Okay, no VM, understood, but I do want to use a GUI for ZFS, because I’m basically a noob.

Okay, if Proxmox can handle all that, I’ll be glad to ditch TrueNAS. However, I’m afraid that I won’t know how to migrate. I’ve found this reddit thread about someone who tried to do the same thing (I think) and accidentally corrupted their pools. About skipping NFS shares, that would be a big improvement for me, but I’m very unfamiliar with bind mounts. If I understand correctly, you can specify directories that live on the Proxmox Host, and they appear inside the VM, right? How does this compare to using virtual storage? Also, how can I replicate the ZFS pools to an external machine? In any case, thank you for that info!

I’m already running TrueNAS Scale, but I’m unsure about the docker support. I did use TrueCharts and such, but it was very unstable, so I moved away from that.

Thank you very much for the detailed information. I’ll look into eBay again, maybe I can find a good offer that works. I’m unsure how to choose the number of lanes. Does that relate to the number of drives it supports? Also, in terms of cooling, would any PC case fan be enough, if strapped onto the HBA?

Thank you very much for the info. In the case of Raid Cards that can be flashed, is there something I need to look out for, besides the speed? Only HDDs will be used, so speed isn’t a priority.

I tried OMV in the past, but I found TrueNAS to be more intuitive… but that’s just personal preference I guess, and I’m not opposed to using OMV. Are you suggesting, then, that I run OMV on bare metal, and use it for everything? Or should it be inside a VM? If it’s the former, how easy is it to setup docker, because I’m not that familiar with OMV (it’s been a long time since I last checked it out). Is it like installing it in Debian directly? How does it handle the storage?

Wait, so if I understood correctly, you’re managing the ZFS pools directly in Proxmox, and then you have a VM that’s running docker, and using the storage that is managed by Proxmox, right? Hmm, sounds like a good solution. Is there any documentation or article that you could recommend, so that I can take a closer look? Also, how could I handle SMB shares?

The problem is that I’ve never worked with Kubernetes, and it wouldn’t allow me to port over my current docker instances, afaik. And I’m not ready to pay for Unraid, I’m sorry, I need to set up the server as frugally as possible. Still, thank you for the info, I’ll keep it in mind, while I decide how to move forward.

Yes, that’s why I’ve posted this question, and I immediately powered the entire NAS off, as to avoid any damage. It’s currently still powered off, until I find the best way to move forward. What I’m afraid of is that if I try to import the pools that were managed by the TrueNAS VM into a bare metal TrueNAS install, or Proxmox, that it won’t work correctly, or that I could lose data.

Correct, they’re two separate pools, and the stripe one doesn’t contain any valuable data.

Thank you, I might raise the issue there, if I struggle to fix the issue. I didn’t know the podcasters, but now I’ll try and listen to a few episodes, and maybe I can continue learning. Thank you for the suggestion

Are there any specific limitations/requirements? Any recommended models or things to look out for? I looked on Amazon, and they range from around $30 to $200, and I really have no criteria, and I want to spend as little as possible.

Thank you, that’s actually very helpful, because I’m also kinda concerned that the HBA (or SATA to PCIE card) solution won’t fix this issue entirely, and it’s also relatively old system, and I’m worried about compatibility. Having two machines though is also kind of out of the question, because I don’t want to use that much electricity, it’s pretty expensive here where I live. I do have a Raspberry Pi, which could be used for some selfhosted services, but not the demanding ones, and not running alongside each other. I mean, my current PC sometimes struggles already, so I guess the Raspberry Pi will perform even worse… Maybe I can find a solution that allows to still manage storage reliably and flexibly, and also be able to have docker containers.

So if I understand correctly, you’re managing the storage directly within Proxmox, instead of using a VM for that, right? Are the tools good? Does it support ZFS replication, SMB and things like that? Edit: I’ll also check the SATA cables, thanks!

And is it easy for the docker instances inside the VM to access the host’s datasets? About ECC, thank you for bringing it up, because I actually have no idea on the subject, and I’m sure that my current ram isn’t ECC. I’ll look into it. It could explain the issue I had with gitea, right?

I passed the whole raw disk in theory, but I’ve read that even if you do that, it’s still virtualized somehow. But I don’t know enough about it, I’m just basing this on the research I’ve done so far. About skipping TrueNAS, maybe you’re right, but if I also want to set up SMB shares? Is there a tool or something that makes it easy for someone with limited experience? It would also need to handle replication of data, and the advantage of ZFS Replication over using something like rsync, is that you can simply push the delta between snapshots, instead of replacing entire files, or at least that’s how I’ve understood this.