Installing TrueNAS on a QNAP NAS the right way... sort of

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This is a bit of a strange dive into the way new NAS enclosures are designed. It's now possible to install any operating system you like right on the metal without having to run it in a virtual machine. We take a look at how you can install TrueNAS Scale on the QNAP TVS-H674T without having to damage or overwrite QuTS.
Check out our QNAP TVS-H674T Review here: • This NAS is not what y...
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[@dmagik8]

fantastic video. i want any kind of random videos you want to make like this, even just weird one offs. love you editing style and presentation. hope the views catch up to your vision.

[@saintbenedictscholacantorum]

It's great to see a video about this!! At the office I have several old QNAPs that I converted to TrueNAS. But, I was a bit afraid of the USB DOM, so I just disabled it in the BIOS boot order, then ignored it entirely and found different methods to boot the system. TL;DR: you can boot from SATA if your QNAP supports it! There is a lot of variation among different models of QNAP, and there are a few caveats that potential tinkerers should be aware of. 1. Some QNAPs have an ARM processor, so they almost certainly won't run TrueNAS Core/FreeBSD. There might be a way to install Debian and hence TrueNAS Scale, but I haven't tried! QNAP OS is Linux-based after all, but I don't know if there is mainstream kernel support for the ARM devices. If you have an Intel QNAP, it will be a lot more flexible. 2. If your QNAP doesn't have a video port (e.g. HDMI) to even look at the BIOS settings, it probably has a serial console port, which may look like a mini headphone jack. I found a no-name cable on Amazon with the headphone plug on one end and a DB9 serial connector on the other end, which you can use with your favorite terminal emulator. 3. I found that the biggest problem with booting USB is not the reliability of the flash, but the reliability of the bus itself. This may have been unique to my old model of QNAP, but quite frequently the USB drive would disappear entirely, at random, possibly weeks or months after the system was powered up, and the BIOS would not find it again, even after a reboot, unless I would do a complete shutdown, then physically remove the power cords (!), wait for the motherboard to be completely un-powered, and finally turn it on again. After this it worked fine again like nothing ever happened, no drive corruption. (I was using a mirror of two USB drives just to be safe!) I reproduced this problem on four different QNAPs and tried all possible USB ports. (But not the internal DOM!) Maybe newer QNAPs are immune to this problem, or maybe TrueNAS Scale works better than Core. To avoid using any kind of USB boot drive, I found a few ways to boot from a SATA drive. 1. First, my QNAPs have an **internal SATA port**. The only problem is, there no standard SATA power connector in the device, only the data port. But, there is a 4-pin header on the motherboard intended for SATA power, which is actually a "floppy drive power" port. You can find a rare cable on Amazon to convert the floppy connector to SATA. (The cable needs to be female on both ends.) This is ideal; just plug a SATA SSD directly inside the case. 2. The front bays of the QNAP may be either SATA based or SAS based. If they are SATA based, all the hot swap bays may already appear in the BIOS boot order, and you can just pick one of them for a boot drive! You lose storage capacity for the sake of simplicity. 3. If the QNAP is SAS based, it may use an unbranded LSI/Broadcom/Avago HBA to connect the hot-swap bays. In this case, you can actually use a normal LSI sas2flash utility to flash an LSI BIOS ROM onto the SAS HBA, so it will enumerate all the front drives at boot time and allow you to choose them in the BIOS. I have a 16-bay QNAP, and now have 17 SAS and SATA drives to choose from in my boot order! I got my sas2flash and ROM image from the Art of Server, the premiere font of information about SAS HBAs. To identify the right family of LSI controller for your system, you can boot into Linux and run `sudo sas2flash -listall`. You might not be able to upgrade the firmware but you can flash the boot ROM as a separate component. (No warranty implied; proceed at your own risk!) Hope this helps somebody! :) I sure had fun.

[@GearSeekers]

That's quite interesting. Im trying to source another USB DOM to have as a spare but everything I find is of questionable origin. I have thought about dd'ing the original one and backing it up and overwriting QuTS. As I'm writing this I think I have another QNAP around. Might pop it open and see if it has a USB DOM I can steal out of it.

