8 ms·

Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

62 points by humaid 6y ago

nicolaslem 6y ago
I was surprised that there are very few PC cases made for small NAS. So this solution of buying a consumer product and installing FreeNAS on it makes sense.
- rjsw 6y ago
  An HP microServer has a fairly small case.
  - mongol 6y ago
    Yes but it is a complete server, not useful for a custom build. But otherwise, yes I agree, have an old trusty n54l myself. If I found a case in similar form factor I might upgrade though.
  - vetinari 6y ago
    HP microserver doesn't have drive hotswap. The first time you find out your drive is dying, you really want it.
    - teejmya 6y ago
      You're correct that it doesn't support hotswappable drives out of the box. But there is a BIOS firmware floating around for the AMD generation microservers that lets you hotswap drives. (I've been running FreeNAS on an AMD microserver for a few years now.)
    - amenod 6y ago
      Curious: why? Can't you simply shut down the NAS^wmicroserver and replace the failing drive then? (assuming the downtime is not a problem, which is probably the case with most home NAS installations)
      - servercobra 6y ago
        One fear I've heard from Sys Admin friends is that you'll have another drive failure when the machine tries to boot back up (and possible data loss if you're only running RAID5). As I understand it, there's a nonzero chance the drive is fine while it's still running, but will disappear or have trouble spinning back up after a reboot, so you want to rebuild your array before rebooting.
        flarg 6y ago
        Spot on, because the rebuilding process stresses drives that are likely as old as the one that failed
        hnick 6y ago
        Is there any truth to the advice that this is mitigated by buying drives from different retailers and aiming for different batches and average failure time?
        vetinari 6y ago
        Having different batches reduces the risk of multiple devices failing at the same time. There's a higher chance of devices from the same batch failing simultaneously (due to the same material or fault during the manufacture) than from different batches, or even better, from different vendors.
      - vetinari 6y ago
        You don't know, whether you will be able to boot and mount the degraded array. Maybe you could, or maybe you will have to start shaving the yak. With hotswap, it is up and running, you can start repair straight away.
- edwhitesell 6y ago
  I've used cases/components from here in the past: https://e-itx.com/ https://e-itx.com/ Of course, the most recent was a 8TB server I built in 2011. So, take that as bad that I can't speak to any recent experience. But, good that it's still running with all of the original components 9 years later.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  This wasn't really a case of buying the hardware with the intention of installing another OS on it, though. The author had the QNAP for 4 years, running their OS on it, and decided to install FreeNAS when rebuilding. That said, I'm surprised that they explicitly support installing Linux -- the post links a QNAP wiki page that explicitly uses the phrase "supported hardware" when describing which machines their guide to installing Debian works for. The case itself is pretty high quality for the purpose (no surprise), but I don't think I'd buy one just to wipe the custom OS and install my own on it. If it were me, I'd probably hop on over to r/DataHoarder, search there, and maybe make a "recommend me a case" post if I didn't find anything interesting. I'd really love to do a NAS project with a Raspberry Pi, but the lack of SATA support really does it in as a base for a NAS system, IMO. If you're just going to connect everything over USB anyway, what's even the point of the Pi? Just buy one of those dumb external enclosures that holds 4+ drives.
  - funkaster 6y ago
    I used a rockpro64[0] with an off the shelf PCIe SATA card for my home NAS (4x4TB disks). So far I'm extremely happy with it (using it for almost 8 months). The rockpro is running debian/ZFS. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/
    - tra3 6y ago
      Cool! Does it require a custom kernel?
      - funkaster 6y ago
        it has had mainline support for a while now, there are even now daily official debian builds available as well: https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-card-images/ https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-c...
    - podge 6y ago
      Interesting! I've been thinking of building a NAS and hadn't considered the rockpro64. Have you found that 4GB RAM has been sufficient for ZFS? I'm currently running a small ZFS array with 12GB RAM and the box never seems to use anything close to that amount, but ZFS has a reputation as something of a RAM hog.
- moreorless 6y ago
  These things are great for small NAS. https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/p/1009955118 https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proli...
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Seems rather interesting. I've been thinking of buying a Synology DS918+, since I want a NAS and a Plex server, but that's like 530 euro at the very cheapest. However, I can find HPE Microservers starting at 350 euro. That's like the price of a 4 TB NAS drive saved there already.
  - hnick 6y ago
    My FreeNAS has been running for years on an older ProLiant, off a USB stick, in an Ikea desk cupboard with poor ventilation (some gaps around the front door, and a 4 inch circle drilled in the back). The only failure so far was the old USB stick, once I reinstalled and put a new stick on I could see my ZFS data again. I should probably update the software, but I already broke it once trying that, so for now it's sitting happy as a dumping ground for files.
- pimeys 6y ago
  I built my FreeNAS build into the Fractal Design Node 304. It fits six hard drives, and the computer fits into an IKEA shelf nicely.
- ncrmro 6y ago
  I’ve got this case and it works pretty great. 5 3.5 hot swap drives. Although the drives come out the left side. So you would need to access that without moving the case for true hot swap.
ianlevesque 6y ago
