I want a NAS solution to back up my PC and host media files, but prebuilt NAS solutions are incredibly expensive and underwhelming and so I'm planning to build one. Does anyone have recommendations for a NAS interface?
I'm brand new to server management and would prefer something user friendly. I have used linux mint, but currently use windows as my daily driver (planning to switch to mint soon). I'd be fine with a dedicated NAS OS or with something I could run on mint since I'm already familiar with that distro.
OpenMediaVault (OMV) is a Debian server with a very user-friendly web interface. It also has solid documentation and a robust community. I've been running it for 6 years, and I am very happy with it.
Honestly, I run my TrueNAS with obly 8GiB and it does great. That said, I'm not doing any deduplication or anything, and my pool is only 3 drives at a total of ~15TB iirc
As someone with TrueNAS SCALE and having been through the mess of TrueCharts, I'd go with Proxmox on the bare metal and have 1 VM for TrueNAS SCALE and another for docker-compose or whatever apps system you want. SCALE is fine as a NAS but the apps system is currently limited and about to completely change; it's just not mature not stable. If you already have a home server running the apps you want and you're only expecting this server to be a NAS, then go ahead with SCALE on bare metal.
I love Proxmox but I am too much of a coward to run my NAS as a VM. It just feels like it would blow up on me. I know it is a normal thing to do. It just scares me.
HexOS is built on TrueNAS and looks promising as a simplified version. Looks like it isn't available yet but I think you're who the kind of user they are building it for.
You might be right. The Synology products look really good. I didn't see that they actually have a sub-$400 4-bay NAS... DS423. Not sure if it'll meet my performance needs. But the $600 4 bay doesn't look too bad either really.
Do you really need a 4 bay unit though? HDD are cheap right now. You can get a Synology DS-2XX for ~$200, and 2x14TB Refurb WDC for $200. That's 14TB of Raid 1 protected storage right there for $400.
I started with TrueNAS and it works great. Either regular TrueNAS or TrueNAS scale will suit your needs well, the major difference being that Scale uses a Linux base instead of the FreeBSD of core