Truenas checksum bitrot ?

[Indian pc builder]

If I have truenas and zfs running with 4 2 tb drives in raid (5 ? Idk what’s the best configuration for this with good parity?)

and as far as I can tell it does run checksums and things that u RAID doesn’t but do I need to them them manually or? Like how does it work ?

 

also side note if it does,

do I need to look into an i5-13400 or can I run it with an i3-13100?

 

also 16 or 32 gigs of ram ?

 

also should I be looking into a cache drive or something? I was planning to use this:

 https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH
 

running plex, backblaze and using it in general as a backup to back up everything to 

 

[goatedpenguin]

5 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

do I need to look into an i5-13400 or can I run it with an i3-13100?

 

also 16 or 32 gigs of ram ?

People use 4th gen i3/i5 with 8gb of ram for their NASes and it still runs fine, your cpu and ram is more than enough.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

If I have truenas and zfs running with 4 2 tb drives in raid (5 ? Idk what’s the best configuration for this with good parity?)

 

Yea raid 5 is probably best here.

 

3 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

and as far as I can tell it does run checksums and things that u RAID doesn’t but do I need to them them manually or? Like how does it work ?

 

Yea ZFS can do checksums, but you need to setup scrubs.  Truenas should be able to schedule this for you, I forget what the defaults are.

 

If your on unraid now, I'd keep it. Your drives already checksum all the data, and checksum errors are pretty rare to see, and typically the checksum errors I see are explained by drives that are already failing.

 

5 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

do I need to look into an i5-13400 or can I run it with an i3-13100?

 

i3 is more than plenty.

 

5 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

also 16 or 32 gigs of ram ?

 

Either is fine for a basic nas.

 

5 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

 

also should I be looking into a cache drive or something? I was planning to use this:

 https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH
 

running plex, backblaze and using it in general as a backup to back up everything to 

 

Should be fine here. 

 

Are you buying those parts new or already have them? If your buying new I'd get fewer bigger drives, drop the optane drive as its really not needed for media and backup duties, and probably get a cheaper case.

[brwainer]

With every block of data on every drive in the array ZFS keeps a checksum, and that is compared every time data is read. On a traditional RAID1 when reading it is common to just read from one drive and trust what it has, that allows the read performance to be double that of a single drive by reading different data from each drive, but it has no way to verify that what was just read from one drive is correct since it didn’t also read the other drive to compare. ZFS can catch this because the checksum for the block is read as well, and it knows whether than block was the same as what was stored. If there is a mismatch, it will read the other drive to get the right data, and afterwards re-write the rotten block to correct it. It is statistically highly unlikely in your lifetime for two drives to have bitrot in the same block, or multiple bits changing within a block so that the checksum ends up correct by fluke. However, it is somewhat likely over the span of years to have a block bitrot on one drive, and other drive(s) in the array fail, which then causes an uncorrectable read error when trying to repair the array with a replacement drive - ZFS knows the block is bad, but doesn’t have other info to rebuild it from. To prevent this, it is advisable to schedule a Scrub at least monthly, which will read every block on every drive to check and correct bitrot. Setting up a scrub should be easy to find in the interface for the average person once they know the word to look for, or if not to find instructions with their favorite search engine. While you’re at it, you should also set up SMART self-tests on your drives, which is in the same page/area of the TrueNAS interface. I do fast tests weekly and slow tests monthly (on a different night than the scrubs).

[Indian pc builder]

18 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea raid 5 is probably best here.

 

Yea ZFS can do checksums, but you need to setup scrubs.  Truenas should be able to schedule this for you, I forget what the defaults are.

 

If your on unraid now, I'd keep it. Your drives already checksum all the data, and checksum errors are pretty rare to see, and typically the checksum errors I see are explained by drives that are already failing.

 

i3 is more than plenty.

 

Either is fine for a basic nas.

 

Should be fine here. 

 

Are you buying those parts new or already have them? If your buying new I'd get fewer bigger drives, drop the optane drive as its really not needed for media and backup duties, and probably get a cheaper case.

