I’m almost ready to build my first DIY PC which will be used as a home NAS/server. My primary aim is media storage and playback (mostly music, only the occasional movie).

While I’m not quite done deciding between TrueNas and UnRaid (and Proxmox?), something I see discussed in all three setups is the use of VM’s, or virtualization.

While I understand the concept of a VM, I don’t understand how this might figure into what I’m doing.

To take my primary aim of storing and streaming music, possibly with the use of Jellyfin or Plex, how would a VM come into play, if at all? Can I simply install the OS of my choice and the install software like Jellyfin or Plex, or is this where VMs become important somehow?

Explanations, tips and resources shared are appreciated.

  • nolo_me@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    TrueNAS will be fine for what you’re describing, there’s no need to virtualise those services. You can install them from the app catalogue and they’ll run on the host machine.

  • thomasbuchinger@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    Given that you are running pretty standard Apps, it’s fine to run without virtualization.

    • You don’t need a network share to access the files
    • TrueNAS wants access to the physical drives

    VMs add a useful abstraction layer between the hardware and the stuff you want to run. I tend to use VMs unless I have a reason not to.

    • Having many VMs limits the blast radius if you do something stupid. This was more relevant before Containers were widespread
    • If you do a major upgrade, you can snapshot the VM disk and roll back if it does not work
    • It’s easier to backup a single directory with all the VM disks than configuring X Backups on physical Hardware
    • If you want to replace a server, you can run a second VM and you don’t need additional Hardware

    Reasons to not use VMs are basically

    • access to physical hardware
    • being able to use a display/keyboard,
    • running on an embedded device