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.
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 need and looks kinda cool.
I am most interested in that DC power supply. I bought a similar one recently (rgeek brand on aliexpress), but haven't yet dared to connect it yet.
I'm wondering what:
- the failure mode is if it can't provide enough current.
- How to properly test it under a fake load
- If these tiny power cables can really handle 150 W (this is 12 A at 12V). I don't have such a powerful 12V PSU, so I am thinking about adding capacitors to handle transients.
I imagine that it is really built to handle transient peaks to 150 W, with a more reasonable baseline.
Anyway, if anyone knows a good knowledge source for these PSU, I'd be interested.
My initial motication for going with these was:
- hopefully increase my PSU efficiency
- less cable clutter
- hopefully power it from a small DC UPS (there are plenty of "router" UPS sold on the market, though the power rating is a bit low, 18-36 W usually).
The parts linked on the post are performing well. If you size them well, the main issue you can run into is inrush current when powering up. You may need a soft start circuit. I know I'm at the limit and may need to add a soft start if I add more fans.
The only article I found with those keywords is that they are/were considering dropping ZFS /boot support in GRUB. If that is the case, they aren't removing ZFS support for non-boot drives.
Author here: totally used Claude. I meant it's a custom solution. I don't think anyone nowadays would write this type of HTML/CSS by hand; there's no point.
I've noticed 3d printing people have this annoying habit of posting pics of their projects in just low enough res that you can't assess what the surface finish actually looks like. From what I can tell this "pebbled" finish looks uncommonly nice, I wonder if that's a byproduct of the glass fiber material or some post-processing.
Saving that precious GitLab Pages storage . I really liked the finish of the ABS GF from Bambu Lab. It matched the original case finish pretty well out of the printer. However, the glass fill is a bit scary; you can feel the fibers poking. I wiped it with a sturdy rag to remove the loose fibers.
This is great. I also avoid stuff like TrueNAS or Unraid and opt to simply run my own ZFS and smb/nfs/etc configuration. Love the unifi-style display... I am cooking something similar but it is not a touchscreen just a blue-on-black OLED that cycles through status pages. You've inspired me to finally write a post on my own setup.
Re names, I like "homeprod". The main goal isn't to experiment and learn, and you're not scrapping to get a pair of Cisco 2501's to study for your CCNA. Rather the main goal is providing services that support your family's larger existence, independent of the surveillance industry - the tinkering is an (unfortunately necessary) side effect.
Absolutely, I was running the server on my main desktop before this, and it was super stressful. One of the main drivers was to move things to something more stable. NGL, I still experimenton it though...
This is an underestimated part of operating IT infrastructure at home. Something a lot of homelab builders miss. They have a homelab that mixes in the same environment and same equipment the role of delivering standard services for the house and family, with the role of experimenting and toying around.
Everyone who builds this should really have "homeprod" and "homelab". And when the experiments and tests inevitably lead to an outage, the movie streaming or photo storage or home control parts don't die with it.
> 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.
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 need and looks kinda cool.
Interesting, I never tried Podman. Thanks for the suggestion!
I am most interested in that DC power supply. I bought a similar one recently (rgeek brand on aliexpress), but haven't yet dared to connect it yet.
I'm wondering what:
- the failure mode is if it can't provide enough current.
- How to properly test it under a fake load
- If these tiny power cables can really handle 150 W (this is 12 A at 12V). I don't have such a powerful 12V PSU, so I am thinking about adding capacitors to handle transients.
I imagine that it is really built to handle transient peaks to 150 W, with a more reasonable baseline.
Anyway, if anyone knows a good knowledge source for these PSU, I'd be interested.
My initial motication for going with these was:
- hopefully increase my PSU efficiency
- less cable clutter
- hopefully power it from a small DC UPS (there are plenty of "router" UPS sold on the market, though the power rating is a bit low, 18-36 W usually).
The parts linked on the post are performing well. If you size them well, the main issue you can run into is inrush current when powering up. You may need a soft start circuit. I know I'm at the limit and may need to add a soft start if I add more fans.
That tiny touchscreen that shows metrics was an extremely nice touch. Fascinating read!
Beware, Ubuntu are dropping ZFS. That's something that's annoyed me as that's now ruled out future upgrades
Totally, I had to build it from source to get the latest. Also, why I chose 24.04
The only article I found with those keywords is that they are/were considering dropping ZFS /boot support in GRUB. If that is the case, they aren't removing ZFS support for non-boot drives.
Nice custom job, I use my old hardware too, it’s the perfect use case providing it’s relatively power efficient.
Not sure why they claim to have written the dashboard themselves though. It’s clearly vibe-coded, I did that too and mine is almost identical.
Author here: totally used Claude. I meant it's a custom solution. I don't think anyone nowadays would write this type of HTML/CSS by hand; there's no point.
> So the NAS runs Kubuntu 24.04 with ZFS,
I broadly approve, but why Kubuntu? Isn't it headless?
When I first boot up the computer I didn't know what to expect, so I defaulted to my favorite distro and it stuck
On the wifi requirement I just noticed unraid has added wifi support
Hmmm. Only fans Linux service running?
I've noticed 3d printing people have this annoying habit of posting pics of their projects in just low enough res that you can't assess what the surface finish actually looks like. From what I can tell this "pebbled" finish looks uncommonly nice, I wonder if that's a byproduct of the glass fiber material or some post-processing.
Saving that precious GitLab Pages storage . I really liked the finish of the ABS GF from Bambu Lab. It matched the original case finish pretty well out of the printer. However, the glass fill is a bit scary; you can feel the fibers poking. I wiped it with a sturdy rag to remove the loose fibers.
This is great. I also avoid stuff like TrueNAS or Unraid and opt to simply run my own ZFS and smb/nfs/etc configuration. Love the unifi-style display... I am cooking something similar but it is not a touchscreen just a blue-on-black OLED that cycles through status pages. You've inspired me to finally write a post on my own setup.
Re names, I like "homeprod". The main goal isn't to experiment and learn, and you're not scrapping to get a pair of Cisco 2501's to study for your CCNA. Rather the main goal is providing services that support your family's larger existence, independent of the surveillance industry - the tinkering is an (unfortunately necessary) side effect.
Absolutely, I was running the server on my main desktop before this, and it was super stressful. One of the main drivers was to move things to something more stable. NGL, I still experimenton it though...
This is an underestimated part of operating IT infrastructure at home. Something a lot of homelab builders miss. They have a homelab that mixes in the same environment and same equipment the role of delivering standard services for the house and family, with the role of experimenting and toying around.
Everyone who builds this should really have "homeprod" and "homelab". And when the experiments and tests inevitably lead to an outage, the movie streaming or photo storage or home control parts don't die with it.
All homelabs need a DevOps Engineer :-D