Installing TrueNAS on a NAS Appliance - What could go wrong?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
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Small Business NAS Appliances. Bad hardware, bad software, but one of those can be fixed! At least, that's what I was hoping for. But it turns out, the software lockout go MUCH further than I planned. The only winning move is not to play, unless of course, you make your own game. With blackjack! And hookers!
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I had a small embedded system do something similar to what you're seeing. Turns out that the solder pads to clear the CMOS were soldered together. That way, no matter how many times I adjusted the settings in the BIOS, it would return to its system defaults. I had to desolder those pads and break the trace with an exacto knife, but after that, the BIOS would save my changes with no problems. Perhaps something similar could be useful here.
what i was thinking is desolder the eMMC
Hey, Jeff (Geoff?). What does the reset CMOS look like? Did you use AMI bios editor to set the defaults to what you wanted?
FYI ASUSTOR has been opening up the firmwares of all their most recent gen NASes, to the point you can just hit F2 during boot, get into BIOS, and do whatever you like.
Nicely, they even post guides to various NAS OSes on their TH-cam channel.
Not getting paid to say any of this, I've just been talking to their marketing rep for a year now trying to get them to make this official... and it finally is!
SHILL!
@@CraftComputing Haha, you'd say that!
No but seriously, I've also been trying to get them to consider adopting a form factor like Mini ITX for their design, or trying to standardize the backplane interface, so the hardware/enclosures could be repurposed should someone want to. So far it's been harder to make my case there :D
It'd be really fun to grab an old NAS and slap in new guts for a crazy SFF-style storage-centric build.
I think you need to boot into sata drives and not nvme. I am pretty sure I saw that same unit with unRAID but I think you need to sacrifice a sata bay
@JeffGeerling's previous video highlighting the ability to swap to TrueNAS on the ASUSTOR FLASHSTOR is why I bought one and I love the flexibility. I'm using it as a backup device for my primary server (which I built from the ground up using parts that were recommended on @Craft Computing. Unfortunately this trend of locking down these NAS appliances is now more the rule than the exception. Many companies simply don't want to risk creating a barrage of tech support cases and have to maintain driver download sites, and even if people like us have the technical chops to support ourselves, we're probably in the minority. This lock-down totally sucks and is bad for customers and creating excessive e-waste. But as someone who's been in the OEM IT industry for 20+ years, I can tell you that the bean counters, especially those in technical support organizations, want to minimize the cost of support for their products, especially something that is in the sub $1000 price range. Great videos Jeff(s) X2.
Bought one due to your reviews/use/promotion - very rough experience, although once you get on to support they're pretty helpful.
I have a feeling they don't have that many firmware engineers on staff.
Also the 6604T is doing something strange with the expansion bay. It should just be an Asmedia USB to SATA controller but the drives don't appear with any other Linux box.
Bit of a different experience from being a high profile TH-camr with access to white glove support.
I hate the idea of them locking people out of the hardware. It's not like the manufacturers are going to end of life the product and refuse to support it or anything. 🙄
This is likely less of a 'lockout' and more of a 'customer service tool', where, rebooting the machine puts it back into, at least, a 'known' configuration. That will both solve many problems, and give the support people someplace to start.
Unless Terramaster has done something new I haven’t heard about yet, their os is stored on a flash drive on the board itself, not soldered emmc. That’s why it keep reverting back to defaults, remove that and your golden. Atleast the on most recent models.
yeah there are many videos out of people installing TrueNAS Scale on their Terramasters. Going to buy a terramaster soon so i’m not too sure anymore
@@speedtouch2006 If memory serves right, the flash drive for this particular model is on the back side of the motherboard or the side you don’t see when taking the side panel off
Hopefully Jeff will see this so he can check his.
I have the TerraMaster T6 and have done this. Once you remove the USB key it will boot from the NVME every time. I have TrueNAS Core installed and it works great.
This should be pinned
You just need to pull the USB thumbdrive inside the Terramaster and it falls back to NVME boot as configered in BIOS.
would love to see a followup on this.
QNAP is the best if you want to do something like this. I've installed TrueNAS and even XPenology on it(booting from an USB stick). Works like a charm, and from what I can tell you should be able to install any OS you like. Really "just a PC".
I've also had great success with running TrueNAS and also a basic Arch install on a couple of QNAP NASes, without encountering any silly BIOS issues.
