My First NAS

  • So this is my first post on OMV and will be my first NAS build. I was using WD MY CLOUD for few years but gave up on me. I was looking for different option to buy and looked to see if I can do my own and came up with few choice, OMV, freeNAS and unRaid. I decided to go with OMV. I haven't even done anything as I am waiting for PSU to come. Here are parts I am planning to use. I believe it is overkill or may be not, please comment.


    - AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor

    - Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard

    - Crucial Ballistix 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory

    - SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

    - Fractal Design R6 case

    - Drives are in 500gb, 640gb, 1TB and 2 TB and 4 TB. (Some old HDD except 4TB which is brand new Seagate ironwolf NAS)

    - SSD 120GB

    - 2 Flash drives


    Here are my few Questions? I have zero knowledge in Linux or programming. I am pharmacist by occupation.


    1) Should I use SSD for boot or flash drives?

    2) What happens if BOOT drive fails? I read you can access using linux because it is linux based system, how does it work? Can i just reinstall OMV and access file again? I am planning to set up RAID configuration.

    3) I am planning to run few VMs, Is it enough of power from this build to run?

    4) Planning to run PLEX, so is 2400G good enough to transcode file for 2 or 3 devices?


    Thank you and looking forward to be part of OMV commuity?

  • That should make a nice system.


    1) Either but I'd use SSD - best choice NVME M.2 (not SATA M.2 as it will steal one of your SATA slots).

    2) Same as with any Linux system numerous trutorial on the web as to how to recover. You'll have media files on the HDs so they'll be intact if you need to reinstall OMV.

    3) I'd imagine so - I have same CPU in a Windows desktop and have run one Linux VM without trouble and you have plenty RAM for the job. OMV will likely use 1% of you CPU most of the time.

    4) I'd imagine so unless they are 4k files, then I don't know. Research if hardware transcoding is supported with that CPU/APU and maybe take a look at Jellyfin instead of Plex, it is free and supports HW transcoding - I have an intel Pentium Gold - much more modest than your CPU - and it transcodes 1080 x265 in hardware at 300+ fps.

    Given your HDs are various sizes SnapRaid is a better choice than RAID.

    Inwin MS04 case with 315 W PSU

    ASUS Prime H310i-Plus R2.0 board

    Two port PCI-E SATA card

    16GB Kingston DDR4

    Intel Pentium Coffee Lake G5400 CPU

    Samsung Evo M.2 256GB OS drive

    4x4TB WD Red NAS drives + 1x4TB + 1x5TB Seagate drives - MergerFS pool

    Seagate 5TB USB drives - SnapRAID parity x 2

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I can’t answer all of your questions but I can start on some of them. This is just my opinion now and others better versed than me in OMV and Linux do some things differently.


    System drive on a 32gig thumb drive. Easy to shut down and swap with backup system drive and easy to make a backup. Go to the Guides section of this forum and look for Getting Started with OMV 4 & 5 (or something similar to that) by crashtest. On about page 70 of the pdf is details on how to clone your system to a working backup. This is a first must.


    Raid? Unless you are absolutely sure and have solid reasons why you (think) you need Raid: NO. By two big data disks and back up one with the other using Rsync. On about page 59 of the same Guide are details on how to make a mirror backup of your data disk. This is a second must.

    System Backup Typo alert: Under the Linux section the command should be sudo umount /dev/sda1 NOT sudo unmount /dev/sda1

    Backup Data Disk to Backup Disk on Same Machine: In a Scheduled Job:rsync -av --delete /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-f8814ed9-9a5c-4e1c-8830-426968c20ea3/ /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-e67439d5-00a3-4942-bd5f-b84ab86aa850/ Don't forget trailing slashes, and BE CAREFUL. (HT: Getting Started with OMV5)

    Equipment - Thinkserver TS140, NanoPi M4 (v.1), Odroid XU4 (Using DietPi): PiHole

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    - Drives are in 500gb, 640gb, 1TB and 2 TB and 4 TB. (Some old HDD except 4TB which is brand new Seagate ironwolf NAS)

    Keep in mind that all HDD will eventually die. I would use those old drives for testing and data I do not care about (depending on their actual status).


