I just ordered an Aoostar R1N100 mini PC to replace my aging Synology NAS. Now I’m thinking about what to install on it. It’s supposed to work as a NAS but I also want to host some services on it like papeless-ngx and Jellyfin, which I both run in Docker containers on a different machine right now. Plus anything that takes my fancy in the future. Current candidates are OpenMediaVault and TrueNAS. My priorities are ease of installation and administration, as well as reliability. Which one would you recommend or are there any alternatives I’m not aware of? I’ve also considered Unraid, but I’d prefer something FOSS.
Ah, I didn’t actually look at the Aoostar device you mentioned in your post… yeah you probably don’t want to run TrueNAS on that, something lighter would be more appropriate.
I do want to point out that in this price range you can get a used PowerEdge tower that will be more capable, reliable, repairable and upgradeable long-term. You can add more drives, more RAM, and even a second processor as your needs grow, plus it has a proper backplane with a physical RAID controller and redundant PSUs. If any of the electronics in that R1N100 fail you have to replace the whole device.
Of course it’s a lot bulkier, so it might not fit your use.