I was disappointed that they used a non-standard version of ZFS in their QuTS Hero OS, but switching over to TrueNAS was pretty easy.
Are you really running Scale from a flash drive?
Just chimning in to say I've installed TrueNAS SCALE on a QNAP NAS as well without any issues. Helps that it has an HDMI output though.
I have a Qnap that I don't much like, so I am tempted to change the OS. I've been tempted by Hero, but I like my old (less powerful) Synology, so xpenology sounds good.
But also TrueNAS as well...
I'll second this. Been doing this on QNAP hardware for years; first being a TS-459 II Pro, where you realistically had to swap the USB header module with a different one to store the new OS on. But yeah, the new one took a NVMe (Intel Optane, non-H10), a graphics card to not be headless, and configuring the BIOS worked just like a PC. It boots from NVMe and works with TrueNAS just as it should; lazy me even left the original flash drive in place.
Just a hint of what may work for you, I own a Terramaster F4-423 and I had the same problem with it going back to TOS instead of loading Unraid. I removed the usb boot drive completely and it worked fine. I have a Terramaster server running Unraid and reboots into Unraid. Is it possible to remove the emmc and then try?
This is the Terramaster solution I've seen in most online tutorials.
I even replaced it with a different USB stick on two older 2-bay systems. Usually this stick is not more then 256mb only. I run pve and pbs on these devices perfectly after removal ;-)
I'm running that exact NAS. Did you disconnect the internal USB drive? I replaced it with USB->SATA and boot TrueNAS off that with optane cache NVMEs.
Definitely convinced me to keep avoiding these NAS appliances. I’ll just try to find a good sata backplane box and use an m.2 sata controller inside an 1L microPC or older laptop motherboard.
I find the lack of PCIE connectors on SBC's very frustrating.
bought a Terramaster F5-221 on black Friday.....played with their v5 OS, then pulled OS drive [USB stick on that model), swapped in a new stick and installed unRaid. Zero issues and I suspect TrueNAS would have had similar results.
I think the Terramaster does this to keep it from accidentally booting from a drive that you inserted to add to your array that already had an OS on it.
That makes some sense, but it doesn't make sense that it reverts a user change in the BIOS. Most regular people won't even know how to get into the BIOS.
Did you try adding a grub entry on the Terramaster OS bootloader to point to 1/both of the SSDs? If you set these devices/entries as the default options, it might automatically boot into TrueNAS, despite "booting" from the onboard eMMC first. The only downside is that it might get wiped out by an update to Terramaster OS.
It's a shame that OEMs feel the need to make doing this sort of thing much harder than it needs to be.
Exactly.
Did you try installing grub onto the emmc? Truenas installer doesn't support it, but should be able to do it afterwards. Also, other Linux, such as Ubuntu or Fedora, can specify the boot partition at install, so you can just designate the emmc as boot drive.
I struggle to see the use case for putting TrueNAS on a Synology. To me the strong point of the Synology hardware is that DSM is just so dang easy for basic stuff. Simply setting up a share that works with Time Machine on my TrueNAS box was... a nightmare. UI changes that aren't reflected in the documentation, esoteric user management, etc. had me longing for the mediocre price:performance ratio and "so easy a baby could use it" stripped down UI. For what I want out of a NAS, I find myself wishing there was an easy way to run DSM inside Proxmox.
This is definitely a valid point, but one of the problems in the NAS market (specifically appliances like this) right now is the lack of options outside proprietary solutions.
Also, TrueNAS has made MASSIVE strides to be as point and click as possible to set up basic file sharing, permissions, and has a similar one-click app ecosystem as Synology.
The fact you're using Time Machine means you've got a Mac. It's not surprising you struggle with anything that isn't "so easy a baby could use it."
@Scarsuna GTFO of here with that elitist bullshit.
@@Scarsuna Yeah because most Windows users are so much better and can set up Samba with CLI
"I find myself wishing there was an easy way to run DSM inside Proxmox."
XPenology
For installing third-party OS, I think QNAP is the best (except the price)
At least it gives an HDMI on many Intel-based NAS, and it can save the boot sequence (unless you remove all drives causing it to boot back into the internal DOM, then it resets the boot sequence)
Try removing the usb drive that ships with the terramaster had the terramaster f2-223 and hard the same problem but when i removed the usb drive it worked fine
USB was removed.