    RAID adds another layer of complexity. As Agricola mentioned you should have good reasons to use it.

    My thoughts about... RAID


    Have a look at the unionfilesystem plugin which is using mergerfs and allows you to combine different drives (actually filesystems) to a single mount point. So several drives will look like one drive.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    1) Should I use SSD for boot or flash drives?

    - As noted in the User Guide, when running OMV as a file server, an SSD is a bit on the overkill side. A 32GB flash drive is fine, if the flash memory plugin is used. (This topic is covered in the guide.) Many of the popular models of thumbdrive (SanDisk, Samsung, and others) have good I/O performance and are relatively cheap. Also, the off-line thumbdrive cloning process covered in the guide is an easy process. What might complicate matters a bit is running VM's from the flash drive. It would be best to change the storage location of the VM's to a location on your data drives. Also, if you plan to have a very large media library and are planning to use Plex, it would be best to off load Plex's metadata DB to a location on a data drive. If you can do these two things, a 32GB thumbdrive is convenient and easy to backup by cloning.
    - With that said, there's certainly nothing wrong with using an SSD as a boot drive. For home use, there's really no need for the speed of an SSD, but some prefer them. There are a few advantages over a flash drive. We'll say that, if the SSD is 240GB or better, VM's could be stored on the boot drive and it wouldn't be necessary to relocate Plex's DB. Some users use SATA or M.2 to USB3 adapters to connect SSD's externally, to save an internal SATA connection and for ease of replacement.


    2) What happens if BOOT drive fails?
    If you've cloned your boot drive or backed it up in some manner, simply insert the clone or restore the backup. **This is something you might consider trying AND testing, early on.**

    2.1) I read you can access using linux because it is linux based system, how does it work?
    Can i just reinstall OMV and access file again?
    Yes. If you rebuild from the boot drive from scratch, all that's needed for re-creating a shared folder is, create a new share folder and use the folder icon to navigate to an existing data drive folder populated with your data. Then layer on a network share. While recreating a boot drive from scratch is relatively easy, it is time consuming. The best practice would to backup or clone the boot drive to avoid the work.

    2.2 I am planning to set up RAID configuration.
    Traditional RAID is not a good idea for home use. Others have already recommended the UnionFS plugin (really mergerfs) which will combine a collection of drives into one drive. Given the assortment you have, I'd combine the 500gb, 640gb, 1TB and 2 TB together using the UnionFS plugin. That would give you roughly 4TB. I'd using the remaining 4 TB as an Rsync backup or as a SNAPRAID parity drive.

    3) I am planning to run few VMs, Is it enough of power from this build to run?
    Easily. VM's with desktops (Windows in particular) take much more in resources but your CPU and 16GB ram should be about handle 1 or 2 Windows VM's.


    4) Planning to run PLEX, so is 2400G good enough to transcode file for 2 or 3 devices?
    The passmark score on your CPU is 8800. The general rule of thumb, for PLEX, is 2000 per device stream so you should be good. What's better is to use something like a handbrake Docker to convert media files to formats that are native to your devices. Then on-the-fly recoding is not even necessary.


    Also, you might give Jellyfin a look. It's a fork of the Emby project that is fully activated, without the need for premium (pay) features. (Emby and Jellyfin are similar to Plex.)

  • crashtest hey I really appreciate your detail response, specially for beginners in linux. I have started few things going. Just need to clone a drive and see if it works, and in VM planning to install some lightweight linux and python to learn as first language.

  • I can’t answer all of your questions but I can start on some of them. This is just my opinion now and others better versed than me in OMV and Linux do some things differently.


    System drive on a 32gig thumb drive. Easy to shut down and swap with backup system drive and easy to make a backup. Go to the Guides section of this forum and look for Getting Started with OMV 4 & 5 (or something similar to that) by crashtest. On about page 70 of the pdf is details on how to clone your system to a working backup. This is a first must.


    Raid? Unless you are absolutely sure and have solid reasons why you (think) you need Raid: NO. By two big data disks and back up one with the other using Rsync. On about page 59 of the same Guide are details on how to make a mirror backup of your data disk. This is a second must.

