Building A NAS Using TrueNAS - Turning My Old Computer Into A NAS

[@jmoutube310]

Wonderful video and very helpful. I took an old computer, bought some new drives at pretty low cost, and built out the hardware end. I worked my way through installing and configuring Truenas but got stuck once it was up and running. This video got me across the finish line of setting up datasets, users, permissions, and sharing. Now I have in-network home storage for family photos, videos, etc., that everyone can access. Thanks Samir!

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

I’m glad this was helpful!

[@TrevorCameron-oj3de]

Samir ... YOU rock mate, well done with making this easy and clear.

[@chavezini]

This is the video that best explains how to set up and configure a NAS with TrueNAS. Thank you

[@wellowbeats]

Thank you so much! Very clear and easy to follow for a complete noob like me!

[@siddharthsinghchaudhry9184]

wow that was so well explained and simplified. thank you

[@user-rk2ek5jm4k]

Excellent video. I have some old PC in the basement. It will be an interesting project. Thank you once again for this video!

[@SewshyTech]

Beautiful video i hope you can find more time for tech content wether its random or tutorials id love to watch more

[@numbersix9477]

I've built computers but never a NAS. That will soon change. I haven't yet tried using your instructions so I can't yet give you a grade on process. I can, however, comment on the video itself. It is extremely well paced and it appears to be both informative and concise. Bravo and thanks! Side note: All of the capacity of a hard drive is "usable." The disparity between capacity references is related to how kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes are "calculated." Windows calculates capacities based on powers of 1024, (2 to the power of 10). Hard drive and SSD manufacturers calculate base on powers of the beautifully round 1000 - because using powers of 1000 yields higher numbers for their marketing departments than would using powers of 1024.

[@wilmerlens]

Samir my man! Great video. looking forward to the growth and success of your channel. This is the best video I've seen on the subject. I try to avoid affiliate links but for this project I'll be sure to use yours to help support!

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement! Really appreciate it.

[@MikeKeller]

OK, this is exactly what I want to do with an old Windows 7 PC, and this video is way helpful. Thanks!

[@rk1362]

Very nice video. Clear and concise. I wish all tutorials were this good. Well done.

[@mcfloobin5695]

Thanks Samir, i've got a couple of old PCs at home and was talking to my wife about doing this so they're at least doing something!

[@tschelli3528]

Honestly man this tutorial was such well made and easy to follow trough .. thank you for the great content 😊👍🏼

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Glad I was able to help. Thanks for checking out the video!

[@milkywayandbeyond]

Could you do a tutorial on how to use the NAS to set up automatic back-ups and how you can access files when you are away from home?

[@ADchartview]

is there any specitific feature required before i buy motherboard with something hardware like PCI you suggest between super awesome guide on NAS installation on old PC

[@ShadowDestiny]

This was an excellent tutorial. Just built a 60TB rig for content creation! Thanks :) Ps: do you know of a way to back up every file on my PC to my NAS automatically like every week?

[@NeuroPulse]

Nice, same old case as mine. Was gonna sell it and put the drives in a wired enclosure but damn. Now I'm having second thoughts...

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Haha. It’s hard to come by cases with that many hard drive bays. I recommend keeping it.

[@andre0000000007]

can you add any size hard drives later? eg when the pool fills up?

[@zechsoner]

Just a solid video keep up the good work

[@nicktayloriv310]

Geez that's a huge case!!! I like it!!

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Lol yup. Got this case back in 2013. They don’t make them that big no more… it’s got lots of hard drive bays. Perfect for a NAS

[@Laynix.0]

Don't forget to replace the thermal paste if you've been using that computer for 7 years.

[@fiskurtjorn]

8:45 At this point I'm stuck. I don't see my hard drive. I tried to reinstall it a few times but I do not get to see the HDD. Thumbdrives show up, selecting those does not activate the "create" button. Is my 500GB drive too small?

[@newtonmoraes7366]

Hi Samir. I have just finish building my NAS from an old computer. Please, everything is working it is great. However, how to access my files on my pool, "swimming pool" from, for example, another country, please? Many thanks,

[@FaizilUTeM]

Does your NAS build support the Cloud (can be accessed from everywhere) function?

[@B49tube]

Samir this tutorial is well done. Thanks a lot!

