Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

by humaid • 6 years ago

62 52 6 years ago

nicolaslem• 6 years 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• 6 years ago

An HP microServer has a fairly small case.

mongol• 6 years 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.

vetinari3• 6 years ago

HP microserver doesn't have drive hotswap.

The first time you find out your drive is dying, you really want it.

edwhitesell• 6 years ago

I've used cases/components from here in the past: 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• 6 years 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.

funkaster3• 6 years 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/

moreorless• 6 years ago

These things are great for small NAS.

https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proli...

Hamuko• 6 years 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.

hnick2• 6 years 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• 6 years 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• 6 years 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• 6 years ago

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

Wubdidu• 6 years 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• 6 years 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• 6 years 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• 6 years 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.

ksec2• 6 years 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/

FullyFunctional• 6 years 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• 6 years 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.

ksec2• 6 years 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• 6 years 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• 6 years 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/

linsomniac5• 6 years 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• 6 years ago

Thank you for the advice. Will keep it mind when setting it up with the new drives!

linsomniac5• 6 years 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.

cure• 6 years ago

But if you ZFS, avoid the crappy WD red SMR drives! Cf. https://www.servethehome.com/wd-red-dm-smr-update-3-vendors-...

aquaticsunset• 6 years 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_malwar...

trengrj• 6 years 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/?

Installing FreeNAS on my QNAP TS-459

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