TrueNAS Mini R - Rackmount ZFS Storage Server with 12 Drive Bays, 32GB RAM, Eight Core CPU, Dual 1/10 Gigabit Network (Diskless)

I have had my Mini R running for about a week now. From a software and hardware side, it has been an absolute dream. It comes preconfigured with TrueNAS Core, and upgrading to TrueNAS Scale was as simple as a change in the web ui followed by a reboot. Performance has been more than sufficient for my needs.My configuration is as follows, for anyone that may find it useful:- Added 32GB Ram Upgrade from iX Systems store to bring total memory to 64GB.- 6x WD Red 6tb CMR drives in RAID-Z2 for data pool, 2x Samsung 960 EVO 1tb drives in mirror for app pool- Running Plex, Nextcloud, Vaultwarden via truechartsPros:- Everything is pre-installed, no need to fiddle around with installing OS- Very quiet and low power draw compared to my old PowerEdge R710- Looks attractive in the rack (your wife probably won't care about this one)- Running TrueNAS on "official" hardware has given me zero driver / compatibility issues- Enclosure management in UI is great (yes, it works in SCALE as well)- Modern IPMI works without java / flashCons:- You are paying a premium for a turnkey solution. You could probably build this same system for cheaper if you have the spare time and knowledge- This system works great for NAS / basic applications, but don't expect to do multiple transcodes or run VMs on it. As mentioned in the "Pros", it is very low power usage, but this comes at a cost. For our application, this was beneficial but your situation may be different- You really need square holes on your rack to properly mount this (more details below)- The power supply does not report wattage use, so you will need a UPS or similar smart power strip if you wish to monitor power usage.GOTCHAS:- The rails include adapters to mount it in a threaded rack, but in my rack they did not line up. I ended up having to drill out the adapters and secure it with nuts on the other side. This took several hours and is less than ideal- The 10bge ports will not negotiate with a 10/100 port. You will need at least a 1gbe port to get it on your network.Overall, this system is perfect for our applications. With transcoding disabled in plex, I have had 5 simultaneous streams going at the same time with no issue. Your situation may differ, so bear that in mind if you decide to purchase this.

In just over 60 days:Came with bad CMOS battery.Then it wouldn't power on.Then it took forever to boot.Then it started having ECC errors.Then IX wouldn't support it.NOW: It's in the dump because I can't trust it, or IX with my data.The response from IX:"Thank you for calling in. to recap it looks like this is a Mini system purchased through Amazon without software support.With that being said your best options if it turns out to be software related will be to reach out to our 3rd party gainframe or review the community forums for answers.If it does seem to be hardware related returning through Amazon will be the quickest turn around time for hardware related issues. "The sad thing is we are looking at two Dell ME5 storage arrays with 200TB of raw each. I bought this to try to convince them to look at IX. The picture of the IX in the trash went to my boss this morning.This thing is a complete waste of money, and probably a hundred hours of my time.

The build quality is top notch. It came packaged extremely well, so no worries about drives being abused in transit. The rack rails are very easy to install, which in turn makes the unit easy to install. The OS seems snappy and fast. I experienced 110mb/s transfer without dips while pushing files to a mounted SMB share. This is approaching line speed of gigabit ethernet. I'm excited to see how well it will stand up to a production environment, but at this point I believe it will perform well.System Specs:TrueNAS Mini-RIntel Atom 3758 8 Core 2.2ghz64gb ECC DDR4 RAMM.2 Boot DeviceDual 10GbE Base-TDual 10GbE SFP+12 WD Enterprise Red 4TB Drives