[@TlustaPlaneta]

Thank you Samir! It works well. I would like to ask you one question. In the future I would like to replace my harddrives with bigger ones. Currently I have 3HDDs with 2TB in raidz and I would like to replace them with 4TB ones. Do you have a guide for that? Or would you recommend one? Thank you in advance for reply.

[@michaellundy6481]

Samir, great video. Thanks. I just finished converting my venerable Gigabyte mobo to a NAS server and saw your video just now. Glad to see that I did most things right! I do wish you'd do a video on setting up VPN access to a TrueNAS server. I've got an OpenVPN Server (partially) configured on my ASUS router, and would love to know how to use that as a path for remote access to my NAS from my mobile devices, especially Android phones and tablets. But, I'm pretty clueless as to where to begin. If YOU know how to do this, it would make for a great instructional video. Hope you will consider it.

[@zenism310]

I love the Nas name drop.

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Haha. I knew at-least one person would find it entertaining!

[@spiespiespie]

Excellent tutorial Samir! Question for you - Can I set up 1 pool that uses both SMB and AFP? I need something cross-platform, and I've had loads of trouble with SMB on Mac in the past.

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

As far as I know you can have the same pool with multiple protocols. So both SFP and AFP can be setup on even the same pool.

[@spiespiespie]

Never mind - I figured it out, SMB is fine. Thanks for the solid tutorial!

[@mstover2809]

Nowadays, you can simply drop the iso file on a flash drive that has Ventoy installed! Much faster than making individual drives for different things!

[@chsn3493]

Hello Sir, I have a question. I have camera which captures photos and stores on its USB attached device. Instead of this I want to add connection from the camera USB to NAS usb so that all captured data from the camera should be stored on the NAS drive and at the same time I want the third computer to access NAS to read those data. Can this be doable with this setup??

[@GeoGrig]

did it step by step with no mistake. when trying to access the file form network drive setup or directly from explorer address, at the credentials prompt it always say "wrong password"... idk

[@cheeseeman82]

well made. thank you! how can I protect the NAS server from Viruses ? malware ? ransomware?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

There’s many good practices to protect your data on your NAS. Starting with good network firewall (and rules). Perhaps the most important thing is to protect the computers you use to access your NAS. Usually the computers are what makes your NAS vulnerable since that’s where things can be executed.

[@cheeseeman82]

@@TechTalkwithSamir Many thanks Samir

[@MRSTU1210]

Excellent subbed can you dual share pc and mac at the same time?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Sure can! You can access samba shares directly from macs as well.

[@MRSTU1210]

@@TechTalkwithSamir not sure what that is but i will google it unless you already have a video about it?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

On a Mac, you just have to click “Go” on top menu. Then go to “connect to server” then from there you enter the server IP address and connect from there. Google “how to connect to smb share on Mac”

[@mytheses9525]

Hi, I tried plugging in with my gaming laptop to try it out but it seems I dont get IP even if I plug in ethernet cable. How do I solve this?

[@djkilla5479]

Great video!! I do do please need some help. I followed all your instructions and btw very awesome, but it keeps telling me incorrect username or password.... I know it's correct tho.

[@kevinst-amour9294]

How you can Connect to your nas wen your out of your home

[@ginoilpompiere7545]

It's need to be everytime power up or can be shutdown the Nas pc?

[@vishaal_grizzly]

How reliable is this method compared to an actual NAS setup? It costs more, I'd prefer to go with this method, but I have some important data that I need to put on the hard disk so I am just worried about its safety. How long can we expect this method to work?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

It will all depend on your selection of hard drives and how many disk redundancy you set it up with. Always get a NAS rated hard drive (like Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red) so that they are rated for 24/7 operation. This is also true if you buy a consumer NAS like synology. And if you have two disk redundancy, you can have 2 disks fail and your data would still be okay. Another thing you should do is have an UPS connected to the NAS so that if you lose power, it doesn’t just improperly turn off your NAS. Another thing you should probably do if your data is critical is have ECC RAM for your NAS instead of regular non-ecc RAM.

[@JoseAlvarez-gk8cf]

can I use this with external harddrives from WD?

