How to run TrueNAS on Proxmox?

I have the problem that I already had a storage pool, but now I want to migrate it. Unfortunately, when I run the command "ls /dev/disk/by-id", a hard disk is missing from the list. However, it is recognized by the system. Does anyone have an idea?

Trunas core is best run (IMO) in a virtual environment. When I looked into it in the past they insisted that you're supposed to boot from a thumb drive. I find this mentality insane. How often have you had one of those fail? Alternatively you could put an extra drive that will be grossly underutilized. They aren't very reliable to put it mildly. With virtual machines you can have that boot drive defined as a small drive to boot from - using resources much more reliably and effectively.

Amazing, thanks mate !

Hello @christianlempa! Im running truenas on proxmox, but i need to changee the motherboard, could you make a tutotial on how to migrate everithing to the new sistem without loosing data?

How do I unlock "Access Restricted" which states access from your IP is restricted on TrueNAS Scale? Thank you.

How would you compare this with running Proxmox under TrueNAS?

In proxmox 8 you can get the model and serial number for the drives in the Disks section of your node

Why run the server with ECC memory, if you run your (overclocked) family desktops and laptops with normal memory? Like you, since my start in IT 1969 I never noticed corruption because of memory problems. On the other hand living in a sunny developing country after retirement in 2011, I had a lot of corruption (>100 files) till 2018, because of the 2 to 20 power fails per week. In 2018 I started using "ZFS On Linux" now OpenZFS for all my PCs and "Copy On Write" solved my file corruption issues. If your electricity supply is on poles, instead of underground use OpenZFS, maybe btrfs or in future Bcachefs :)

Note that the disk serial number results for some nvme devices in ridiculous long serial numbers, so I prefer to use the UUID of disk or partition for the creation of the datapool. I always split my HDDs in 2 partitions, the first ~40% faster partition is for the VMs and the remainder for the other stuff. As a consequence the SSD I use for caching has four partition, 2x cache (L2ARC) and 2x log (ZIL).

Absolutely wonderful tutorial. My system board supports 16x onboard sata connections, and I was wonder just how to approach that and make it directly accessible to TrueNAS in Proxmox.

TrueNAS have no option to install on a running linux Server (via packages manager, source.. ), only iso option. I have a k8s cluster (manual install from scartch) on some virtual machine of a cloud provider, they have no other option rather than virtual machines with preinstalled some popular linux distro, and can be add an additional disk. For my k8s statefull apps, I install a NFS server on other server on other VM (with added disk). I can't install truenas (only .iso). Could you suggest some storage solution for that k8s cluster. Thanks Christian.

Truenas core it's freebsd , Trunas scale Debian base. Right?

christianlempa I have a Dell R720, its got a H710 on IT mode. I removed the CD drive and replaced it with a SATA caddy with an SSD, on the SSD I installed Proxmox and the plan was to pass the entire H710 to TrueNAS. however Im not able to do that. Eveything I could find online said, I have to enable IOMMU, and I followed the instructions, however thats not working. Any thoughts on what I should do ?

thansk i jus set up my truenas in myprox mox but i dont have much disk ( 3 ssd of 1 tb a ssd of 120gig and one hard drive of 1 tb
so waht i did is 120 gig proxmox 1 tb for virtual machine (wish it was a ssd ) and my 3 ssd as triped for my true nas so i have 3 tb of data now i will have to find a way to have acess to those 3 drive on my proxmox to save the iso file and maybe some hard disk :)
i wish i had bigger ssd but i whent wiht the budget i had that why i used strip so i have more disk for some reason recently my ssd 2 tb nvme seems to stop working properly ( some time it show in my bios other time not :( ill buy another when i can and maybe get bigger hard disk for inside my true nas and then ill set a pool wiht failsafe ( parity security )

Great video. I tried the passthrough and it works flawlessly.
Just a question: why do we not add the hard disks to the VM via the PVE GUI? I think you would need to set the disks as storage devices in PVE (like you have with the truenas named storage)? I sadly skipped that part so can't try for myself if it is possible.

Perfect. Got my TrueNAS VM up in 10 minutes. Computers are so cool these days. Also, for any of your videos, much respect for your brevity. All the details we need while respecting our time.

I agree that the by-id method is really simple and nice, but I would like to point out a potential risk, as one of the pools on one of my many Truenas servers running this way cannot be imported.

Using zpool import -f all disks say ONLINE and it looks like the import succeeded, but zpool list shows nothing, proxmox syslog shows err=52 for these drives, zpool import -f [pool name] says insufficient replicas and tells me to destroy or rebuild the pool, zdb -l [poolname] output shows devid, path and serial are all correct. At this point, all the disks are SMART long passed.

I'm getting my hopes up and looking at other avenues because the output is ONLINE, but it's so hard to tell what's causing this, potentially it could be from Proxmox itself or another VM or CT.

Why TrueNAS Core but not Scale?