I've got a different model terramaster and removing the usb with tos on allows me to boot truenas with no messung around. It just works. Hopefully its removable on yours and not soldered down
Terramaster now allows full acces they even made a bios update for this (no TOS only) ... now running a F4-423 with proxmox (Tried all the usual suspects Truenas, OMV, Xpenology) + Madam for RAID + cockpit ... smooth as butter ..... ymmv
This onw of the reasons why I prefer DIY/CUSTOM made SERVER-NAS instead of theses..... 😐😐😐
If you dont need tech support Asusstor makes really good nases for affordable prices. It is Asus and has all the short comings of Asus (Except installing windows on to everything) it is completly unlocked tho. (Atleast where i live and in North america (LTT VIDEO testing sponsers asuses support was not even bad it is was completly unacceptable and all of the mb CPU blowing up fiasca))
Forgive my ignorance, but why would anyone want to run TrueNAS on a NAS? Last time I tried it, I gave up in disgust and went back to OMV. I really really wanted to like it, but the utterly impenetrable user access management system was a massive dealbreaker.
The"internal" eMMC is usually just a USB drive or SD card that is plugged into an internal port. Disassemble the unit, pull the internal boot drive out and everything will work.
eMMC is a specific type of storage device (JESD84), based on the same MMC protocol as SD. They're often directly soldered BGA packages but sometimes mounted on separate boards.
@@0LoneTech I know, what I meant is if you take some of these NAS boxes apart, the "internal eMMC flash" turns out to be an SD card or a USB key instead of actual real eMMC.
You're right. In the Terramaster T6 is a 128Mb USB stick! If you pull out, the boot problem is solved!
A German TH-camr, Raspberry Pi Cloud, has done it. He found a mini USB-Stick at the TerraMaster.
Do you try to change or put off usb drive, which at opposite side of motherboard?
I removed the USB when I removed the motherboard. I believe the USB is just an installer, not the eMMC.
Hopping LTT's investment into that NAS company helps them fill this spot. For now, building your own is best.
I bought a terramaster t2-223 and had the same issue. It always disabled the nvme and returned to the usb the internal boot. I decided to stick a usb drive with unraid and it is running just fine
I use the TerraMaster F4-423 as a Proxmox Backup server :) so it does work :)
for the terramaster, can't you just edit the grub on the emmc to set truenas as primary ?
I had much better luck with the F2-423, their consumer model. TerraOS was installed on an internal USB, which I removed and added an NVME drive. Runs Proxmox + TrueNAS just fine.
TerraOS was installed on you data HDD.
In my opinion Synology dsn is very nice and just works. It also gets updates for years. I have connected them to VMware, windows iscsi, and standalone. I have deployed 10 of them and they are all still working. I also have a true nas appliance and while it also works its more intermediating to setup and AD join. If you don't want to spend the time to learn truenas DSM is gold.
That’s been my experience the past couple weeks - DSM for all its faults and limitations “just works” for what I need it to, I’m running Synology hardware for relatives and XPenology on my own hardware.
I’d actually buy a license if Synology released an official “bring your own hardware” DSM.
Jeff, did you look into the asustor 12 pro? It’s fully open and Linus tech tips change os to trunas on it. 12nvme drives it can hold upto.
You should buy a humidifier... The air in your office has to be really dry, look how quickly the beer evaporates between cuts :D
Many QNAP devices allow you to install your own OS. I can't say exactly which ones but I know my TS-453mini can do it. It has a standard bios (I've seen it) and a video out via HDMI.
I think you didn't remove the TerraMaster USB stick. It should be on the corner near the USB 3.0 and fan ports on the edge where the M.2 sockets are, but on the other side of the PCB. It's a pain in the backside to get to but once removed, it should boot from your M.2 SSD. Source: used to run TrueNAS on one of these boxes.
I've been kind of looking for a NAS but found all off the shelf options to be too expensive and limiting. And this is just another nail in that coffin. Thanks for putting this info out there!
not having an open bios or firmware immediately turns me off to that product. that's why i always end up just finding older enterprise systems to act as my NAS's or game hosts.
im that way with advertising too. if i get an unsolicited ad for a product, i absolutely refuse to purchase or use that product forever. interestingly, the products i DO like and use... i never ever get ads for them. odd eh?
On plenty of Qnap, AsusStore, Zyxel and Terramaster NAS devices you can install custom OSes.
Sadly it's Synology is locking down everything more and more.