Is that typical for QNAP to allow alternative OS installs? I know with Synology you cannot.
- Wubdidu 6y ago
  I have Debian running on my TS-451A for quite a while now. Except the front LEDs, everything is working completely fine. It is pretty much just a plain x86_64 PC with an UEFI firmware. The TS-251A is exactly the same but with 2 instead of 4 drive bays, as far as I know. It's very neat for its low power usage and small form factor.
  - WhatIsDukkha 6y ago
    Raw debian right and not the qnap vm? How did you layout the partitions? What's on the 512m internal? I have one in the basement I've tried to install one too many times and I need to remotivate.
dghughes 6y ago
At college I built a Linux cluster for a project and for the SAN/NAS I used XigmasNAS. It's so much smaller and less bloated than FreeNAS has become. I had trouble configuring parts of the cluster but overall XigmaNAS worked well.
rufius 6y ago
Interesting. I have a TVS-471 that I run the default QNAP OS on. That said, I only use it for typical NAS workloads like: - serving media - file storage - device backup - off-site backup I recently started using the Hybrid Backup Station app and have been pretty impressed. I’ve got three jobs - Multimedia, Photos, and Archive backup. They all go to BackBlaze B2 on slightly different schedules. Been really pleased with it. That said, I do find the UI a little clunky so I can see why the author chose an alternative for their use case. I’ve got a cheap $150 NUC I use for more typical *nix server stuff that sits next to the NAS. It mostly runs an unbound DNS Forwarder for now but I plan to expand its usage further.
ksec 6y ago
Qnap actually has a new OS called Hero Edition that uses ZFS by default, coming in Q3. https://www.qnap.com/quts-hero/en/ https://www.qnap.com/quts-hero/en/
- FullyFunctional 6y ago
  Why not support the company that actually supports the development of ZFS instead? I don't know anything about Qnap but FreeNAS has a wealth of robust functionality. I'd be curious as to why people would prefer Qnap?
  - zenonu 6y ago
    Looking at FreeNAS's page, it's all "Get Quote" nonsense for anything rack mounted. Needs a system configuration page with prices to play around with.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - ksec 6y ago
    Well if they actually does anything consumer like Synology and Qnap, ASUStor or TerraMaster I would have bought one immediately. But iXysystem hasn't done it for the past 10 years.
- locusm 6y ago
  Hadn't heard of their new OS - interesting. Ive always wanted Synology to license their OS out as their hardware is all low power stuff and useless for virtualisation.
  - BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    Xpenology[0] may fit your needs. I'm not sure where in the grey area it fits, but it seems to get mentioned in polite company without inviting floods of copyright issues That Xpenology exists may explain why Synology don't license their OS. [0]:https://xpenology.org/ https://xpenology.org/
linsomniac 6y ago
RAID drive fails, "I regretted installing ClamAV". Don't regret it! It allowed you to find a drive failure before a second drive failed, and allowed you to recover your data while it was still recoverable! This is a good thing! Archival data is a tricky problem. If you don't regularly read it, you may find that when you do need to read it, that the sector has suffered some bit rot. What's one of the most likely cases where you have to read archived data? When a hard drive fails and RAID is doing a rebuild... So, by all means, run a ClamAV scan! Or better yet, run a ZFS scrub monthly or so. I've been a huge fan of ZFS for my archive data, mostly historic photos and Google takeout data now, because it can detect silent corruption and can do scrubs to verify and repair any hard drives sectors that have problems.
- humaid 6y ago
  Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!
  - linsomniac 6y ago
    Oh, my other advice is: Avoid Seagate drives. Historically, I've found Hitachi to be the most reliable, and the BackBlaze hard drive stats seem to confirm that, though they tend to have small numbers of Hitachi drives. This is because they optimize for price not reliability. I've had good luck with other brands, but I've pretty much had universally bad luck with Seagate. Last year I replaced the last of our Stagate 15K drives with SSDs because, largely, I was tired of doing warranty returns every month or two.
    - zepearl 6y ago
      I used to always buy Hitachi as well, but when I decided a few weeks ago to replace all my old 4TB HDDs with 8TB HDDs I found out that they're quite expensive (did they use to be that expensive?). Well, in any case now I bought 8 Toshiba N300 8TB (4 HDDs for a server and another 4 for a NAS, both used by a RaidZ1) and so far they worked (and they're not loud and don't vibrate like hell when the disk is spinning, unlike the WD Gold). It's the first time that I buy Toshiba HDDs - I'm quite sure that if they would have been Seagate then at least 1 would have already failed.
aquaticsunset 6y ago
This is timely! I have a QNAP TS-251 (two drive bay model) that has been collecting dust for roughly two and a half years. Somebody was able to install a ransomware program on it, I suspect using the QSnatch[1] vulnerability. I triple pass zeroed the system storage and mothballed it. Two months ago decided I wanted to do something with this machine again, so I bought two new Seagate IronWolf drives and installed FreeNAS (it can boot to and run from the USB 3.0 port on the back). Is it the perfect hardware for FreeNAS? Nope - barely meets the minimum 8GB RAM requirements. But it's running as a media backup and Plex server, and doing a fantastic job at it. When I outgrow this hardware I'll certainly replace it with something I can also install FreeNAS on - consider me a happy convert. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/dvh7n2/qsnatch_malware_general_post_information_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/dvh7n2/qsnatch_malwar...
trengrj 6y ago
Rather than waste time using one of the proprietary NAS systems like QNAP and Synology, why not support a system that runs and supports unmodified Linux and publishes full schematics like the upcoming Kobol64 https://kobol.io/ https://kobol.io/?

