7/5/2023 0 Comments Qnas as usb backup drive![]() ![]() Time Machine backups are running smoothly.I am using Cloudsync for all my cloud drives and it works well.I am happy to stay with TrueNAS going forward. Installing TrueNAS has proven that the hardware is totally fine after 4+ years of use and the QNAP firmwares were to blame for all the issues.The fans seem to be running in automatic mode and not making undue noise. The LED lights are running at full - haven't had time to figure out how to control those in TrueNAS.Maybe ZFS is intelligently writing to them from RAM (ARC) The drives are silent compared to how it was before moving to TrueNAS.Read and write speeds are far better - 60 - 80 mb/s (limiting factor most likely my 100 mb/s network).Boot time is a minute or so vs 10 - 15 minutes booting into QNAP's own firmware/OS.Pool is setup as a RAIDZ1 across all 4 disks.Once I was happy, I moved the NAS back to my shelf and reconnected the network cable and powered it on. After confirming I could access the web console, I shutdown the NAS and unplugged the display and keyboard and booted it up again with the network still connected and tried to access the web console to confirm that the NAS would boot from the TrueNAS boot stick reliably.A console menu will boot up and show you the IP address which you can use a Web browser to connect to for further setup, ie Pools, Datasets, Accounts etc.While rebooting, pull out the Installer USB (2GB one in my case).Once the installer is completed, select the Reboot option. Follow the instructions here - and select the 16GB USB as the installer destination drive and choose a root password.Disable the rest to prevent the QNAP DOM from booting set the boot order - first the TrueNAS, 2nd the 16GB USB.Switch on the QNAP and press F2 or Del to get to the BIOS Settings (it took a while as it kept showing some Smartboot screen).Insert the TrueNAS installer into one of the USB 2.0 at the back and insert the 16GB USB to the other USB 2.0 plugs.Connect a USB keyboard (to the front USB).A network cable connected to your network.Backup all the data I wanted to keep onto external storage/hard drives.Have a spare 16GB USB to use as the TrueNAS boot drive.Download the TrueNAS image and used balenaEtcher to image it to a 2TB USB.4x 3TB Hard Drives (1x Hitachi + 3x WD Red).I moved PMS and docker to my old 2012 Mac mini to run while the NAS only kept the media files but with each QNAP firmware upgrade, the performance became worse and made me think that the hardware was at fault. My QNAP was used as a Plex server at one time running Sonarr, Radaar etc until QNAP updates made those unusable and then I used docker in Container Station to run those softwares but faced performance issues as the OS started to swap often.The NAS has been running for 4+ years already and out of warranty anyways.build 20201123 has caused all sorts of performance issues and hard drives were spinning and making lots of seeks when it wasn't doing anything so I feared it was going to break and not work anymore. I have been ZFS curious for a while and have way too many devices to justify buying a new enclosure just for this.Updated - comments at the end of the post. ![]()
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