Is that true on newer devices? I used the TS-253be with linux. It cannot boot from NVME, but I put the EFI and boot partitions on it's 4GB eMMC. That's the reason I bought it. Predecessor x86 had only 512GB, which is not enough for 2 debian/ubuntu kernels. Only problem was burnin of the status display.
Silly question. I assume that the eMMC module is soldered? Some aren't. If not, can you pull it off and get control back?
Maybe the reason you didn't find a reference to it resetting to default is because your changes are simply not saved, and the default is just that - default.
Linus has an Investment in an Startup wanting to bring easy to use NAS (Software) to the Market - I am very interested how that will tourn out.
Also: I hate those stupid little NAS Boxes. They generally underperform and are to expensive. If you buy a reasonably suited Case (I used to have a Fractal Node 302 for that) and an i3 on an ITX Board - you're generally better off - and have space for much more disks, if you go with an big enough case. Throw in a cheap HBA from eBay and the sky's the limit.
Barely cost you as much as a 4-6 Bay Ready-to-go NAS, and thanks to TrueNAS way more functionality (but you need to invest a bit more time, as using that is not as easy to use as those ready made boxes)
@craftcomputing if this is an EFI bios it may be loading an EFI driver that’s resetting settings on every boot. That EFI driver could probably be disabled using an EFI shell…
Think of it like the v3 Xeon overclock…
The other comment somebody made about the OEM permanently bridging the clear CMOS pads with solder is another good avenue of investigation-for that matter is there even a CMOS battery in the first place?
I wouldn’t think there are too many ways to trigger automatic overwrite of bios settings on every single boot…while I see people suggesting workarounds like editing grub and erasing the emmc, methinks it should be possible to disable the hack that’s resetting BIOS if only you can figure out what the hack is.
I love the sneaky Futurama reference in the description. And yeah, we need an open hardware NAS appliance really bad. I've taken to building low power PCs just because I can install whatever I want on them- I'm comfortable with things in a way a non-sysadmin isn't though. I wonder what it would take to design a NAS enclosure around an off-the-shelf ITX system?
*the synology nas*
"To shreds you say?"
You can also try to use a NAS oriented server, like HP ProLiant Microserver. New ones are expensive, but you can get a used one pretty cheap. They can be pretty powerful if you need your NAS to perform additional tasks aside from being a fileserver.
Have to consider power consumption these days. A dedicated NAS are actually more energy efficient than a full blown server. Also, I am running the HP ProLiant Microserver G8 with TrueNAS.
@@Darkk6969 microservers are not "full blown servers" as the name implies
Fire up your Quick hot air rework gun, and float the EMMC off the TerraMaster's motherboard. BIOS should fail over to the NVMe drive. TerraMaster NAS boxes all work this way, but some of them have an easily removable USB thumb drive inside. EMMC is just a bit tougher to remove. A carefully placed Black Cat firecracker might work if you don't have a Quick workstation.
Why would you buy a Synology if you wanted to install your own OS? That is not what they are for. That's like buying an iPhone and wanting to run BlackberryOS. Just buy a Blackberry. LTT and other channels have built small ITX NAS cases (eg. Jonsbo N1) for less than the price of a DS920+. You don't buy a Synology for the hardware. You buy it for DSM.
I've deployed both TrueNAS and Synology for clients and unless they are paying for managed services, Synology has been a great client solution that eliminates my need to "be the warranty".
A while back I tried using an old Celeron SOC based lian li NAS box as well, a NAS of all things... It did install TureNAS, and even recognized the drives that were installed. Then it all went to shit.
A SINGLE 10gb file transfer brought the whole thing to it's knees. I tried non-raid, raid-1, and raid-0 all failed miserably. I even maxed out it's supported SODIM capacity. Nothing fixed it.
Eventually I moved to rack mounting an old 4th gen i5 desktop in a 2U case, stuffed it full of drives and never looked back. This video feels like validation to that choice.
I have a Terra-Master F4-423 which is similar to the T6 (they share a BIOS AFAIK.) (1) Not eMMC, but USB drive module on the motherboard. and (2) there's a setting in the Fast tab of the BIOS to disable the TOS boot. Remove the thumbdrive and turn that TOS setting to disabled and you should be good to go. I'm currently running Debian + ZFS + Samba + Docker on it with a memory upgrade to 16G. Works great. A follow-up might be nice.