62 points by humaid 6y ago

I was surprised that there are very few PC cases made for small NAS. So this solution of buying a consumer product and installing FreeNAS on it makes sense.

rjsw 6y ago
An HP microServer has a fairly small case.
- mongol 6y ago
  Yes but it is a complete server, not useful for a custom build. But otherwise, yes I agree, have an old trusty n54l myself. If I found a case in similar form factor I might upgrade though.
- vetinari 6y ago
  HP microserver doesn't have drive hotswap. The first time you find out your drive is dying, you really want it.
  - teejmya 6y ago
    You're correct that it doesn't support hotswappable drives out of the box. But there is a BIOS firmware floating around for the AMD generation microservers that lets you hotswap drives. (I've been running FreeNAS on an AMD microserver for a few years now.)
  - amenod 6y ago
    Curious: why? Can't you simply shut down the NAS^wmicroserver and replace the failing drive then? (assuming the downtime is not a problem, which is probably the case with most home NAS installations)
    - servercobra 6y ago
      One fear I've heard from Sys Admin friends is that you'll have another drive failure when the machine tries to boot back up (and possible data loss if you're only running RAID5). As I understand it, there's a nonzero chance the drive is fine while it's still running, but will disappear or have trouble spinning back up after a reboot, so you want to rebuild your array before rebooting.
      - flarg 6y ago
        Spot on, because the rebuilding process stresses drives that are likely as old as the one that failed
      - hnick 6y ago
        Is there any truth to the advice that this is mitigated by buying drives from different retailers and aiming for different batches and average failure time?
        vetinari 6y ago
        Having different batches reduces the risk of multiple devices failing at the same time. There's a higher chance of devices from the same batch failing simultaneously (due to the same material or fault during the manufacture) than from different batches, or even better, from different vendors.
    - vetinari 6y ago
      You don't know, whether you will be able to boot and mount the degraded array. Maybe you could, or maybe you will have to start shaving the yak. With hotswap, it is up and running, you can start repair straight away.
edwhitesell 6y ago
I've used cases/components from here in the past: https://e-itx.com/ https://e-itx.com/ Of course, the most recent was a 8TB server I built in 2011. So, take that as bad that I can't speak to any recent experience. But, good that it's still running with all of the original components 9 years later.
pmiller2 6y ago
This wasn't really a case of buying the hardware with the intention of installing another OS on it, though. The author had the QNAP for 4 years, running their OS on it, and decided to install FreeNAS when rebuilding. That said, I'm surprised that they explicitly support installing Linux -- the post links a QNAP wiki page that explicitly uses the phrase "supported hardware" when describing which machines their guide to installing Debian works for. The case itself is pretty high quality for the purpose (no surprise), but I don't think I'd buy one just to wipe the custom OS and install my own on it. If it were me, I'd probably hop on over to r/DataHoarder, search there, and maybe make a "recommend me a case" post if I didn't find anything interesting. I'd really love to do a NAS project with a Raspberry Pi, but the lack of SATA support really does it in as a base for a NAS system, IMO. If you're just going to connect everything over USB anyway, what's even the point of the Pi? Just buy one of those dumb external enclosures that holds 4+ drives.
- funkaster 6y ago
