How much RAM for NAS/Server?

[jonas-wastaken]

I'm planning to build a NAS with TrueNAS/ZFS. I will use pretty fast SSDs for storage. Now I'm wondering if there is a smart way to determine how much RAM I should buy?

 

Thank you very much for all replies!

[Crunchy Dragon]

It tends to depend on what you're using the server for. If you're just running a NAS and storing files, you really don't need a lot. If you want to do virtualization or run game servers, you'll want as much as you can realistically get.

[filpo]

Just now, jonas-wastaken said:

I'm planning to build a NAS with TrueNAS/ZFS. I will use pretty fast SSDs for storage. Now I'm wondering if there is a smart way to determine how much RAM I should buy?

 

Thank you very much for all replies!

if your using it as a NAS you can go with 16 gigs since ddr4 is dirt cheap but you can get 8 and be perfectly fine, maybe even 4 (maybe). For a server (depends what you do on it) like if your web hosting probs 64 or 32 at least

[manikyath]

i mean.. if you're only using it as a storage server, even with the two "start on boot" docker containers i have on my unraid server.. it's using 2GB RAM of the 64GB i shoved in there...

 

ZFS does like a lot of system memory, but going past 16GB is largely unnecessary unless you have a specific need for more.

[LIGISTX]

1 hour ago, jonas-wastaken said:

I'm planning to build a NAS with TrueNAS/ZFS. I will use pretty fast SSDs for storage. Now I'm wondering if there is a smart way to determine how much RAM I should buy?

 

Thank you very much for all replies!

Why are you going to use SSD’s? Is this going to be serving up iSCSI shares at greater then 10 gigabit LAN? It this going to be a data storage server for multiple video editors all using at once, all on 10 gigabit? If you need the speed SSD’s provide…. You will need a lot of RAM since RAM is the best way to speed up a ZFS array. 
 

The real question is what are your usage requirements for this system?

[igormp]

20 hours ago, manikyath said:

i mean.. if you're only using it as a storage server, even with the two "start on boot" docker containers i have on my unraid server.. it's using 2GB RAM of the 64GB i shoved in there...

 

ZFS does like a lot of system memory, but going past 16GB is largely unnecessary unless you have a specific need for more.

I have 6 containers running and all of those together don't add up to 1gb lol

 

It's not really about docker, but rather how much ram your application itself needs.