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> So the NAS runs Kubuntu 24.04 with ZFS My experience is similar. I no longer use dedicated NAS, firewall, or other exotic distributions. I run plain Debian,

> So the NAS runs Kubuntu 24.04 with ZFS My experience is similar. I no longer use dedicated NAS, firewall, or other exotic distributions. I run plain Debian, and add what I need through standard repo packages. My "NAS" is simply a Samba daemon. The same box runs countless other services including hostapd (WiFi), DNS (Unbound), an email stack (Postfix/Dovecot), multiple game servers, and Podman. > everything else in Docker Compose I would suggest Podman instead. It is far more secure by design (rootless) and is unable to silently alter the firewall's configuration.

sotilrac 6d ago
Interesting, I never tried Podman. Thanks for the suggestion!
Gigachad 5d ago
These days you can buy 4 bay USB-C hard drive enclosures which let you make a nas out of any mini pc. I 3D printed a 10 inch rack to put the mini pc, hard drive enclosure and switch in which keeps it all neat and looks kinda cool.
- magarnicle 5d ago
  I do a similar thing. It really is functionally exactly the same, just a bit more piecemeal.
- drnick1 5d ago
  Why not an old school case with an HDD cage that can hold anywhere between a few and a dozen drives? It would be cheaper and more flexible.
  - rkagerer 5d ago
    Or even go nuts and do something like this: https://grabcad.com/library/10-bay-hard-disk-drive-cage-for-phanteks-enthoo-primo-case-1 https://grabcad.com/library/10-bay-hard-disk-drive-cage-for-...
- M95D 5d ago
  USB is unreliable. I used btrfs raid0 on USB drives for more than a year. Every month or so, a drive would disconnect from the bus and immediately redetected as another device (sde->sdf). Btrfs does not auto-recover from this. The choices are 1) reboot and scrub, which recovers the missing drive without doing a full resync, but it needs a reboot (any hosted site is offline for 3 minutes) and scrub takes a long time reading in the background, or 2) run btrfs replace which doesn't need a reboot, but the full resync takes even longer than a scrub and increases wear if it's a ssd because it wipes everything and writes all data again.
  - dsr_ 5d ago
    I agree that USB is unreliable. I will point out that if you use ZFS instead of btrfs, you can specify drives to be detected via their serial number names rather than their attachment points, so a reconnect will not require a reboot. Still, don't depend on USB for anything meant to be permanently connected.
    - doubled112 5d ago
      USB is unreliable but it's working for me. I've had zero disconnects in a couple of years of using a Terramaster USB-C DAS. I've heard of the problems enough I've even searched logs for it. I've wondered if my experience is different because I'm using single disks (but still ZFS) instead of any RAID. There is rarely transfer happening across all of the disks.
unethical_ban 5d ago
I find Proxmox to be a great host. It's Debian with a bunch of helper scripts/GUI to run containers and VMs. I manage ZFS outside the Proxmox bubble and run a privileged SMB server container to access it. Though I really don't use the server anymore and it's probably worth several thousand dollars with the RAM in it. Been thinking of using a spare laptop with external HD bays to do the same job.
- marysol5 5d ago
  Don't know what it is with Proxmox, but I always somehow managed to break it in such a way that I can't remove the container/VM or start it...
Oxodao 5d ago
> is unable to silently alter the firewall's configuration I'd like more informations about this as I'm not too familiar with firewall setup but every time I tried to setup iptables / nft it was indeed bypassed by docker. Recently I found out in the docs that docker adds a DOCKER-USER table, isn't it enough to put your rules in it to prevent the outside world to reach containers ?

sotilrac 6d ago

Interesting, I never tried Podman. Thanks for the suggestion!

Gigachad 5d ago

These days you can buy 4 bay USB-C hard drive enclosures which let you make a nas out of any mini pc. I 3D printed a 10 inch rack to put the mini pc, hard drive enclosure and switch in which keeps it all neat and looks kinda cool.

magarnicle 5d ago
I do a similar thing. It really is functionally exactly the same, just a bit more piecemeal.
drnick1 5d ago
Why not an old school case with an HDD cage that can hold anywhere between a few and a dozen drives? It would be cheaper and more flexible.
- rkagerer 5d ago
  Or even go nuts and do something like this: https://grabcad.com/library/10-bay-hard-disk-drive-cage-for-phanteks-enthoo-primo-case-1 https://grabcad.com/library/10-bay-hard-disk-drive-cage-for-...
M95D 5d ago
USB is unreliable. I used btrfs raid0 on USB drives for more than a year. Every month or so, a drive would disconnect from the bus and immediately redetected as another device (sde->sdf). Btrfs does not auto-recover from this. The choices are 1) reboot and scrub, which recovers the missing drive without doing a full resync, but it needs a reboot (any hosted site is offline for 3 minutes) and scrub takes a long time reading in the background, or 2) run btrfs replace which doesn't need a reboot, but the full resync takes even longer than a scrub and increases wear if it's a ssd because it wipes everything and writes all data again.
- dsr_ 5d ago
  I agree that USB is unreliable. I will point out that if you use ZFS instead of btrfs, you can specify drives to be detected via their serial number names rather than their attachment points, so a reconnect will not require a reboot. Still, don't depend on USB for anything meant to be permanently connected.
  - doubled112 5d ago
    USB is unreliable but it's working for me. I've had zero disconnects in a couple of years of using a Terramaster USB-C DAS. I've heard of the problems enough I've even searched logs for it. I've wondered if my experience is different because I'm using single disks (but still ZFS) instead of any RAID. There is rarely transfer happening across all of the disks.

unethical_ban 5d ago

I find Proxmox to be a great host. It's Debian with a bunch of helper scripts/GUI to run containers and VMs. I manage ZFS outside the Proxmox bubble and run a privileged SMB server container to access it. Though I really don't use the server anymore and it's probably worth several thousand dollars with the RAM in it. Been thinking of using a spare laptop with external HD bays to do the same job.

marysol5 5d ago
Don't know what it is with Proxmox, but I always somehow managed to break it in such a way that I can't remove the container/VM or start it...

Oxodao 5d ago

> is unable to silently alter the firewall's configuration I'd like more informations about this as I'm not too familiar with firewall setup but every time I tried to setup iptables / nft it was indeed bypassed by docker. Recently I found out in the docs that docker adds a DOCKER-USER table, isn't it enough to put your rules in it to prevent the outside world to reach containers ?