  I used a rockpro64[0] with an off the shelf PCIe SATA card for my home NAS (4x4TB disks). So far I'm extremely happy with it (using it for almost 8 months). The rockpro is running debian/ZFS. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/ https://www.pine64.org/rockpro64/
  - tra3 6y ago
    Cool! Does it require a custom kernel?
    - funkaster 6y ago
      it has had mainline support for a while now, there are even now daily official debian builds available as well: https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-card-images/ https://d-i.debian.org/daily-images/arm64/daily/netboot/SD-c...
  - podge 6y ago
    Interesting! I've been thinking of building a NAS and hadn't considered the rockpro64. Have you found that 4GB RAM has been sufficient for ZFS? I'm currently running a small ZFS array with 12GB RAM and the box never seems to use anything close to that amount, but ZFS has a reputation as something of a RAM hog.
moreorless 6y ago
These things are great for small NAS. https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/p/1009955118 https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proli...
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Seems rather interesting. I've been thinking of buying a Synology DS918+, since I want a NAS and a Plex server, but that's like 530 euro at the very cheapest. However, I can find HPE Microservers starting at 350 euro. That's like the price of a 4 TB NAS drive saved there already.
- hnick 6y ago
  My FreeNAS has been running for years on an older ProLiant, off a USB stick, in an Ikea desk cupboard with poor ventilation (some gaps around the front door, and a 4 inch circle drilled in the back). The only failure so far was the old USB stick, once I reinstalled and put a new stick on I could see my ZFS data again. I should probably update the software, but I already broke it once trying that, so for now it's sitting happy as a dumping ground for files.
pimeys 6y ago
I built my FreeNAS build into the Fractal Design Node 304. It fits six hard drives, and the computer fits into an IKEA shelf nicely.
ncrmro 6y ago
I’ve got this case and it works pretty great. 5 3.5 hot swap drives. Although the drives come out the left side. So you would need to access that without moving the case for true hot swap.

ianlevesque 6y ago

Is that typical for QNAP to allow alternative OS installs? I know with Synology you cannot.

Wubdidu 6y ago
I have Debian running on my TS-451A for quite a while now. Except the front LEDs, everything is working completely fine. It is pretty much just a plain x86_64 PC with an UEFI firmware. The TS-251A is exactly the same but with 2 instead of 4 drive bays, as far as I know. It's very neat for its low power usage and small form factor.
- WhatIsDukkha 6y ago
  Raw debian right and not the qnap vm? How did you layout the partitions? What's on the 512m internal? I have one in the basement I've tried to install one too many times and I need to remotivate.

dghughes 6y ago

At college I built a Linux cluster for a project and for the SAN/NAS I used XigmasNAS. It's so much smaller and less bloated than FreeNAS has become. I had trouble configuring parts of the cluster but overall XigmaNAS worked well.

rufius 6y ago

Interesting. I have a TVS-471 that I run the default QNAP OS on. That said, I only use it for typical NAS workloads like: - serving media - file storage - device backup - off-site backup I recently started using the Hybrid Backup Station app and have been pretty impressed. I’ve got three jobs - Multimedia, Photos, and Archive backup. They all go to BackBlaze B2 on slightly different schedules. Been really pleased with it. That said, I do find the UI a little clunky so I can see why the author chose an alternative for their use case. I’ve got a cheap $150 NUC I use for more typical *nix server stuff that sits next to the NAS. It mostly runs an unbound DNS Forwarder for now but I plan to expand its usage further.

