More progress on the (True)NAS Build

Planning steps are done

It was way back on June 1st, 2024 when I started posting about my plan to migrate our KODI media centre PC to a NAS: Dell PowerEdge T110 II Network Attached Storage (NAS) build

That “backup” PC, a mini-TrueNAS server consisting of 4 x 3TB drives in a RAID Z1 array got built and was just barely enough to backup the 8TB drive in our KODI media centre. The media centre actually has 2 x 8TB Seagate Ironwolf drives, but the second drive is just a backup of the first drive, and my ultimate TrueNAS plan would need both drives to be wiped – thus the temporary backup server.

All the hardware in place now

I now have all the hardware I plan to use for the new NAS build. I had hoped to have 5 drives in the NAS build for a RAID Z2 configuration. This would allow up to 2 drives to fail, and still give me over 20TB of drive space. But I’d already spent $48 CDN on the 16GB upgrade for the existing server, and another $165 on a Fractal Define R5 (to hold up to 8 drives), plus $550 (taxes included) on 2 more 8TB Ironwolf drives. Another $275 would really be pushing our budget when we have so many more important things (food, bills, etc.).

Thanks to family for some of the cash (birthday) to buy the 2 Ironwolf drives, and for an additional 16GB of DDR4. The server will now have 32GB DDR4 and 4 x 8TB Seagate Ironwolf drives in a RAID Z1 configuration. I am a bit concerned since one of my 8TB Ironwolf drives is pretty old (old enough that I think it has a V02 model at the end vs V04 for all other drives). The latest drives I bought look a bit different from the old Ironwolf drives. Apparently all Ironwolf drives now come with some sort of data recovery. When I bought my first two Ironwolf drives it was only the Ironwolf Pro drives that included free recovery for a period.

Next Steps

This evening I completed the final step before I start building the new server. I copied the last files between the June 1st post to today from the KODI media server to a spare 2TB external drive. The final step is a bit of a gamble. I have an untested ASUS Prime Z270-A motherboard that will be the board for this build. I’m going to need the power supply and AIO cooler from our KODI media centre just to test the board (I never test without proper cooling). I’ll probably test with the RAM in the media centre just to eliminate the new RAM having issues.

The step after will be to put all drives in the case and install TrueNAS scale, set up my RAID Z1 configuration, then set up the old TrueNAS server and start copying files back over. In RAID Z1 we will have just over 20TB of storage. This will probably cover me for the next little while. I have no idea how I will back this up in the future as storage is still pretty expensive. I was watching a video the other day where the speaker joked about how the RAID acronym had changed from “Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks” to “Redundant Array of Independent Disks” because the cost of storage is a real issue.

This is sort of where things are this evening. I hope to start building the array in the next day or two. More soon.