Repurpose.IT – Norco SS-500 from data recovery machine to Truenas Scale storage server

In a previous article – Review.IT – Hardware for a data recovery machine in the home lab – I mentioned that I use a Norco SS-500 5 bay hot swap rack module, that allows me to access different 3.5″ sata disk drives on demand.

I also mentioned that the rack module didn’t have drive bay guide slots, so I had to bend the metal guides out of the way so that it could be fitted into the Coolermaster case. I didn’t mention that this module used trays that have four screws to fasten the disk drive in the tray. As time went on, and swapping out disks meant removing the screws and replacing the disk and inserting the screws that eventually I only used two screws. Another thing was that the fan at the back of this module was a bit loud.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reviewing my current network storage. I run a Qnap 4-bay NAS and also an older Seagate 4-bay NAS. Pricing of newer NAS storage boxes meant that I would have to spend more than $800 for anything larger than a 4-bay that had a x86 or x64 processor. I decided that I should build a Truenas Scale storage server that could then have at least five bays and had the capability of adding more drives as I needed.

I reviewed my various hardware parts that I had on hand, and decided on a MSI Z270 Krait Gaming motherboard that had a Pentium G4560 process and 16GB of ram. This motherboard combination had been used in one of my multi-GPU crypto-mining rigs and it was time to put it into use again. The reason for choosing this particular motherboard was that it could support 6 sata disks.

The motherboard also supports 2 M.2 slots that could use NVMe or Sata SSD’s.

From the manual, I looked up the M.2 & Sata combination table. The table suggests that if I put in a Sata SSD into M2_1, then Sata5 is unusable, and if I use a Sata SSD in M2_2 that Sata1 would be unusable. At the same time, using NVMe disks in both M2_1 & M2_2 would also disable Sata5 & Sata6. But my question is, if I put in a NVMe disk into only M2_1, does that mean I can still keep all Sata ports?

Analysis of the table, now seems to show that if I put a NVMe disk into M2_2, then both Sata5 & Sata6 is unusable. So I might be right that having a NVMe disk in M2_1 might be what I need to do. The reason is that Truenas Scale needs to be installed onto a disk of some sort, so might just be fine on the NVMe.

I decided to use the same case and power supply from the data recovery machine, so all I need to do is to remove the existing motherboard and install the MSI Z270 Krait Gaming in its place. This was done in due course, then with only one NVMe installed, no other Sata disks, I proceeded to install Truenas Scale.

I used Rufus to write the Truenas iso to a USB flash drive, but this wouldn’t boot for some reason. Then I tried again, but this time got Rufus to write the iso in dd format. This worked fine, and I now had a working Truenas, albeit without any storage.

The next thing to do was to install some disks. I had received two 8TB disks from Amazon, and I had three 4TB disks left over from upgrading my Qnap NAS after a couple of disk failures. The disks were configured as a mirror of the two 8TB’s and then a RaidZ1 with the 4TB’s.

This configuration used all five drive bays. To confirm my hypothesis that Sata6 is still usable, will be left for another day. All I needed to do was to move the server into the corner of the room where the noise is not as noticeable.

Ok, it wasn’t the only thing to do, I did decide to check the power usage over a period of time, and it varies from 61W to 65W. If I use 65W as the average power usage, then it will consume 1.56kWh per day. My electricity cost right now from Origin Electricity is 30.778c/kWh, so this Truenas storage server will cost me 48 cents a day to run, with a yearly cost of $175.37 in electricity. If I bought another Qnap NAS, costing over $800, it would use less power and hence, less electricity, so running costs might be reduced. Anyway, I think re-using current hardware would be cheaper in the long term.

Now what about my data recovery machine, which is missing a case and hot sway bays. There is another article on the way for that topic.