ksec 6y ago

Qnap actually has a new OS called Hero Edition that uses ZFS by default, coming in Q3. https://www.qnap.com/quts-hero/en/ https://www.qnap.com/quts-hero/en/

FullyFunctional 6y ago
Why not support the company that actually supports the development of ZFS instead? I don't know anything about Qnap but FreeNAS has a wealth of robust functionality. I'd be curious as to why people would prefer Qnap?
- zenonu 6y ago
  Looking at FreeNAS's page, it's all "Get Quote" nonsense for anything rack mounted. Needs a system configuration page with prices to play around with.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ksec 6y ago
  Well if they actually does anything consumer like Synology and Qnap, ASUStor or TerraMaster I would have bought one immediately. But iXysystem hasn't done it for the past 10 years.
locusm 6y ago
Hadn't heard of their new OS - interesting. Ive always wanted Synology to license their OS out as their hardware is all low power stuff and useless for virtualisation.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  Xpenology[0] may fit your needs. I'm not sure where in the grey area it fits, but it seems to get mentioned in polite company without inviting floods of copyright issues That Xpenology exists may explain why Synology don't license their OS. [0]:https://xpenology.org/ https://xpenology.org/

linsomniac 6y ago

RAID drive fails, "I regretted installing ClamAV". Don't regret it! It allowed you to find a drive failure before a second drive failed, and allowed you to recover your data while it was still recoverable! This is a good thing! Archival data is a tricky problem. If you don't regularly read it, you may find that when you do need to read it, that the sector has suffered some bit rot. What's one of the most likely cases where you have to read archived data? When a hard drive fails and RAID is doing a rebuild... So, by all means, run a ClamAV scan! Or better yet, run a ZFS scrub monthly or so. I've been a huge fan of ZFS for my archive data, mostly historic photos and Google takeout data now, because it can detect silent corruption and can do scrubs to verify and repair any hard drives sectors that have problems.

humaid 6y ago
Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!
- linsomniac 6y ago
  Oh, my other advice is: Avoid Seagate drives. Historically, I've found Hitachi to be the most reliable, and the BackBlaze hard drive stats seem to confirm that, though they tend to have small numbers of Hitachi drives. This is because they optimize for price not reliability. I've had good luck with other brands, but I've pretty much had universally bad luck with Seagate. Last year I replaced the last of our Stagate 15K drives with SSDs because, largely, I was tired of doing warranty returns every month or two.
  - zepearl 6y ago
    I used to always buy Hitachi as well, but when I decided a few weeks ago to replace all my old 4TB HDDs with 8TB HDDs I found out that they're quite expensive (did they use to be that expensive?). Well, in any case now I bought 8 Toshiba N300 8TB (4 HDDs for a server and another 4 for a NAS, both used by a RaidZ1) and so far they worked (and they're not loud and don't vibrate like hell when the disk is spinning, unlike the WD Gold). It's the first time that I buy Toshiba HDDs - I'm quite sure that if they would have been Seagate then at least 1 would have already failed.

aquaticsunset 6y ago

This is timely! I have a QNAP TS-251 (two drive bay model) that has been collecting dust for roughly two and a half years. Somebody was able to install a ransomware program on it, I suspect using the QSnatch[1] vulnerability. I triple pass zeroed the system storage and mothballed it. Two months ago decided I wanted to do something with this machine again, so I bought two new Seagate IronWolf drives and installed FreeNAS (it can boot to and run from the USB 3.0 port on the back). Is it the perfect hardware for FreeNAS? Nope - barely meets the minimum 8GB RAM requirements. But it's running as a media backup and Plex server, and doing a fantastic job at it. When I outgrow this hardware I'll certainly replace it with something I can also install FreeNAS on - consider me a happy convert. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/dvh7n2/qsnatch_malware_general_post_information_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/qnap/comments/dvh7n2/qsnatch_malwar...

trengrj 6y ago

Rather than waste time using one of the proprietary NAS systems like QNAP and Synology, why not support a system that runs and supports unmodified Linux and publishes full schematics like the upcoming Kobol64 https://kobol.io/ https://kobol.io/?