I have stopped using Off-The-Shelf appliances you mentionned two examples for this particular good reason: Once the embedded software goes EOL, you're stuck with that version, and you cannot hope for the manufacturers to release any further updates, nor can you expect to be owner of an open x86-64 system that you can customize to your needs. That's just 8U77$'!+ at its best. IMHO assembling a DIY server running a chosen suitable OS and its underlying software always works best in regarding long-term support. Plus, it doesn't cost an extra Dollar as most OS Server software is Open-source and part of the GNU licence. The European Union should also enforce a certain degree of reusability and recycling of these NAS appliances to shimmer down landfill waste accumuling on a daily basis. They should be designed more user-friendly to a new lease on life.
This is exactly why I won't buy or recommend Synology anymore.
This has the makings of an interesting series. Can I get TrueNAS to run on this NAS device? Are there any reasonably priced, 'good enough' generic NAS boards available that would meet the needs of a home lab or home office?
This sort of shenanigans by the RTR NAS box makers just gives more reason to buy a cheap old X86 board/CPU/RAM combo (say, X79 or X99), toss it in a super tower of 3.5" drive bays, and toss TrueNAS on the thing after loading with 16TB+ drives and a 10gbps NIC, if you want a lot of at-home storage on a LAN.
TrueNAS does work on the T6-423, I have installed both Core and Scale. I ran into the issue of getting it to boot, but once you remove the internal USB drive with the TOS bootloader, it has no choice but to boot from the NVME. I have my boot order set to USB --> NVME (rest disabled) and it work flawlessly. I can pop a USB drive in at anytime to one of the external USB ports and boot from it without going in to the BIOS. Heck, I even installed Windows just to see if it would, and it did. I have (6) 4TB drives installed in RAIDZ2 and it is working well so far. Just may keep it this way as a permanent setup.
I built my own after using a 2 bay NAS that was just too slow for backup and restores. Every small unit I researched didn’t provide the flexibility or price for the hardware level. I couldn’t be happier with what I built.
Heck no! NAS Appliances Blow! I love using old x86 hardware like an old dell as a TrueNAS Scale unit.
as a homelabber, I'll probably never buy a turn key unit like that unless a client specifies it for some reason.
The Helios64 showed promised towards an open NAS appliance box but they got some hw problems and later had to pull the plug completely (probably due to pandemic cost increases)
That is a similar reason why I kicked Epson and HP color jet printers outof our homes and offices. A printer bought in Hong Kong or Mexico wouldent accept ink cartridges from Europe etc. Well, I'm happy now for 30 years using other brands and they lost tousands of dollars of unsold printers and ink. I also convinced friends! As for NAS boxes, its the same. I set up several computers with lots of SATA ports and use TrueNAS. My money stays with me!
Dumb idea, create a tiny Truenas Scale/core boot disk (Whatever the size of the terramaster eMMC is), then clone that to the built-in eMMC using clonezilla or something similar. Obviously take a backup of the eMMC before doing so to ensure you don't brick the device, but if that eMMC is visable to clonezilla (I didn't see it in the Truenas installer...), it COULD work.
I will never buy anything that has vendor-lock in. I would like all my hardware to have Coreboot support! That's a win!
Look at PC Engines APU series. Old now but fantastic work. Open source hardware and firmware.
This is why I use a 9020USFF with a 4460T and a couple of usb drives as my homeserver/NAS.
I can do with it whatever I darn well please and it's cheap.
I would 100% back a true opensource NAS that's also affordable. I don't see why companies are charging $500+ for basically laptop hardware and a 4-8 bay disk shelf, when in reality I could build a server from either enterprise or consumer hardware that runs circles around it for the same price or even less. The included software doesn't justify that price either. I understand that not everyone has the know-how to do what I mentioned above, but for us that do, it's beyond frustrating
I will not buy any hardware that locks me into there "ecosystem" which they will then no longer update afew years down the line or there new and improved OS will not run on "old" hardware because they have added so much useless crap and bloatware to the OS. Terramaster has several NAS's box's without emmc onboard and you can install another os like trueNAS and i have several of them i am happy with running trueNAS. But i have avoided buying other products from terramaster "higher" end because they are locked. Chosing to rather go the ebay route buying HPE / SFF systems approch which i am very happy with now dispite several ball's ups of my own making during the process.