Hello, I am also going to build my first nas at home, I have 4x 8TB Hdd, that I have used i my old Readynas.

But now I want to run Proxmos on a ssd disk, and have vm like truenas...

My question is, should I install the truenas on the ssd or sould I install it on my raid with my 4 hhd ?

Trouble with Drive stats Visibility and SMART in TrueNAS VM on Proxmox


I had set up a TrueNAS VM on Proxmox, utilizing a RAID Z configuration with four 2TB HDDs. Here's the catch: three drives are directly connected to the motherboard, and I've added a PCIe SATA expansion card for the fourth drive.

However, I've encountered a snag—I've noticed that not all drive information is visible in TrueNAS, and the SMART options aren't working either. Given that I'm now using this server for work purposes, I'm feeling a bit uneasy about the situation.

My SMB shares are functioning correctly, and backups are happening as expected. However, I'm concerned about potential drive failures and whether I'll be able to manage replacing a failed drive without risking data loss.

Is there a way to address this issue without redoing the entire setup? Any guidance or suggestions on ensuring drive visibility, SMART functionality, and data protection would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Why is there a 2GB partition on each of your SATA drives?

Is running without ecc memory really something I should avoid? I have a cool build for a sever in mind and it doesn’t support ecc memory.

hey good video mate!. I ran my first trueness- proxmox install. I'm having issues with my Kubernetes cluster. not launching. any ideas in how to troubleshot that? cheers!!

Great video with one huge caveat, why oh why do you play dreadful "on hold" music through out the whole video? Very annoying and distracting!

When i got to creating the pool, I says that my didsks have non-unique serial numbers. It says that using the disks in the pool can result in lost data. how did this happen? I followed the tutorial to a T.

The actual tutorial does not start until about 60% of the video is done. And then you just rushed into it. Now the best video by you, no offence.

It's been 2 years now and I wonder if you'd keep this as a setup? Any downside found in terms of performances or reliability during that time? Or perhaps you are rocking now a different setup for the storage part of your Homelab?

I have only 8 gb stick will it work

Bro, THANKS!!!

Very detailed and helpful. Just wondering, is the raw HDD pass-thru to TrueNAS the recommended option or the only option? I mean, I am contemplating whether it would make more sense to create a RAID5 pool via m/b RAID controller and pass-thru the disk to TrueNAS instead. Would that be an option? I am using a Synology DS920+ as my main NAS Server. I am considering running a TrueNAS VM on Proxmox as a 2nd level level of data backup.

Great video and awesome accent

Tried this, and the serials still aren't showing in TrueNAS

For anyone who needs it, a command list by disk ID and other information:


lsblk |awk 'NR==1{print $0" DEVICE-ID(S)"}NR>1{dev=$1;printf $0" ";system("find /dev/disk/by-id -lname \"*"dev"\" -printf \" %p\"");print "";}'|grep -v -E 'part|lvm'

Just to confirm. Using this method bypasses the need of an HBA?

you dont need ecc memory because it almost never goes wrong.

Ooof. I’ve done this. TrueNAS on proxmox. Unless you passthru the drives and controllers, it’s moot. Else it’s kinda slow.

Can this be done with a LXC container in Proxmox instead of a virtual machine?

Great video everything explained well. i am wondering : Is there a performance benefit of the pci passtrough or adding the hdds manually?

ZFS can't use your hypervisor's extra RAM in this setup. That alone is reason enough to handle ZFS with proxmox itself IMO.

Used the same process to pass through 12 SAS drives from my Dell PERC to unRAID... Unfortunately my proxmox drives are on the same controller so I can't just pass through the whole controller. So thanks for walking me through the alternative!

Hi Christian, really like your video's! Actually copying most of your system builds... Running into an issue with this proxmoxx build as the memory you are suggesting is not working on my A520M/itx (It is also not in the compatibility list),
But the strange thing is, your A520M Pro should also not support the Kingston KTH-PL432E, but it seems to work in your system according to your Kit list?

You are the beast man

Just got a power edge r730 and I plan to use proxmox and then run a virtual nas exactly like this. Great video!

Thx Saitama, U are best !

Hi... Need some help if possible... I followed all the steps and i get the message: "...disks that have non-unique serial numbers" and they aren't - only the last 'character' is different in the unique identifier... Any idea how can i solve this? Thanks in advance...

Excellent. If your disks show up as QEMU with no serial number in TrueNAS, do an edit the file /etc/pve/qemu-server/<Your-VM-ID>.conf, and at the this line to the end of each scsi disk you want to pass through: ,serial=<your-disk-serial-number>

Are you the original reference for one of the soyjaks?

Thanks for your video! Exactly what I was looking for 🙂

I can't tell you how long I struggled to try to get PCI Passthrough to work before I realize all the devices were in a common IOMMU group .. this is the best explanation on how to get around that problem! Thanks so much

Why truenas on proxmox, proxmox do the same but not used friendly like proxmox. For me it's Truenas OR Proxmox