New NAS

QNAP is known for being horrible security-wise, and with the two versions I’ve had, both have been on the slow side, especially rebooting, where it could take at least 5 minutes of downtime. While most enterprise hardware are even worse, my main concern was the security it had. I did use some of its apps, but I want to move away from it to reduce the possibility for it to be turned into a locked safe. I therefor went on a search for a small NAS, that could still be upgraded and have a front 4x HDD bay. After finding a HP Microserver Gen 6 for cheap, a guy on Homelab Discord said he got a Gen 8 for the same price, including 16GB RAM. After a couple of weeks I got it home and later on ordered some parts: 8TB HDD, 240GB SSD, 32GB USB-stick.

While one of those seem odd, it’s because of how this machine works. As HP have its proprietary hardware and software, it’s a bit tricky to work around some of its quirks. To avoid diving into it in detail, I can say that the USB-stick was not used. It’s also good to know that I plan to buy an another HDD later.

After installing TrueNAS, I’ve played around with configs, like iSCSI for a PBS VM.

The conclusion of this cube was that it’s worth it as it’s both faster, more options, and I’ll find more ways to make use of its capabilities, and struggles that may come up in the future.