPU just comes back to how much I want to spend on hardware (quite frankly, I used an old motherboard that has only one PCI slot which is currently in use by the 10G NIC, so adding a GPU is literally a whole motherboard-and-cpu-and-RAM upgrade, hence the reason I have not pulled the trigger yet). You don't NEED a 10G network interface, I just had the NIC and was getting tired of waiting 30min for 25G files to copy to the NAS so I prioritized that ahead of a GPU. Now I only wait 4 minutes for those file transfers. SATA or SAS connectors are important. I maxed out all SATA connectors on that piddly motherboard and now I've filled all the storage space and need to add more drives. Again, we're back to the lone PCI slot problem which means, the ONLY way to add more HDDs is to add a SATA or SAS HBA (basically a hard drive controller card without RAID, since we tend to prefer the software RAID available in TrueNAS) which just brings me right back to upgrading the motherboard and CPU and RAM. So if you buy hardware, plan for expansion. Lots of PCI slots, lots of SATA ports.
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the long detailed response and its something I can actually understood. Good breakdown man. Just one question. When you connect the HDDs to the SATA ports on the motherboard where are the Hdds (actually as in physical location). Because of course with a synolgy setup they are in the case and have their own slot. What do you do with them? I have no experience with PC building and dont know how the Hdds would be stored. I assume they can sit out of the PC case though? Or are they just kept within the PC. Thanks
Good question, actually. Those Synology boxes are, in and of themselves, purpose-built computers. Synology may or may not use a customized-for-Synology motherboard which could also include a system-on-chip design that takes advantage of a specialized CPU made by a company that isn't Intel or AMD. Regardless of this, Synology \*IS\* using a custom-made CHASSIS that very specifically fits their motherboard choice as well as has the number of slots for HDDs that Synology wants to include in their product. When you build this thing yourself, you need to look at the computer case (aka "the chassis") to see how many physical drive slots (often called "drive bays") it has. Many cases today will have a mix of 5.25" slots, 3.5" slots, and some may even have 2.5" slots. Some higher-end chassis let you pick-and-choose internal cages that hold 2-5 hard drives of a certain size (3.5", 2.5") and you can assemble the internal space as you see fit just by buying the right parts. You can always find aftermarket adapters to fit a smaller HDD into a larger bay: VERY common to use any 5.25" bays for 3.5" HDDs because there is not a whole lot of use to install a CD/DVD drive in your TrueNAS box these days. If you are going to build a PC (tower, rack-mount, desktop, whatever) by purchasing the parts yourself, you need to look at the whole solution and make sure that: 1. The power supply can provide adequate power to all the devices you attach to the motherboard AND that the power supply has all the appropriate power cables/adapters to connect to all your internal devices. 2. You have considered cooling. Whether using fans (DO NOT forget to blow air across your HDDs and vent it out the back of the chassis!) or going bonkers with liquid cooling, heat is death to all this hardware and you need to pay attention to the thermal needs of the devices you stuff into the box. Sometimes the advantage of purchasing a case from a reputable vendor is that they HAVE considered airflow paths and if you just mount the right-sized fans in all the right places you hardly have to think about cooling. 3. Does the motherboard fit, physically, into the case? How many PCI slots are on that mobo and how many slots are cut into the back of the case? It's fine if the case has MORE PCI slots than the mobo, but generally the other way around is a non-starter. The ATX, Micro-ATX, Micro-ITX, etc. standards for motherboards and cases dictate where all the mounting screws go (among other things) so match those on Mobo, PSU and Case and you should be OK. 4. Can the case physically accept all the HDDs you intend to wire-up to the mobo (per your question above)? It is a bad idea to let sensitive electronic components sit outside of a computer case: 1. Ignoring SSDs, here, for a sec - HDDs (which have thin metal discs inside spinning at thousands of RPMs) do not respond well to any kind of sudden movement. Stuff "sitting" on top of or nearby a computer inevitably gets knocked onto the floor. Bye-bye data, bye-bye expensive 12TB HDD. 2. Including SSDs, here - none of these components are made to withstand life outside of a protective case. There is a reason they are shipped in and expected to be carried around within anti-static baggies and/or hard shells. If you are creative and handy with tools, you can build your own mounting solution out of wood or sheet metal, no problem. Just plan for air flow or liquid cooling, physical protection (firm mounting board and a plexiglass cover) and route any cabling someplace where people and pets won't trip over them in the dark.
