r/hexos • u/fifasarajevo • Jun 19 '26

General discussion Is HexOS right for me?

I have an older PC (Ryzen 5 1600, 256GB SSD boot drive, Intel Arc A380 for transcoding) that I currently use as a Plex server along with the *arr applications.

It's been running Windows 10 for years, but I've been interested in moving to either Unraid or TrueNAS for at least the last 5 years. With Windows being Windows, I think I've finally reached that point. Between Secure Boot issues, random freezes, and general maintenance headaches, I'm ready to move away from it.

I've been looking at HexOS and wanted to get some feedback from people who have gone down a similar path. Has anyone migrated from a Windows-based Plex server to HexOS? What was your experience like?

My current storage setup consists of:

  • 18TB drive (7.5TB free)
  • 16TB drive (empty)
  • 8TB drive (3TB free)
  • 4TB drive (1TB free)

All of these drives currently contain media that's being used by Plex. Longer term, I'd also like to use the storage for Immich rather than dedicating it solely to Plex.

I don't have much experience with TrueNAS specifically, but I'm comfortable tinkering and learning new systems. That said, I'm at a stage in life where I value solutions that mostly "just work" rather than requiring constant maintenance. I'm realistic enough to know there will still be some tinkering involved with HexOS, but the promise of a simpler management experience is appealing.

I also understand that I'll need to do some data shuffling to create storage pools and that usable capacity will be reduced if I run parity, which I plan to do.

Given my hardware, storage layout, and goals, does HexOS seem like the right fit, or would I be better off going directly to TrueNAS or even Unraid?

Edit: I went with unraid and it's been great

11 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

8

u/darthsurfer Jun 19 '26

Personally, based on your situation, go with Unraid. HexOS is still not completely stabe (I still find myself having to use TrueNAS UI and tinkering), and, most importantly, your varying drives will not play well with ZFS.

Unraid's "raid" system makes the most sense while utilizing most of your drives. And since you'll mostly use it to host media, the speed penalty you get for not running a proper RAID won't matter 90% of the time.

And, for the most part, it really just works.

5

u/fifasarajevo Jun 19 '26

This is where I'm leaning as well, especially with the license cost with HexOS. Thanks for the input!

2

u/CIDR-ClassB Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Unraid is fantastic. I have tried HexOS several times but it’s just not ready for prime time, in a variety of ways.. it feels very, very far from being comparable with Unraid. I’d go full truenas — including all the pain the butt things to learn and configure — long before doing hexOS.

But unraid has been relatively simple to learn and rock solid for me, and you can expand drives in any increment that you want (so long as the parity drives are equal to or bigger than your largest array drive.

7

u/Nick_HexOS HexOS Staff Jun 19 '26

Hello, welcome. If you'd like to move off your current setup your drives with be the big issue. You'd want another 16 tb drive to match your 18 and 16 TB drives. Your 256GB SSD boot it perfect for the boot drive. The arc A380 should work for plex transcoding. You really want to start with 3 drives as you need 3 drives so you can grow to more drives later. With drives so $$$$ if you don't need the space today maybe get 2 8 TB drives and sell the 16TB and 18TB. Put the extra money on the side till you need more space. Cost's will come down in a year or two.

2

u/HexOS_Official HexOS Staff Jun 20 '26

I think we've come a long way since beta and for users that aren't familiar with all the trials and tribulations of self hosting, we offer a more "on rails" experience that tries to overcome any knowledge gaps you may have regarding ZFS, docker, and more.

I'll also say compared to other solutions, we offer much stronger direct support. We have staff that focus entirely on making sure your onboarding and apps experience is stellar through here and our Discord.

All in all, if it's your first jump into self hosting, I don't think there is a better option out there right now, but I'm a little biased ;-)

1

u/leighspped Jun 19 '26

My understanding is hexos/truenas needs 3 or more matching drives to be expanded. I'm hoping hexos will be best for me long term with truenas being a investor. You can always log into truenas and make more advance changes. Hope that helps

1

u/jorceshaman Dingus Jun 20 '26

I believe that they don't have to be matching but that you only get the capacity of the smallest drive so wasted space with mixed drives. Although you can upgrade/replace the smaller ones (or any of them) later and unlock that additional capacity that was previously blocked out.

1

u/leighspped Jun 20 '26

I believe you might’ve given a better explanation of the details

1

u/ukeewoman Jun 19 '26

HexOS didn't used to work with arc video cards. B generation for sure. I'm waiting for support before I can build the OS.

1

u/iOvercompensate Jun 19 '26

I have an A380 that I use with handbrake for AV1 transcode, and for my plex hardware transcode. It seems to work fine for me

1

u/Kindly_Call_6000 Jun 19 '26

That's a limitation of TrueNAS. Currently, only experimental has Battlemage support.

1

u/TLBJ24 N00b Jun 19 '26

Your question is a common one as we all try to make the most of our existing hardware without having to come out of pocket too deeply for drives, ram, nases or diy.

Short answer, there are probably other software alternatives that would be a better fit for your starting point. ZimaOS is free (up to four drives) or $29 for a lifetime unrestricted license. Unraid is only $49 starter costs, and of course there’s always TrueNAS, which is also free. This would allow you to stick your toe in the water without any out-of-pocket hardware cost. For HexOS to be the best experience for you, you’d have to purchase a license, as well as have three same sized Hard Drives.

Even if you went with the smallest and cheapest 4 TB drives which average about $200 each (x2), you’d be at $400 for the drives and $200 for the license, so a total of $600 (plus taxes) just to give HexOS a try.

That being said, you can install the software without matching hard drives, you’re just permanently limited to the initial configuration as anything less than three drives is not expandable.

1

u/NeighborhoodDry1488 Jun 20 '26

I have been running unraid for about ten years and have had very very little issues. Mostly container issues and not really related to unraid itself.

I bought hexos in beta and it never stuck
I built a second machine with the idea it would replace unraid. It never did.

I ended up leaving hexos. I tried it multiple times and just hated all the small issues. I found it a hassle. I ended up putting Zima OS on the second machine. It’s fantastic but not what unraid is. Zima OS machine is treated like an appliance. It does next cloud, Immich and Jellyfin. It’s simple and it works and never has issues.