Name: Building a Homelab - Episode 5 - TrueNAS Storage in a VM
Uploaded: 2025-07-28 02:38:56
Duration: 46 min 50 s

Question 1

How do you install TrueNAS SCALE as a VM on Proxmox?

Accepted Answer

I create a new VM in Proxmox, point it at the TrueNAS SCALE ISO, and set it up as a Q35 machine with UEFI. I give it a small boot disk (I used 32GB), plenty of CPU cores (I did 16 host passthrough), and 32GB RAM because ZFS likes RAM. Then I boot the ISO and install to that boot disk.

Question 2

Why use Q35 and UEFI for a TrueNAS VM in Proxmox?

Accepted Answer

I asked a few LLMs about it because I wanted the best performance and the most “server-like” virtual hardware. Q35 emulates a more modern Intel chipset with PCIe behavior that makes sense for passthrough setups. Normally I’d do the old 440fx/SeaBIOS style, but for this build I went UEFI + Q35.

Question 3

TrueNAS VM won’t boot the ISO in Proxmox—how did you fix it?

Accepted Answer

In my case it kept throwing an access denied/permissions type error when I created it with an EFI disk. The trick that worked for me was: use UEFI, but don’t add the EFI disk during VM creation. My theory is the EFI disk setup was turning on secure boot and it didn’t like booting the installer media.

Question 4

How do you pass through an LSI/Broadcom HBA to TrueNAS in Proxmox?

Accepted Answer

I shut the VM down, then add a PCI device as a RAW device and select my Broadcom/LSI controller. I enable PCI Express, and I turn OFF ROM bar—if you don’t, the VM won’t boot (ask me how I know). And you absolutely need to isolate that controller from the Proxmox host so nothing else tries to touch those drives at the same time.

Question 5

How do you create ZFS pools in TrueNAS SCALE for mixed drive sizes?

Accepted Answer

I keep it simple and group like-sized drives together into their own pools: I built separate RAIDZ1 pools for my 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB disks. TrueNAS makes manual disk selection pretty painless now—drag, save, and go. For my use case these are archival pools, so I skipped log devices, cache vdevs, spares, and the fancy metadata vdev stuff.

Question 6

How do you set up SMB shares on TrueNAS and make permissions easier?

Accepted Answer

I create datasets under each pool and use the SMB preset so it’ll create the share and basic permissions quickly. In my lab I run Active Directory, so I create a TrueNAS user that matches my AD username/password. That way when I browse the shares on my network, it doesn’t keep prompting me—everything lines up and it just works.

Question 7

What kind of file transfer speeds did you get with TrueNAS virtualized?

Accepted Answer

On my 10Gb network with spinning rust, I saw it start strong around 400 MB/s, then settle more realistically around 250–300 MB/s as it hit lots of smaller files. TrueNAS was chewing up RAM for ZFS cache (I saw it climb into the mid-20GB range out of 32GB). For old hardware and a virtualized NAS, those numbers are phenomenal in my book.

Building a Homelab - Episode 5 - TrueNAS Storage in a VM

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