First FreeNAS server and can't decide on capacity

[Nio9345]

So I build myself a nice FreeNAS server and I'm on the fence on how many drives and how much total storage do I need or isn't an overkill. My server is a Pentium-4XXX Dual Core, Asus Z97-C, 16GB Ram, 120 SSD M.2 (OS), Dual GB Ethernet and 2 PCI-E 6x Sata III cards. I want to mostly have it as a cache server with either Rancher or Docker and have it cache Steam, Origin, UPlay, WSUS, maybe some Torrenting and some backing up of my older external drives. I was thinking of 10x 4TB Reds or 10x 2TB Reds as my final capacity. I won't buy them all at once, start with some and go from there. I don't know if the 40TB is overkill or not but if I can avoid overspending then I would consider lower total capacity and upgrade further down the line.

[Firewrath9]

I'd say a pair of 8TB drives would be good, and if you need more, buy more. Don't get 10 drives, thats asking for failures.

[Xplo1t]

Either do 4 or 6 drives.  4 in a mirrored set or 6 in raidz2.  Mirroring will allow for faster rebuilds while raidz2 gives you a little more redundancy.  Just goint with 2 drives is asking for problems as a single failure means you are rebuilding completely of a single drive.

[tech.guru]

the more disks the more iops, so this all depends on your workload

also dont assume both nics will be used if plugged in.

 

im not sure freenas supports smb multichannel. maybe someone more familiar with freenas smb can chime in

[Nio9345]

15 hours ago, Xplo1t said:

Either do 4 or 6 drives.  4 in a mirrored set or 6 in raidz2.  Mirroring will allow for faster rebuilds while raidz2 gives you a little more redundancy.  Just goint with 2 drives is asking for problems as a single failure means you are rebuilding completely of a single drive.

The sata cards that I have are simple sata III expansions on a 4x PCI-E connection. For redundancy and merging of the capacity, I plan to use ZFS from FreeNAS itself.

[Xplo1t]

13 hours ago, tech.guru said:

the more disks the more iops, so this all depends on your workload

also dont assume both nics will be used if plugged in.

 

im not sure freenas supports smb multichannel. maybe someone more familiar with freenas smb can chime in

IOPS stays the same if using raidz in freenas, no matter how many drives you add.  The only way to increase it is by going with a mirrored set which wastes a lot of disks.