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SSD Caching options

Want to pick the collecting server brain some more

 

Not sure what the best option would be for my scenario, I am building a home storage server in a 24 bay, which will also be used for a couple game servers, rendering for my airsoft footage. so not sure if I even need to bother, although I will be more than likely working off of the server to edit as I will be using a 10g network, thinking of adding a second expander as the case has one in the backplane, then adding a couple SSD's to the setup without taking away from spaces for HDD. However I am wondering that instead of using SSD caching, if my use scenario would benefit more from say am external NAS with 4 SSD's it and have a separate essentially SSD server to work from, then move the footage to the server later?

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I personally think the NAS filled with SSDs is going to be a waste.  I would just stick with one larger multi disk NAS as I think you'll find that snappy enough for any work that you're doing.  10 GbE will be nice, but neither setup is going to saturate the network so I'd take volume and convenience over slightly lower latency gained by a full SSD setup.  If you were working with a ton of small files, I could possibly see using the SSD setup, but you're not.

 

Install the SSDs that you were considering using in the NAS into your rendering rig.   I work off of an M.2, but my files are offloaded as I work to my SSD array within the same machine.  They are moved to the NAS nightly.

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Really depends on what you are going to use for your NAS OS. I use Windows Server Storage Spaces which supports tier storage, I have 6 512GB Samsung Pros caching a large number of 3TB Reds and 10Gb networking which I can saturate easily.

 

FreeNAS/ZFS also supports SSD caching.

 

The main difference between Server Storage Spaces and other solutions is it's not free but the nice thing about it is the SSD's are not a pure cache, they contribute to the total usable storage in the pool.

 

24 HDDs will actually perform extremely well so I would get the base server setup first and see if you actually need any SSDs at all, you will likely find that you won't.

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2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Really depends on what you are going to use for your NAS OS. I use Windows Server Storage Spaces which supports tier storage, I have 6 512GB Samsung Pros caching a large number of 3TB Reds and 10Gb networking which I can saturate easily.

 

FreeNAS/ZFS also supports SSD caching.

 

The main difference between Server Storage Spaces and other solutions is it's not free but the nice thing about it is the SSD's are not a pure cache, they contribute to the total usable storage in the pool.

 

24 HDDs will actually perform extremely well so I would get the base server setup first and see if you actually need any SSDs at all, you will likely find that you won't.

The server will be either windows server 2012 or 2016.

24 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

I personally think the NAS filled with SSDs is going to be a waste.  I would just stick with one larger multi disk NAS as I think you'll find that snappy enough for any work that you're doing.  10 GbE will be nice, but neither setup is going to saturate the network so I'd take volume and convenience over slightly lower latency gained by a full SSD setup.  If you were working with a ton of small files, I could possibly see using the SSD setup, but you're not.

 

Install the SSDs that you were considering using in the NAS into your rendering rig.   I work off of an M.2, but my files are offloaded as I work to my SSD array within the same machine.  They are moved to the NAS nightly.

Ok cool, think I'll just leave it and use the WD RE drives instead, I'm not expecting them to be slow at all, just more curious than anything if this would be beneficial to me.

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21 hours ago, Yatys 93 said:

Want to pick the collecting server brain some more

 

Not sure what the best option would be for my scenario, I am building a home storage server in a 24 bay, which will also be used for a couple game servers, rendering for my airsoft footage. so not sure if I even need to bother, although I will be more than likely working off of the server to edit as I will be using a 10g network, thinking of adding a second expander as the case has one in the backplane, then adding a couple SSD's to the setup without taking away from spaces for HDD. However I am wondering that instead of using SSD caching, if my use scenario would benefit more from say am external NAS with 4 SSD's it and have a separate essentially SSD server to work from, then move the footage to the server later?

What OS? what hardware? What drives.  A big raid 5 is fast enough to fill a 10gbe connection.

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3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What OS? what hardware? What drives.  A big raid 5 is fast enough to fill a 10gbe connection.

SSDs or the big server?

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1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

big server. What drives, what raid, what os, are you using lvm?

Windows server either 2012 or 2016, leaning towards 2016 as I prefer win 10, RAID 6 with an LSI 9361 8L RAID card, WD RE 4TB, starting with 8 then expanding as I need to.

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2 minutes ago, Yatys 93 said:

Windows server either 2012 or 2016, leaning towards 2016 as I prefer win 10, RAID 6 with an LSI 9361 8L RAID card, WD RE 4TB, starting with 8 then expanding as I need to.

Just curious on why your using windows server? In winserver you can use storage spaces with a write cache, but i suggest using using linux or  just not having a cache

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Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just curious on why your using windows server? In winserver you can use storage spaces with a write cache, but i suggest using using linux or  just not having a cache

Leaning towards just not bothering with it, was more curious than actually planning on doing it, using windows as I prefer it over linux, also like I mentioned, plan on having a couple game servers on it and not everything is supported on linux.

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1 minute ago, Yatys 93 said:

Leaning towards just not bothering with it, was more curious than actually planning on doing it, using windows as I prefer it over linux, also like I mentioned, plan on having a couple game servers on it and not everything is supported on linux.

You can also run something like esxi as run all the servers in seprate vms you one server cant affect anything else.

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1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can also run something like esxi as run all the servers in seprate vms you one server cant affect anything else.

That sounds like a lot more hassle than just installing a single os... :P

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1 minute ago, Yatys 93 said:

That sounds like a lot more hassle than just installing a single os... :P

Your buying a 3k+ server, you gotta have some time and you should set it up correctly.

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1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your buying a 3k+ server, you gotta have some time and you should set it up correctly.

more like 6K... I definitely went overboard on it, but that's part of the fun, and ya you have a point, however I don't see how having multiple VM's is going to benefit me over just installing an admittedly way over prices OS that I already know and am comfortable with, which will do everything I need it to do?

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2 minutes ago, Yatys 93 said:

more like 6K... I definitely went overboard on it, but that's part of the fun, and ya you have a point, however I don't see how having multiple VM's is going to benefit me over just installing an admittedly way over prices OS that I already know and am comfortable with, which will do everything I need it to do?

The big benefit of vms are that you can reboot each system without affecting anything else. You can also protect your self, but if your comfortable with windows server it will work fine. Windows server 2012 standard comes with linces for 2 vms you you can also spin them up later.

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1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The big benefit of vms are that you can reboot each system without affecting anything else. You can also protect your self, but if your comfortable with windows server it will work fine. Windows server 2012 standard comes with linces for 2 vms you you can also spin them up later.

That last one read snarky, it wasn't meant too! will definitely look into VMs more but not sure if I'll need them.

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