TrueNAS Scale homelab & hardware
Hardware platform, ZFS storage, self-hosted apps, security tooling and AI-related services.
Guide and documentation by Alban Andrieu.
Hardware, apps, ZFS, automation and AI — open-source and hands-on.
TrueNAS services
Self-hosted applications on TrueNAS Scale.
Service icons are vendored from selfh.st/icons. For more open-source self-hosted ideas, see selfh.st/apps.
Homelab for security, AI and freelance projects
This homelab was built to host upcoming Nabla projects and services.
Its purpose is to test security and AI service integrations and reproduce attacks targeting my domains.
After seven years of reliable service, the previous FreeNAS system failed: its motherboard, CPU and several hard drives were faulty. It was time for an upgrade.
One physical Mini-ITX system running TrueNAS Scale: dependable ZFS storage and a homelab host for applications, home automation, security tooling and compute-intensive workloads, including AI experiments.
- ZFS and datasetsPools, snapshots and replication
- Homelab hostApplications, VMs and internal services
- Security stackSecurity tooling and monitoring
- AI and computeAM5 capacity for models and jobs
Bill of materials
Reused components
- Case: previous iXsystems chassis, approximately 170 × 170 mm, Mini-ITX format.
- Power supply: previous 200 W unit, incompatible with the MSI motherboard’s 8-pin CPU connector.
- Kingston SKC600MS mSATA SSD — 256 GB TLC 3D NAND. €83.
- Storage: 4 × Western Digital Red WD30EFRX — 3 TB each, SATA 6 Gb/s.
New purchases
- MSI MPG B650I Edge WiFi — Mini-ITX AM5 motherboard, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, M.2 and Wi-Fi 6E. €174.67.
- ORICO mSATA SSD enclosure (USB 3.0, 5 Gbps) — Tool-free USB 3.0 enclosure for 50 × 30 mm mSATA SSDs, up to 2 TB. €17.99.
- Noctua NH-L9a-AM5 — Low-profile CPU cooler for AMD AM5. €49.90.
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700 — 3.8 GHz processor with 32 MB L3 cache. €212.75.
- Crucial DDR5 64 GB 5600 MHz — CL46 memory (CT64G56C46U5; also supports 5200/4800 MHz). €679.00.
- ATX 500 W PSU — ATX 500 W power supply; the smaller ordered unit was never delivered. €50.00.
Total price1 184,31 €Sum of motherboard, enclosure, CPU, RAM, CPU cooler and power supply.
Possible future upgrades
- Another 64 GB of DDR5 UDIMM memory in 288-pin desktop format. SO-DIMM laptop memory and registered RDIMM server memory are not compatible with this motherboard.
- An additional M.2 NVMe SSD for a fast pool or cache-style storage, selected according to the motherboard specifications and intended workload.