[@tschelli3528]

Do I have to be on the same network to reach the nas or can I reach it from everywhere with internet ? 🤔

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Yes you need to be on the same network during the setup. After that you can setup a VPN server at your home so that you can access from anywhere.

[@zeztyzebra3475]

is JBOD not an option for TrueNAS?

[@yc3X]

Stupid question. So if both computers are connected to the router with Ethernet cables, I don't need any of those 10gb Ethernet cards? They interact with one another through the router?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Yup that’s right.

[@nikilthapa6329]

Thanks for the video. I wanna know that whether we can share/access the drive to/from other networks or not. I mean I want to setup data storage in my home and want to access it from my office. Is that possible?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

It sure is possible but that would be more of a networking configuration rather than a truenas configuration. You’d either need to setup VPN or open up ports on your router to be able to access it from outside of your network.

[@avidfisherman7546]

Awesome video. Thank you.

[@ShravanBhuvanesh]

do external ssd's work

[@SteveBPiercy]

I copied this step by step but I am on an IMAC. It won't let me log into the share I created and it says only use SMB for Apple as they adopted it. What am I doing wrong?

[@joeheavy-h7c]

Best Tutorial on you tube , you should have 6 million not 6000 subscribers , well done

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thanks for the kind words and support!

[@WGkangganern]

very nice and very informative, and I would like to suggest is just like another video on how to access files in NAS as a server to other network wherever I am. and how setup secured access to other network.

[@spinthma]

Thanks a lot, TrueNas is also on my radar, but I want it to put on a new system, with cool housing, ….

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thanks for checking out the video! That’s the cool thing about building your own NAS, you can put together any set of hardware to make it work.

[@spinthma]

Well done!

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thank you :)

[@billdunning975]

Excellent how to! 🎉

[@JabbarZurgany]

Thank you for an excellent video! Can this be setup via wifi, I don't have ethernet nearby?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

I am not sure. It depends on if truenas has built in drivers for the wifi card on your computer.

[@sbtpw]

Well done Smir, great explanation. Can I use existing external HDD's which have a USB connection (ie with a ESATA converter cable) and use them in a none RAID format

[@varietyphoto]

I see the reasons why having a NAS system are good, but I'm not keen on leaving the system up and running all the time. So would I need a monitor and keyboard plugged into the unit to login and start the program or can I just power it on and would it start up the service automatically.

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

You don’t need a keyboard, mouse or monitor connected. After the initial setup, everything is done using a browser on a different computer. Including shutting down. You just need to plug power and network to the NAS.

[@varietyphoto]

@@TechTalkwithSamir Thanks for the info much appreciated.

[@jagsingh4636]

@@TechTalkwithSamir ahh so the computer / NAS doesn't need to stay on all the time? Does it automatically turn on when the IP address is entered and power off how?

[@DonEunice-u8h]

its stopping on the part where its making the 16gb swap

[@row_chee1385]

Great video thank you 🙏🏻

[@elizapanzer188]

what burning tool are you using for burning USB. Your english sound like edger, etcher?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Balena etcher is the tool I used.

[@elizapanzer188]

@TechTalkwithSamir Thanks, I got it up and running perfectly. Thanks for a great video.

[@munishkumar8068]

Hi, with this process can I work on large files like photoshop, and video editing using my computer to access central storage. Is it will slow the process or work smoothly on Wi-Fi or the network attached.

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

That is exactly what I use it for. I edit my videos from my NAS. The only thing you have to make sure is that you have a good network connection to your computer. You would probably want to use Ethernet instead of wifi to ensure a smooth experience while working with files that require a lot of data transfer.

[@munishkumar8068]

@@TechTalkwithSamir Hi Samir, thank you for your reply I find this answer on the net, not the body providing information. Is this work on a mac m2 chip. If have a high-end computer and then convert it into NAS then it will affect performance?

[@crod6431]

I tried installing True NAS on an old laptop but True NAS requires 16GB RAM minimum. Did you install True NAS on an empty drive? Can it be installed on a drive with Windows 10 or 11? What about using an old Mac Pro 1.1 for a NAS?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Truenas requires a minimum of 8GB of ram according to their official support guide but the performance does increase with more ram due to increased caching abilities. The disk I used previously had windows on it. However it does need to format the disk before truenas can be installed. I haven’t tried installing it on a Mac Pro (don’t own one) but I don’t think youll be able to do that natively. You may be able to install it as a virtual machine (which is another rabbit hole that I also explored on a separate setup).