    I have tried syncthing (getting about 3 MB/s) and Resilio (getting about 10 MB/s) testing on about 200GB of media files but having nearly 5TB - its going to take forever. Just wondering if rsync will be quicker noting I will have to use the remote option as I want to push the files from my omv server to a windows (ntfs) server on my LAN?

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    That’s really slow. I don’t know if Rsync will be any faster for you or not. You may have a bottleneck somewhere that will make your transfers slow no matter what. There are a good number of posts on this forum dealing with file transfer speeds that may help.

  • That’s really slow. I don’t know if Rsync will be any faster for you or not. You may have a bottleneck somewhere that will make your transfers slow no matter what. There are a good number of posts on this forum dealing with file transfer speeds that may help.

    ok will have to look into the file transfer speeds but is what is a normal range, if there is such a thing?

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    On system OS backup I currently use a “dead” backup. In other words , I shut down the server and pull the system drive (SD card or USB thumb drive) and make an image of it on my Macintosh using dd in the terminal. Something similar can be done on a Linux machine. I can’t tell you anything about how it would be done on a Windows machine. Once the image is created I write it back to a second card or thumb drive (using the same dd command) and boot up with it to make sure it works. At that point I have two working OS drives plus an image of it on my Mac. Be patient: this is about a 2 hour round trip. You can boot with your first OS while burning the backup OS but you still need to boot up with the backup to make sure it works. I perform a new backup every month or so - usually after a major 5.X update. Here’s a link to the process: https://thepi.io/how-to-back-up-your-raspberry-pi/ It’s not just for RPi’s.


    Rsync is used to make a backup of your data disk. My Docker path points to a share on that disk. I’m not sure what you mean by #1,2,3 HHD. Everything except the OS is backed up to a second (backup) disk using a Scheduled task and Rsync. This is explained in detail in crashtest ’s Guide. A second backup is also made to a third disk on another (backup) server using the Rsync plugin following this How-To: Rsync Two OMV Machines

  • Rsync is used to make a backup of your data disk. My Docker path points to a share on that disk. I’m not sure what you mean by #1,2,3 HHD. Everything except the OS is backed up to a second (backup) disk using a Scheduled task and Rsync. This is explained in detail in crashtest ’s Guide. A second backup is also made to a third disk on another (backup) server using the Rsync plugin following this How-To: Rsync Two OMV Machines

    So if I have my docker image on a hard drive and the docker container/config appdata on another hard drive, I can use rsync to make a replica of those hard drives such that should the original hard drives fail, I can replace them and continue as if nothing happened?


    Also, is it possible to use rsync between OMV server and windows client? I see from their website they have a Windows Backup Agent not sure if this will communicate with OMV server?

  • Rsync is used to make a backup of your data disk. My Docker path points to a share on that disk. I’m not sure what you mean by #1,2,3 HHD. Everything except the OS is backed up to a second (backup) disk using a Scheduled task and Rsync. This is explained in detail in crashtest ’s Guide. A second backup is also made to a third disk on another (backup) server using the Rsync plugin following this How-To: Rsync Two OMV Machines

    The rsync website has a windows program windows backup agent, do you know if this will communicate with rsync on openmediavault server?


    I'd like to backup some data files from omv to a windows client.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Sorry, no. I’m a Mac user trying to transition to Linux.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    The rsync website has a windows program windows backup agent, do you know if this will communicate with rsync on openmediavault server?

    If you are referring to rsync.net that uses rsync for cloud storage, the agent uses sftp which is probably going to be slow. One option might be to use the remote mount plugin on OMV create a share on your windows machine then use the plugin to mount it in OMV.

  • One option might be to use the remote mount plugin on OMV create a share on your windows machine then use the plugin to mount it in OMV.

    Thanks geaves. Just trying to remote mount a windows drive using remote mount plugin. In the 'Share' box, dont know what format to add my directory on the windows machine?

  • Create a share as you normally would and point the remote mount plugin to it, you may have to resolve permissions once you have a connection.

    sorry geaves, I am missing something. I can't add a share per normally because the directory is on my windows machine and I did not think a windows drive (ntfs) can be mounted on OMV.


    But I have installed the remote mount plugin and trying to add mount (which is my windows machine directory). So I have added the server details but there is a share box which I do not know how to fill

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