Hi everyone, I’ve been working on my homelab for a year and a half now, and I’ve tested several approaches to managing NAS and selfhosted applications. My current setup is an old desktop computer that boots into Proxmox, which has two VMs:
- TrueNAS Scale: manages storage, shares and replication.
- Debian 12 w/ docker: for all of my selfhosted applications.
The applications connect to the TrueNAS’ storage via NFS. I have two identical HDDs as a mirror, another one that has no failsafe (but it’s fine, because the data it contains is non-critical), and an external HDD that I want to use for replication, or some other use I still haven’t decided.
Now, the issue is the following. I’ve noticed that TrueNAS complains that the HDDs are Unhealthy and has complained about checksum errors. It also turns out that it can’t run S.M.A.R.T. checks, because instead of using an HBA, I’m directly passing the entire HDDs by ID to the VM. I’ve read recently that it’s discouraged to pass virtualized disks to TrueNAS, as data corruption can occur. And lately I was having trouble with a selfhosted instance of gitea, where data (apparently) got corrupted, and git was throwing errors when you tried to fetch or pull. I don’t know if this is related or not.
Now the thing is, I have a very limited budget, so I’m not keen on buying a dedicated HBA just out of a hunch. Is it really needed?
I mean, I know I could run TrueNAS directly, instead of using Proxmox, but I’ve found TrueNAS to be a pretty crappy Hypervisor (IMHO) in the past.
My main goal is to be able to manage the data that is used in selfhosted applications separately. For example, I want to be able to access Nextcloud’s files, even if the docker instance is broken. But maybe this is just an irrational fear, and I should instead backup the entire docker instances and hope for the best, or maybe I’m just misunderstanding how this works.
In any case, I have some data that I want to store and want to reliably archive, and I don’t want the docker apps to have too much control over it. That’s why I went with the current approach. It has also allowed for very granular control. But it’s also a bit more cumbersome, as everytime I want to selfhost a new app, I need to configure datasets, permissions and mounting of NFS shares.
Is there a simpler approach to all this? Or should I just buy an HBA and continue with things as they are? If so, which one should I buy (considering a very limited budget)?
I’m thankful for any advice you can give and for your time. Have a nice day!
Okay, no VM, understood, but I do want to use a GUI for ZFS, because I’m basically a noob.
Late to the party, but if you really want a GUI for ZFS, 45drives has a ZFS plug-in for cockpit that works quite well.
Huh, I hadn’t understood that Cockpit is another server OS that I can use. Okay, I’ll keep it in mind, thanks!
It’s not. It’s just a GUI for a server.
It’s a modular GUI, though. The base install allows basic server management: system stats, upgrades, and a couple other bits. However, you can install additional modules to expand the GUI to allow for storage management, ZFS management, container management, file sharing (NFS, SMB), a file browser, VM management, user management, and so on.
My go-to “NAS system” is just standard Debian with Cockpit and a handful of supporting modules. It gives a nice GUI like OMV, but with all the flexibility and control of a normal Debian install.
One thing to consider is that once zfs is setup there really is no significant intervention that is needed. I probably haven’t done anything to my proxmox zfs array in years.
I know its almost a meme to say just learn command line, but unfortunately in this case it will really help you understand what is happening and it also just takes a few commands to setup up once and then never worry about it again.
After the inital setup, the zfs GUI will be pretty much unused.
For commands I don’t use often, i use a note taking software to keep track of commands I used during setup because years go by before I use it again. I find the GUI often changes in that time making it harder to replicate whereas command line is the same and easier to document.
Yeah, you’re totally right. Okay thanks, will do
Well erm that I can’t get around… but I guess it depends on what you want to self host. I use truenas as a storage solution, standalone and it works very well for that - I have had it up and running for years and years. It also stores personal files and is not exposed to the internet apart from updates and a few other things. Then I have an old 4-node server from Supermicro which hosts the stuff I need and uses truenas to store the data. Now that is probably overkill but the data is safe and backed up well. Truenas has apps for a lot of things, and other ways to host docker containers if you have the latest scale community edition. So perhaps you could do it that way
Yeah, but I don’t have two separate machines, that’s why I’m using Proxmox. And I used TrueNAS previously, with TrueCharts, and I wasn’t happy. It was pretty unstable and finnicky for me, and hard to go back to, after running docker in a clean Debian VM, which has been rocksolid so far. Still, thanks for your suggestion
Like I said - each to their own. truecharts the apps are pretty much known to be more unstable as well, says that everywhere in the documentation. Truenas if it’s up to date, using their app catalogue with stable selected is pretty rock solid for everyone.
Also I have to say that the whole idea of truenas is moving towards enterprise even if you self-host it. They’d much rather you bought a whole system than on your cobbled together old stuff. That’s why it is now community edition, a simple way of saying you are gonna get bugs and things that don’t work
You’re right, their own app catalogue is stable, but I like trying out new docker apps constantly, and I feel like I’m limitted in my options if I only use their catalogue. Still, thanks for your replies.
I get that - it is never going to replace a true docker setup. However I am pretty happy with what I can achieve on my personal truenas setup, and it is NOT exposed to the web which appears to be perfectly fine.