Installing new OS on ZimaCube

ZimaCube
1

I have been experimenting with various NAS operating systems on ZimaCube.

I was able to install TrueNAS Scale, but not exactly sure how I was successful, but it finally did work. The combination of using F11 at boot, the GRUB menu, and hitting up/down arrows is all the I recall before I saw the USB drive booting and the TrueNAS OS install menu appeared. I was following this article: ZimaCube TrueNAS Core 13.0 Installation Guide and some past experience with Linux installations.

However, during the install process, I was unable to install the TrueNAS OS on the NVME SSD that the ZimaOS was installed on. It was not an option that I could select. My RAID 5 and RAID 1 volume sets appeared, so just to see it get installed … I selected the 2TB RAID 1 and it installed and I was able to boot from it, however - not the optimal solution, as I wanted to use the RAID 1 for other things.

Any ideas on how to utilize the NVME SSD as an installation volume? Is there a reason I could not see/select it?

2

Hello, how did you install the TrueNAS system?

We have just verified that this method is a feasible way to install:

1.Use BalenaEtcher to write the TrueNAS Scale installation iso file to the USB drive;

img_v3_02d8_7c826289-4294-47cc-a702-a9afe3f54a9g
img_v3_02d8_7c826289-4294-47cc-a702-a9afe3f54a9g1824×1184 88.1 KB

img_v3_02d8_b622ade3-6c03-4bca-826f-b884dffea8ag
img_v3_02d8_b622ade3-6c03-4bca-826f-b884dffea8ag1824×1184 92.2 KB

img_v3_02d8_1e423c9c-a511-41f5-bee7-ebeb65f3cbcg
img_v3_02d8_1e423c9c-a511-41f5-bee7-ebeb65f3cbcg1824×1184 142 KB

2.(Connect ZimaCube to power, keyboard and monitor) Insert the USB drive into ZimaCube, click the power button, and then immediately click the F11 key on the keyboard several times until you see this:

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3.Use arrow key to select your USB drive and hit Enter key, and you will see this:

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obs64_NOSMcoA0z52560×1440 50 KB

4.Choose the right option according to your need to finish the installation process:

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5.Wait till you see this:

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Try this method. If you encounter any issues, feel free to leave a comment below.

3

I previously had Unraid running on a Flashstor 6 and was able to simply swap my USB and 4x NVMe drives into the ZimaCube. It started right up and I was able to dive right into my pre-existing array. I’ve since flipped to a hard drive array with the NVMe’s running as a cache pool instead.

Few things I did to try and reduce power consumption:
1 - removed the 2.5GB ethernet sled, as my home network maxes out at gigabit
2 - pulled the WiFi dongle and relocated the Unraid boot drive to the motherboard
3 - relocated 1 NVMe to the interior, and 2 in Bay 7. I found the 4 drives getting very hot when all were in the same sled.

With 3 HDD and 3 NVMe’s my idle power is sitting around 78 watts.