--- slug: create-nas-server-with-truenas title: Template description: date: draft: true tags: - truenas categories: --- ## Introduction 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. 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. ### Hardware I went for an all‑flash NAS. Why? - It's fast - It's ~~furious~~ compact - It's quieter - It uses less power - It runs cooler The trade‑off is price. Network speed is my bottleneck anyway, but the other benefits are exactly what I want. I don’t need massive capacity, about 2 TB usable is enough. 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 - 12 GB RAM - 2x 2.5 Gbps Ethernet - Up to 6x NVMe drives - A 64 GB eMMC chip for the OS I started with 2 NVMe drives for now, 2 TB each. ### Software Now that the hardware is chosen, which software will I use? My requirements were simple: - NFS shares - ZFS support - VM capabilities I considered FreeNAS/TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, and Unraid. I chose TrueNAS SCALE 25.10 Community Edition. For clarity: FreeNAS was renamed TrueNAS CORE (FreeBSD‑based), while TrueNAS SCALE is the Linux‑based line. I’m using SCALE. --- ## Install TrueNAS ⚠️ I installed TrueNAS on the eMMC chip. That’s not recommended, eMMC endurance can be a risk. The install didn’t go as smoothly as expected... I use [Ventoy](https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html) to keep multiple ISOs on one USB stick. I was in version 1.0.99, and the ISO wouldn't launch. Updating to 1.1.10 fixed it: ![TrueNAS installation splash screen](img/truenas-iso-installation-splash.png) But here I encountered another problem when launching the installation on my eMMC storage device: ``` Failed to find partition number 2 on mmcblk0 ``` I found a solution on this [post](https://forums.truenas.com/t/installation-failed-on-emmc-odroid-h4/15317/12): - Enter the shell ![Enter the shell in TrueNAS installer](img/truenas-iso-enter-shell.png) - Edit the file `/lib/python3/dist-packages/truenas_installer/utils.py` - Move the line `await asyncio.sleep(1)` right beneath `for _try in range(tries):` - Edit line 46 to add `+ 'p'`: `for partdir in filter(lambda x: x.is_dir() and x.name.startswith(device + 'p'), dir_contents):` ![Fixed file in the TrueNAS installer](img/truenas-iso-fix-installer.png) - Exit the shell and start the installation without reboot The installer was finally able to get through: ![TrueNAS installation progress](img/truenas-iso-installation.png) Once the installation was complete, I shut down the machine. Then I installed it into my rack on top of the 3 Proxmox VE nodes. I plugged both Ethernet cables from my switch and powered it up. ## Configure TrueNAS By default, TrueNAS uses DHCP. I found its MAC in UniFi and created a DHCP reservation. In OPNsense, I added a Dnsmasq host override. In the Caddy plugin, I set up a domain for TrueNAS pointing to that IP, then rebooted. ✅ After a few minutes, TrueNAS is now available on https://nas.vezpi.com. ### General Settings During install, I didn’t set a password for truenas_admin. The login page forced me to pick one: ![TrueNAS login page to change `truenas_admin` password](img/truenas-login-page-change-password.png) Once the password is updated, I land on the dashboard. The UI feels great at first glance: ![TrueNAS dashboard](img/truenas-fresh-install-dashboard.png) I quickly explore the interface, the first thing I do is changing the hostname to `granite` and check the box below et it inherit domain from DHCP: ![TrueNAS hostname configuration](img/truenas-config-change-hostname.png) In the `General Settings`, I change the `Localization` settings. I set the Console Keyboard Map to `French (AZERTY)` and the Timezone to `Europe/Paris`. I create a new user `vez`, with `Full Admin` role within TrueNAS. I allow SSH for key‑based auth only, no passwords: ![TrueNAS user creation](img/truenas-create-new-user.png) Finally I remove the admin role from `truenas_admin` and lock the account. ### Pool creation In TrueNAS, a pool is a storage collection created by combining multiple disks into a unified ZFS‑managed space. In the `Storage` page, I can find my `Disks`, where I can confirm TrueNAS can see my couple of NVMe drives: ![List of available disks in TrueNAS](img/truenas-storage-disks-unconfigured.png) Back in the `Storage Dashboard`, I click the `Create Pool` button. I name the pool `storage` because I'm really inspired to give it a name: ![Pool creation wizard in TrueNAS](img/truenas-pool-creation-general.png) Then I select the `Mirror` layout: ![Disk layout selection in the pool creation wizard in TrueNAS](img/truenas-pool-creation-layout.png) I explore quickly the optional configurations, but the defaults are fine to me: autotrim, compression, no dedup, etc. At the end, before creating the pool, there is a `Review` section: ![Review section of the pool creation wizard in TrueNAS](img/truenas-pool-creation-review.png) After hitting `Create Pool`, I'm warned that everything on the disks will be wiped, which I confirm. Finally the pool is created. ### Datasets creation A dataset is a filesystem inside a pool. It can contains files, directories and child datasets, it can be shared using NFS and/or SMB. It allows you to independently manage permissions, compression, snapshots, and quotas for different sets of data within the same storage pool. #### SMB share Let's now create my first dataset `files` to share files over the network for my Windows client, like ISOs, etc: ![Create a dataset in TrueNAS](img/truenas-create-dataset-files.png) When creating SMB datasets in SCALE, set Share Type to SMB so the right ACL/xattr defaults apply. TrueNAS then prompts me to start/enable the SMB service: ![Prompt to start SMB service in TrueNAS](img/truenas-start-smb-service.png) From my Windows Laptop, I try to access my new share `\\granite.mgmt.vezpi.com\files`. As expected I'm prompt to give credentials. I create a new user account with SMB permission. ✅ Success: I can browse and copy files. #### NFS share I create another dataset: `media`, and a child `photos`. I create a NFS share from the latter. 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: ![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. At the end, my datasets tree in my `storage` pool look like this: - backups - `duplicati`: [Duplicati](https://duplicati.com/) storage backend - `proxmox`: future Proxmox Backup Server - `cloud`: `Nextcloud` data - `files`: - `media` - `downloads` - `photos` - `videos` On the requirement, I talked about VM capabilities. 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: ![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. 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: ![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. --- ## Using TrueNAS Now my TrueNAS instance is configured, I need to plan the migration of the data from my current NFS server to TrueNAS. ### Data migration For each of my current NFS shares, on a client, I mount the new NFS share to synchronize the data: ``` sudo mkdir /new_photos sudo mount 192.168.88.30:/mnt/storage/media/photos /new_photos sudo rsync -a --info=progress2 /data/photo/ /new_photos ``` At the end, I could decommission my old NFS server on the LXC. The dataset layout after migration looks like this: ![Dataset layout in TrueNAS](img/truenas-datasets-layout.png) ### Android application Out of curiosity, I've checked on the Google Play store for an app to manage a TrueNAS instance. I've found [Nasdeck](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.strtechllc.nasdeck&hl=fr&pli=1), which is quite nice. Here some screenshots: ![Screenshots of Nasdeck application](img/nasdeck-android-app.png) --- ## Conclusion 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.