I’ll echo the QNAP. I’ve been running TrueNAS Scale on it for some time now. No problems booting/rebooting. Seems to be “just a PC”
Strange your terramaster is doing that. I had an option to just straight up turn off the emmc and that worked for me. My unit isn't the same modle of yours though.
TerraOS is also contained on a USB stick, if he just removed it, it'd likely be a non issue. I run unraid on one with zero issues by just swapping the stick.
Guess I'm sticking to 2nd hand severs with front load bays and DIY builds with ebay supermicro mobos. Darn. Lol.
Question, Wouldn't a Jonsbo N3 case with the I9 Erying be a decent Nas in the 4 to 500 dollar range with a decent HBA?
I'd love to see testing on this and it'd be an open source platform.
I'm actually using a 4bay Datto SB2000 i got at an e-cycler. Swapped out the OS drive with SSD I had and loaded Windows Server on it no issue. Should be able to load TruNas no issue as well.
I really like the look of the TerraMaster hardware and would love to get one as a backup server, but this sort of lockin would put me off - I won't be buying one now
there is a reason why i just bought a old supermicro server off of ebay over getting a pre done nas like one of there (aka ~300 usd for 12 bays and something like 48gb of ecc ram with open pcie slots so i can upgrade networking and other things or just attach a jbod device to it instead of the ~400-500 for a 3-5 bay locked down pre done nas)
I've tooled around with other OSes on Qnap devices. At least in my limited experience, I haven't run into any of these lock-in practices -- but they do make it fairly easy to restore the original OS, if that's what you want.
I do not buy these products specifically because of those kinds of practices. Try to force me to use your cloud services and I'll just keep my money in my pocket. I'll just keep building my own stuff and picking my parts.
This is the very reason I just purchased all the computer parts for a pc build from microcenter that was about the same price as a off the shelf NAS. I got a way better computer for my money, you have to purchase all your drives separately for both "solutions". Truenas or unraid is simple to install and easy to configure. Just build your own NAS!
I bought a T6-423 last week and installed TrueNAS on it. I ran into this boot issue as well, but there is a manual to solve this in the Terramaster Forum. It is basically a bios update, some shell commands and a change in a new bios setting entry. Afterwards it did not reset the boot settings again. The included script file did not run the bios update, but a look into the script file provided the command to execute the bios update manually solved that issue.
I have turned my back on Synology and all other brands which make such NAS years ago. I tried what you tried years ago and found no way. Still funny that they changed nothing since then. :D
hi, have you found a solution? I also have the T6 and can't save the NVME permanently. Very annoying.
The eMMC is not visible from TrueNAS, are you trying any linux distro? You don't mansion about it and there is no serial pin on Terra?
You might not have seen my comment on the syno review... But you miss the entire point with these videos. You're buying their software not hardware. The Synology OS is better in many ways than truenas
I bought a terramaster nas. Nothing I did could get me through the setup process as the nas just would not connect to terramasters servers for registration during setup. Tried the route of installing a different os and ended up with a similar situation to the synology. Now I own a paperweight because terramasters costumer service is terrible and just kept giving me a run around repeating the same solutions over and over again not grasping what my actual issue was. Will be steering clear of terramaster.
Recent Asustor appliance are really open, is quite easy installing trends scale on it. We use it two flashstor 12 in production environment right now running truenas.
There is apparently a BIOS update for the Terramaster NAS that fixes this issue, the bios files are on the Terramaster forums.
Sounds like the bios enters no-write mode - and setting upon boot stores in memory that gets flushed upon restart. Poke all the jumpers/headers?
To think how I still run TrueNas on my 10+ y/o HP Microserver... :P
was it not possible to make grub chainload into the truenas efi?
QNAP and Asustor machines can and do just work. You can boot off USB on the QNAP boxes with no video (like the Ryzen 1600B based machines). The Intel based QNAP and Asustor don't have those Bios limitations of the Terramaster
Thank you for your support!
Hey, fancy seeing you here 😉
@@CraftComputing I am everywhere good content is found. ;)
📞😉 Call me maybe, let's make some more.
why do you want to put truenas on a synology? The ability to only run dsm is an asset, no not a disadvantage. And why do you glorify alcohol on your channel?
This is why I picked up a second hand hp proliant microserver gen8 to run Truenas scale and it does.
That's why I got a HP proliant microserver on sale. It's still a PC.
When are we going to stop using the slow Sata and SAS buses and just use nvme via a M. 2 or pci slot?
