Auto-update blog content from Obsidian: 2026-02-27 21:30:47

content/post/18-create-nas-server-with-truenas.md

@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 ---
 slug: create-nas-server-with-truenas
-title: Template
-description:
-date:
+title: Build and install of my NAS with TrueNAS Scale
+description: "Step-by-step TrueNAS SCALE homelab NAS build: hardware choice, installation, ZFS pool and datasets, SMB/NFS shares and snapshots."
+date: 2026-02-27
 draft: true
 tags:
   - truenas
 categories:
+  - homelab
 ---
 ## Introduction
 
@@ -14,22 +15,21 @@ In my homelab, I need a place to store data outside of my Proxmox VE cluster.
 
 At the beginning, my single physical server has 2 HDDs disks of 2 TB. When I installed Proxmox on it, those disks stayed attached to the host. I shared them via an NFS server in an LXC, far from best practice.
 
-	This winter, the node started to fail, shutting down for no reason. This buddy is now 7 years old. When it went offline, my NFS shares disappeared, taking a few services down with them in my homelab. Replacing the CPU fan stabilized it, but I now want a safer home for that data.
+This winter, the node started to fail, shutting down for no reason. This buddy is now 7 years old. When it went offline, my NFS shares disappeared, taking a few services down with them in my homelab. Replacing the CPU fan stabilized it, but I now want a safer home for that data.
 
 In this article, I’ll walk you through how I built my NAS with TrueNAS.
 
 ---
 ## Choose the right platform
 
-
-For a while I wanted a NAS. Not an out‑of‑the‑box Synology or QNAP, even though I think they’re solid. I wanted to build mine. Space is tight in my tiny rack, and small NAS cases are rare.
+For a while I wanted a NAS. Not an out‑of‑the‑box Synology or QNAP, even though I think they’re great products. I wanted to build mine. Space is tight in my tiny rack, and small NAS cases are rare.
 
 ### Hardware
 
 I went for an all‑flash NAS. Why?
 - It's fast
 - It's ~~furious~~ compact
-- It's quieter
+- It's quiet
 - It uses less power
 - It runs cooler
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ The trade‑off is price.
 My first choice was the [Aiffro K100](https://www.aiffro.com/fr/products/all-ssd-nas-k100). But shipping to France nearly doubled the price. Finally I ended up with a [Beelink ME mini](https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-me-mini-n150?variant=48678160236786).
 
 This small cube has:
-- N200 CPU
+- Intel N200 CPU
 - 12 GB RAM
 - 2x 2.5 Gbps Ethernet
 - Up to 6x NVMe drives
@@ -154,12 +154,12 @@ I create another dataset: `media`, and a child `photos`. I create a NFS share fr
 
 On my current NFS server, the files for the photos are owned by `root` (managed by *Immich*). Later I'll see how I can migrate towards a root-less version. 
 
-⚠️ For now I set, in `Advanced Options`, the `Maproot User` and `Maproot Group` to `root`. This is equivalent to the attribute `no_squash_root`, the local `root` of the client stays `root` on the server, don't do that:
+⚠️ For now I set, in `Advanced Options`, the `Maproot User` and `Maproot Group` to `root`. This is equivalent to the NFS attribute `no_squash_root`, the local `root` of the client stays `root` on the server, don't do that:
 ![NFS share permission in TrueNAS](img/truenas-dataset-photos-nfs-share.png)
 
-✅ I try to mount the NFS share on a client, this is working fine.
+✅ I mount the NFS share on a client, this works fine.
 
-At the end, my datasets tree in my `storage` pool look like this:
+After initial setup, my `storage` pool datasets look like:
 - backups
 	- `duplicati`: [Duplicati](https://duplicati.com/) storage backend
 	- `proxmox`: future Proxmox Backup Server
@@ -170,18 +170,20 @@ At the end, my datasets tree in my `storage` pool look like this:
 	- `photos`
 	- `videos`
 
-On the requirement, I talked about VM capabilities. I won't cover that is this post, it will be covered next time.
+I mentioned VM capabilities in my requirements. I won't cover that is this post, it will be covered next time.
 ### Data protection
 
-Now let's configure some data protection features, here is the `Data Protection` tab:
+Now time to enable some data protection features:
 ![Data protection features in TrueNAS](img/truenas-data-protection-tab.png)
 
-I want to create automatic snapshots for some of my datasets, those I care the most are my cloud files and the photos.
+I want to create automatic snapshots for some of my datasets, those I care the most: my cloud files and photos.
 
-Let's create snapshot tasks. I click on the `Add` button next to `Periodic Snapshot Tasks`. For the `cloud` dataset, I create a daily snapshot with a lifetime of 2 months, for `photos`, only 7 days should be fine:
+Let's create snapshot tasks. I click on the `Add` button next to `Periodic Snapshot Tasks`:
+- cloud: daily snapshots, keep for 2 months
+- photos: daily snapshots, keep for 7 days
 ![Create periodic snapshot task in TrueNAS ](img/truenas-create-periodic-snapshot.png)
 
-I could also create a `Cloud Sync Task` but I already have Duplicati managing this.
+I could also set up a `Cloud Sync Task`, but Duplicati already handles offsite backups.
 
 ---
 ## Using TrueNAS
@@ -210,7 +212,7 @@ Out of curiosity, I've checked on the Google Play store for an app to manage a T
 My NAS is now ready to store my data.
 
 I didn't address VM capabilities as I will experience it soon to install Proxmox Backup Server as VM. Also I didn't configure notifications, I need to setup a solution to receive email alerts to my notification system.
-****
-TrueNAS is a really great product. It requires a little bit of hardware to support ZFS.
 
-The next step would be to deploy a  in TrueNAS. 
+TrueNAS is a great product. It needs capable hardware for ZFS, but the experience is excellent once set up.
+
+Next step: deploy Proxmox Backup Server as a VM on TrueNAS, then revisit NFS permissions to go root‑less for Immich.