Help finalising spec for NAS box

[Sally-san]

I've been researching building a Nas system for over a year but there are just a few questions I can't find definitive answers to and would appreciate help with.

 

NAS Requirements:
- Managing downloads
- Handle file syncing with cloud and certain desktops
- Plex Server
- Pi hole (maybe)

Spec:
- OS: unraid
- Filesystem: ZFS
- Raid Solution: raid-z
- CPU: Intel 10100 (for quicksync)
- Motherboard: Asus H510M-E
- RAM: 16GB
- OS Drive: 500gig SSD
- Storage drives: 3 x Seagate 16TB exos
- Cache drive: same as OS Drive???

 

Notes:
- Here in South Africa the second-hand server market isn't great. So that combined with my need for Quicksync for the Plex server (ruling out AMD). Means I cant have an ECC memory solution at a reasonable price in the current market.

- I plan on upgrading the system to Intel gen 12/13 when ECC DDR5 is available at reasonable prices and W680 motherboards are actually out. P.S. yes I do actually plan on making this switch to ECC I've already waited a year hoping that DDR5 would be my answer to getting ECC on a consumer intel platform only to find out DDR5 by itself isn't true ECC

 

Questions:
- How big does the OS drive need to be? How big should the cache drive be? Can the OS and cache be the same drive? What is the point of unassigned drives and do I need them?

- Is that raid solution 'safe' to you guys I've read that some people don't like to go past 8TB for raid-5

- Is that enough memory and CPU power to handle the server? I read you need 1gig of ram per TB of data storage but then I read that it's out of date information and 8-32gigs is fine.

- Is not going with ECC memory for a year a bad idea?

- My uncle recommended running Pi-hole on a separate device (like a Rasberry-pi), in incase the server gets too much traffic/load. Do you think this is necessary?

[DreamCat04]

3 minutes ago, Sally-san said:

How big does the OS drive need to be?

If only the OS goes onto it, 250 GB should be fine

 

3 minutes ago, Sally-san said:

Can the OS and cache be the same drive?

I wouldn't recommend that since the cache drive has to withstand a lot of writes and dies quicker than the OS drive would. If it were to fail and you had cache and the OS on the same drive, you'd lose the OS if the drive fails. Get a 250GB OS drive (or keep your 500GB one) and a separate chache drive (2350 GB or so)

 

6 minutes ago, Sally-san said:

My uncle recommended running Pi-hole on a separate device (like a Rasberry-pi), in incase the server gets too much traffic/load. Do you think this is necessary?

I don't think you'll ever have that much traffic. Maybe once every now and then but I don't think it's nessesary

[Needfuldoer]

DNS (that's all PiHole really is) is barely any load at all. Don't sweat it.

 

A cache drive will help repetitive random reads, but as I understand it a ZIL ("write cache") will only help ZFS on synchronous writes. If you really want one, get something like an Optane or a Sun F40 / F80, so you never have to worry about write endurance.

 

I'd add a data SSD and use that for things like the Plex database and thumbnails. That will make a huge difference in how responsive the clients feel while browsing around.

[LionSpeck]

2 hours ago, Sally-san said:

Is that enough memory and CPU power to handle the server? I read you need 1gig of ram per TB of data storage but then I read that it's out of date information and 8-32gigs is fine.

CPU wise I think you're fine for your usage. Don't expect to be running VMs or anything fancy down the line, though you should be fine with a bunch of containers.

As for RAM, ECC is recommended, but that'd be a change of platform. 16GB is the minimum but enough: still, the more the better, ARC will eat anything you give it.

[jde3]

On 3/17/2022 at 4:28 AM, Needfuldoer said:

DNS (that's all PiHole really is) is barely any load at all. Don't sweat it.

 

A cache drive will help repetitive random reads, but as I understand it a ZIL ("write cache") will only help ZFS on synchronous writes. If you really want one, get something like an Optane or a Sun F40 / F80, so you never have to worry about write endurance.

 

I'd add a data SSD and use that for things like the Plex database and thumbnails. That will make a huge difference in how responsive the clients feel while browsing around.

Yes, Usually I do ~ 80% L2ARC and 20% SLOG.
(the slog can help reorder writes into a optimal order, zfs gears it's writes towards the device doing the least amount of work to automatically balance it. The slog helps with that. Neither of these cache implementations work like other filesystems.)

Lack of ECC is fine, it's better to have it but fine if you don't.. (there is nothing special about ZFS that encourages the use of ECC then there is with any other filesystem, a bad block in ram is a bad write on everything.)

Ram for ZFS is for performance alone. It can run without it and only it's performance will suffer.

(A lot of these rumors and myths about the usage of ZFS came from Sun's original deployment guidelines and were for enterprise use.. Home use does not need to be as stringent)

 

Also: One thing you want to do is try to slice up your data into as many different types as possible that you know of. Datasets are free so use them, they make management easier and give you options. Video files are quite a bit different from database files (etc)

 

[Sally-san]

On 3/17/2022 at 1:28 PM, Needfuldoer said:

I'd add a data SSD and use that for things like the Plex database and thumbnails. That will make a huge difference in how responsive the clients feel while browsing around.

I'm really intrigued by this data ssd to make the plex server more responsive.I have 2 questions.

Why can't i just have this plex database and thumbnails on the OS drive?

And then second how would I tell plex where to store is database and thumbnail. Because i have plex running on my windows machine and it seems to be storing its stuff on my C drive

[LionSpeck]

23 hours ago, Sally-san said:

Why can't i just have this plex database and thumbnails on the OS drive?

You can. In the container configuration, you're able to choose the directory you want to mount as database and thumbnails.

 

On 4/12/2022 at 5:25 PM, Sally-san said:

And then second how would I tell plex where to store is database and thumbnail. Because i have plex running on my windows machine and it seems to be storing its stuff on my C drive

Goes without saying, all of the above applies to a NAS, with a containerized Plex instance.

[Jarsky]

I'm confused. We're talking about "OS drives" and ZFS configurations, but you said the OS is UnRAID? 

 

If you're running UnRAID it goes on a USB....4GB is plenty for that. 

Then an SSD for "Appdata". So by using it for your Docker config paths, its things like your "Plex Media Library" which is thumbnails, metadata etc...

 

On 4/13/2022 at 3:25 AM, Sally-san said:

And then second how would I tell plex where to store is database and thumbnail. Because i have plex running on my windows machine and it seems to be storing its stuff on my C drive

 

In UnRAID you can just use Docker. You can do fancy volume mapping, but the easiest for you would be to just set Dockers appdata path (Settings > Docker) in UnRAID to your SSD. (Docker needs to be stopped to set the location)