Have you tried wiping the eMMC?
No OS, no bootable drive
Pretty sure you just need to delete internal usb drive (if any like in other models) so it will boot from NVMe
I wonder if the bios reset issue is related to a jumper on the board, or maybe a dead CMOS battery?
@miyconst maybe you can hack the Terramaster BIOS?
That Glenlivet Caribbean Reserve is one of my favorite scotches!
Excellent.
How about a video on BIOS editing?
There are appliance-style mini-ITX cases out there that accepts mini-ITX motherboards and 1U power supplies.
This is the route I took; a mini itx case with four hot-swap bays in the front.
It's served me well for about 8 years now.
Recently, I upgraded the wimpy Core i3-3225 dual core proc to a Core i7-3770 to snag vt-d support and add two extra cores.
Now that system runs ProxMox and with CoPilot, acts as a backup target for the rest of the home lab.
problem with thows is a dead psu , or mb or a corupt os , will make you thow away the intire thing , better of using a normal pc as nas ,
Asustor products work with truenas and they even have instructions!
This kind of hardware locking always ticks me off!
Can you insert a new voice on the grub install in the emmc to boot from the nvme?
First rule of NAS, Synology went from cool kid to evil corporate, avoid them.
It’s still a valid option for home users w/ limited technical knowledge. They’re fine for backups and a media server.
re: open source vs. "purchased" solutions like QNAP
I've tried deploying my own CIFS/NFS/iSCSI NAS and permissions became such a cluster that I ended up firing my QNAP NAS back up, just so that I don't have to deal with that headache.
TrueNAS as a NAS is ok, but it doesn't have the added "niceities" as QNAP does with their "apps". (Yes, TrueNAS have SOME apps, but their apps are basically just FreeBSD jails/containers rather than their apps just being "native-to-the-host-OS" applications.)
I kinda don't want to have to provision the already scant hardware of my QNAP NAS further, just to run a bunch of FreeBSD jails/containers for "apps".
This is what I find as the "value proposition" in NAS appliances like QNAP.
Yes, you can build your own NAS with faster and more upgradable hardware whilst only paying for a fraction of the hardware cost.
But if you want to point a CIFS/NFS share to the same mount point, permissions becomes a nightmare.
I deployed an iSCSI target on my Proxmox server.
It failed MISERABLY because it kept driving up my CPU load averages to well above 140 on a system that only has 32-cores/64-threads.
So I killed that (and got my QNAP NAS to take over for iSCSI target deployment).
I have learned that what I am paying for is less so the hardware, but moreso the expert knowledge in how they tweaked the OS/software so that I can deploy CIFS/NFS and point it to the same mount point and NOT have the permissions get all screwed up.
I'm paying for their expert knowledge in terms of how to deploy an iSCSI target, which DOESN'T drive the CPU load averages through the roof.
I'm paying for their time, rather than using my own time, because for my own time, I just want this stuff to work so that I can move on with what I actually want to do with said iSCSI target, rather than dealing with the sysadmin end of DEPLOYING a functional, operational iSCSI target (as an example).
(And this applies to everything else that I've used my QNAP NASes for.)
You should install the grub bootloader as a chainloader on a USB to boot to the grub bootloader on the Truenas drive. It "may" auto boot to USB unlike the Truenas drive without reverting to the emmc. 😊
Or just edit the installed grub boot menu? Wouldn't stop the disabling of the drives.
@@uggima1 the drives aren't disabled, the boot order just reverts so editing the installed grub boot loader makes no sense, as if it booted to the correct drive all the time, then nothing would need changing.
@@solverz4078 ..... if the drive was still available then you can just chainload from grub on the emmc or whatever its booting from normally to start the os on the nvme but like he said he had to re-enable the nvme drives like 5 times, each time he went in and changed the boot order.
@@uggima1 You don't seem to know what you are talking about...
You have to be able to boot to the drive, to use the chain loading feature of grub, but even then there would be no point if it booted directly to the correct drive anyway!
He did not say the drives were disabled, he said the boot order kept reverting. So if the USB is the first boot device, then just install grub on that and chain load to the correct grub on the correct drive, no need to keep reverting the boot order.
@@solverz4078 Okay, so he said they were disabled in the boot order not disabled outright. Also yes he can install grub on a usb device if he wants but it was changing boot order to inbuilt storage on each boot. So why not just change the default install's grub.cfg and make his new os option default?