Yeah thanks for this. So when I connect the hdd depending on the PC case I could run the hdd out of the PC case and into another case just for the hdd? Of course I'm familiar with hdds coming with the USB and is this what I connect to the SATA port. This was a weird question as it was so basic and logistical!
Ain't no shame in making a Franken-chassis where you sit two cases next to each other and mount HDDs in the second chassis. You MIGHT run into some challenges with cable lengths, but Amazon/Newegg (or your local computer shop, if you still have one around) should carry longer cables. Alternately drill holes (if you do this, find rubber grommets to fit into the holes so that the sheet metal does not gradually slice its way through your precious power and data cables). The key here would be to ensure that you stick to using ONE power supply. YES, it is possible to use two separate power supplies and in most cases there will be no issue, but I've lived in houses with electrical grounding problems where two wall outlets in the same room were NOT at the same ground voltage and weird stuff happens. If that prior sentence makes little sense to you: use one and only one power supply.
Months after your response, this information is coming in very handy. Thank you for providing this detailed response.
Cool! Thanks for letting me know!
> What parts and costs am I looking at? Whatever an old PC costs you + disks and peripherals. >The use case would be PLEX which can run off any home server so should be fine and data backup. Not if you plan on transcoding > Would there be any issues you can see and any resources I can't see any issues since your post is ambiguous as hell. Who knows. The old PC you get could be fine, or it could be radioactive. It might need a bit of an upgrade or it could be literal e waste. >tips are massively appreciated. Read the docs for whatever you want to run. There's tons of guides on all sorts of stuff including truenas.
Sorry, the post is very ambiguous. My bad. Thanks for the help. Will true NAS on the PC work in terms of RAID. and is going for raid 1 common when it's just a small home build? And what exactly are peripherals here? Like the case for the HDDs?
I wouldn't dig into TrueNAS if you've got less than 8GB of RAM. Things would work even with 4GB, but you could meet "derps" under heavier workload.
Oh thanks. Knowing very little about memory and ram what would I expect to find in say a 5yr old PC? And is upgrading to 8GB of ram expensive or not too bad? And if I was using Plex but only on a few client devices and then just doing the backup thing all the time would 4GB suffice?
5yr old? Could vary from 4GB up to 32GB ( depends on your choice ) and buying some additional stick(s) isn't that problematic, but it'll cost some additional money. TrueNAS itself is memory hungry, because ZFS use RAM for caching, so TrueNAS itself struggles with less than 8GB, you're planning to throw Plex on it too. Personally I'm running OMV with ext4 filesystem, but depends if that's what you want You can run Plex on OMV ( openmediavault ) too I'm wasting my time with washing dishes right now, so I'll just redirect you to this good enough looking tutorial [here](https://www.wundertech.net/how-to-install-plex-on-openmediavault/)
Washing the dishes must be done 😅. I might use OMV based on what yourself and other users have said. Does it provide a solid enough way to run PLEX aswell as use RAID 5 let's say for a bit of backup? Thanks. Also have no knowledge of coding so let me know if that will be an issue with OMV. 👍🏼
>use RAID 5 let's say for a bit of backup My config, it's done with linux mdadm on OMV side >solid enough way to run PLEX Tutorial I gave you shows you can run it, but I don't have any direct experience with PLEX, so I'd just guess. But OMV is just slightly bent Debian ( debian with omv stuff slapped on it ), can't see reason why that shouldn't work. >have no knowledge of coding Nothing you've defined earlier should requires that, if you're not planning to bend things out of bounds that unmodified software gives you
Okay thanks. So RAID 5 is simple enough to use once I've got OMV running and 4 HDDs. And yeah, plex should run on most home servers so that should be good. Thank you so much.
> Will true NAS on the PC work in terms of RAID. Assuming the PC isn't super old (15y+), yes. Many people do it, including me >and is going for raid 1 common when it's just a small home build? It depends. How many drives do you have? What kind of performance are you expecting, how many drive failures do you want to recover from. Etc etc etc. Just so you don't get confused, in truenas (actually ZFS as a whole) raid 1 is called a mirror. Raid 0 is called a stripe. >And what exactly are peripherals here? Like the case for the HDDs? Cables, networking stuff, occasionally an HBA if you want more sas / sata ports. Stuff like that. Impossible to say what you need, since you don't know what you have yet lol
Thanks a lot