[@ritu037]

When talking about NAS, people should talk about processor requirements and ecc RAM.

[@Featheredprop]

Thank you very much! This was the best video that I found on this topic. You really explained things well. I am waiting for my hard drives to arrive so that I can start building my NAS. Question: do you have a video explaining how to share files outside of the LAN? In other words, I would like to share files with a friend who is not part of my LAN. Can I share a link with my friend so that he can get files from me and give files to me? Thanks! Subscribed. Dane

[@SWRA-s6n]

Nice video. One question.... When we install True NAS do we have to specially create internet connectivity or will it automatically configure with the on board network card (if Lan cable is connected?) 🙂

[@djkilla5479]

It will automatically configure it.

[@domgag1756]

Many thanks for the video. I saved me hour of wanting to throw my system out of a window......

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Haha. Glad I could help!

[@IMAGISTUDIOS]

Hello samir,i am wedding photographer based in india and i need redundancy of my data and access to it and i have my spare gaming computer lying around. Should i build truenas or buy synology? And Is truenas is safe enough for clients data??

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Truenas itself is very safe, however the hardware you have may not be ideal for mission critical data. Ideally you would want ECC Memory to prevent data loss. Which I don’t think your gaming computer would have.

[@jagsingh4636]

@@TechTalkwithSamir so not a good idea for photographers & videographers then?

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

As long as you keep backups (which you should always), it’s completely fine for photographers.

[@ean8243]

Anyone know what to do when there are no disks available? Seems odd that it starts up and I can log into the dashboard, only to be stopped by no disks when creating a pool! Why can’t it see the one it’s using!😂

[@IMIsniperIMI]

I did all the steps and it didn't work for me when I removed the USB the system entered the bios

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

You likely have to set your boot priorities so that it tries to boot from the drive you installed truenas to. To see how to do that on your computer, you may need to look it up specifically for your motherboard as the steps are different for different motherboards.

[@IMIsniperIMI]

@@TechTalkwithSamir I booted it instead of the UEFI bios and it works fine now. Thank you very much I would like to know if I can make settings that friends can access on my computer

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

If your friends live in the same house then it’s very easy. Just make new user for your friend and permission the correct dataset with the user. But if your friend lives outside your house, youll likely want to setup a VPN server in your home to allow that.

[@johnhurrell9312]

All these videos are about turning old PCs into a NAS, what about using a current gaming rig?

[@surendharram.m4400]

excellent

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thanks for checking out the video.

[@derrickhawkins5945]

excellent with no thirty letter words that my kid can't understand lol.

[@TheHoodGuru]

Subscribed and liked.

[@TechTalkwithSamir]

Thanks for the support!

[@elizapanzer188]

i cab't get on tho the server. Followed you fast imstarustions but i cst mkr it work

[@elizapanzer188]

Sorry for the spelling. I was drunk when I wrote that 🤣

[@wiggybends3632]

Good video

[@thedivinityman]

Okay I've been trying to use truenas, but as you said in order to have the drive show up in any Windows machine I have to create a pool and users and stuff because Windows can't access it via route accounts because it's truenas restricted it after getting rid of freenas, do you know of any way I just want to take my old computer put all my old drives already have data on them except for one that will be the boot drive no RAID, no special permissions just had anyone who's on my home network be able to get whatever files they want on it I want to use my old computer for this I don't want to have to set up usernames and stuff for everyone I just want my fiancee my brother his fiancee etc, to put movies pictures what have you on that old computer and just have it accessible to everyone do you know any way to do that just basically turn my old computer into a drive with I have seven drives hooked up in there now but they're all different sizes and stuff and they all have data on it except for one that's going to be the boot drive I just want to make it so that we can just put stuff on there and share it with everyone else in the house

[@mr.critic]

Or just connect the ext-hdd to your router

[@bittertruthnavin]

Add a new HD and see if works OR say turn off your PC accidentally, boot up and see if it works? Nope! not without a ton of errors, stay clear off these linux based NAS OSes unless you are a hardcore linux user. These are not for basic home users who want to just use their spare PC as network storage device.