[@Kelekona_808]

Love the ability to "tinker" with the OS. Can't be mad at the flexibility of PC platforms.

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

There's a difference. We actually allow it. ;)

[@GearSeekers]

So does Qnap ;)

[@ASUSTOR_YT]

@@GearSeekers Official from-the-horse's-mouth condonement? I'm doubtful :P

[@FakeName39]

Dude this was awesome. Love when tubers get more into server/nas/networking -- its almost becoming something in homes a NAS is a great thing.

[@GearSeekers]

I worked in Datacentre before I did KZbin ;)

[@Cythrawl102]

The whole DOM thing DONT do that.. Just go into the BIOS of the QNAP, change the boot order and use one of the USB ports to install TrueNAS onto a SSD in a housing. No need to remove the DOM, if you remove the Glue you technically void your warranty. Leave the DOM in the NAS as a fallback if you have anything go wrong. That way you also avoid the whole frying your motherboard if you wire something up wrong putting a USB port internally too.

[@troubleshooter-ep2yq]

This is exactly the comment I was looking for. Thank you. Fussing around with the internals feels sus. I'm sure it's doable and wonderful. It's just not for me. I have a QNAP TS-1232PXU-RP-4G and I'm tired of trying to get it to cooperate with my much bigger TrueNAS across the way. I'm going to try this in the next week or so. Thank you!

[@1Sbnelson]

This is JUST the video I've been looking for! I've got a QNAP TS-h973AX that has no video capabilities, so no messing with the device BIOS. What I was thinking MAY work is pick up a 16g DOM module and a cable like you have there, connect them to my PC via USB and install the TrueNAS OS onto it. My hope is that during the install, it'll pull a IP Address that I can search for once installed in my QNAP. I'm a little concerned about the cable though, I picked up a male 9pin USB-USBA cable, but I'm a bit concerned that the pinout may not be correct? Or am I misunderstanding what you were talking about? Any info would be awesome and appreciated. Again thanks for the great video

[@mirkodiciano4647]

nick this video was sick please tinker more lol Happy holiday guys

[@marcusunivers]

Is there a way to get a raid 5 from QNAP working in TrueNAS without loosing the data of the drives?

[@Spreadie]

Have you tried buying a larger DOM and running TrueNAS directly from it? I know you're limited by the interface speed but I'd be curious to see how well the OS performed running common tasks/apps.

[@gaborriba286]

@@Spreadie you can use bigger capacity DOM, but bear in mind it is time consuming to install the system or later do an upgrade on it. However it works fine. TrueNAS usually mention 8Gb as minimum boot disk size. If you buy 8Gb DOM it is actually around 7.5Gb. Buy at least 16Gb DOM

[@mevlad]

I want to follow along but you lost me a bit there with the pins and the wiring. Could you explain that in more detail?

[@GearSeekers]

You can look up a USB header wiring diagram

[@joshchandler3274]

Very cool!

[@TutoDS2014]

My qnap don’t have hdmi, is possible to install Ubuntu server or something else?

[@GearSeekers]

Probably not to be honest.

[@saintbenedictscholacantorum]

Check if it has a serial console port - some of them have a unique serial port that looks like a headphone jack. If that's the case, you need to find the right cable to connect it to a terminal emulator. Also check the CPU, whether it is Intel or ARM. In the latter case, can you find an Ubuntu or Debian image that supports that particular model? If you have a kernel that supports both the CPU and the serial console output, and if the system can boot from a USB drive, then it should be theoretically possible. :)

[@informol9843]

And where are any performance and stability tests? Great video, we didn't it.

[@Fluffy2Buffy]

Now if only @TrueNAS would add on companion apps like everyone else that would be great...

[@rcortez5979]

DEEPCOOL MORPHEUS CASE REVIEW WHERE IS IT BABY

[@GearSeekers]

Not coming

[@Daniels_ATS_W900]

#GearSeekers...I dont like these exposed wires on the USB Headers , after years they dry out and break, lost many products coz of this. ref: 4:08 mins.

[@73442]

just a guy saying first even though im probably not

[@th3fall0f3den]

Awesome vid. Jake from @LinusTechTips would love this hahaha