Ok so from all the advice I can see that true as has to schedule ‘scrubs’ and I won’t lose my data if I never look at it for a while.

 

yes I am buying the parts new and am open to more hardware advice. Please note

the full requirements I have though first:

The nas is going to be a backup dump for:

2x 1tb laptops 

2x 256gb iPhone ( any help on how to get these backed up? I was considering just backing them up to my laptop and then backing that up but that won’t help when restoring )

1x 128 gb iPhone 

1x I forgot gb android 

1 x 5 tb external hard drive that failed and lost all my family photos that prompted me to look at the nas which is still cheaper than data recovery.( it had like 2.5 tb on it, prolly actually less due to duplicate copies )

1x desktop with not much data on it 

1x Mac mini I need to look up the amount if data for 

 

Also the bad itself will be backing itself up to backblaze

and it will be running a software omada controller 

and it will be a jellyfish server with like max 2 people ever watching concurrently 

 

I chose the case as I was actually looking for a case like the synology or UGREEN nases wheee you can hit swap drives easily as hard drives are basically a consumable for this thing as they will fail every so often and I will

have to replace them ( as long as I stuck to the same capacity drive and make sure it is  cmr, I can put whatever I want in there right ( assuming it’s from a different but still reliable company))

the reason I thought about hot swap as it would be easier to guide someone to change a drive on the phone rather than make them open the case up and deal with it that way.

The optane was just going to be a boot drive though I know that truenas doesn’t hit it at all so what’s your idea? I don’t need a cache drive as I only have it set up for gigabit lan anyway 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Indian pc builder said:

Ok so from all the advice I can see that true as has to schedule ‘scrubs’ and I won’t lose my data if I never look at it for a while.

 

yes I am buying the parts new and am open to more hardware advice. Please note

the full requirements I have though first:

The nas is going to be a backup dump for:

2x 1tb laptops 

2x 256gb iPhone ( any help on how to get these backed up? I was considering just backing them up to my laptop and then backing that up but that won’t help when restoring )

1x 128 gb iPhone 

1x I forgot gb android 

1 x 5 tb external hard drive that failed and lost all my family photos that prompted me to look at the nas which is still cheaper than data recovery.( it had like 2.5 tb on it, prolly actually less due to duplicate copies )

1x desktop with not much data on it 

1x Mac mini I need to look up the amount if data for 

 

Also the bad itself will be backing itself up to backblaze

and it will be running a software omada controller 

and it will be a jellyfish server with like max 2 people ever watching concurrently 

 

I chose the case as I was actually looking for a case like the synology or UGREEN nases wheee you can hit swap drives easily as hard drives are basically a consumable for this thing as they will fail every so often and I will

have to replace them ( as long as I stuck to the same capacity drive and make sure it is  cmr, I can put whatever I want in there right ( assuming it’s from a different but still reliable company))

the reason I thought about hot swap as it would be easier to guide someone to change a drive on the phone rather than make them open the case up and deal with it that way.

The optane was just going to be a boot drive though I know that truenas doesn’t hit it at all so what’s your idea? I don’t need a cache drive as I only have it set up for gigabit lan anyway 

For the iphones its probably easist to back it up to a PC/Mac, then back that up to the nas as there isn't a nas backup other than icloud.

 

I'd be darn tempted to run something like veeam here to have a way to centrally manage all the backups of the laptop. I'd generally aim for 2x or more nas storage for the backup than the internal drives in the systems to accont for previous versions. Probably more so you can have multiple full backups.

 

I'd still go fewer bigger drives. Like start with something like 2x16 TB drives, and add more lafter if needed.

 

I'd go with a standard ssd for boot, or a smaller optane drive likea  16gb one. Endurance or performance won't really matter here.

 

I don't see hotswap as a feature I'd pay much extra for. Your likely not change drives very often, and it doesn't take long. There are cheaper hot swap cases like the jonsbo n2 too.

 

I'd say that i5 is pretty overkill, a i3 or pentium should be fine here.

 

I have 2 of those Ugreen nas boxes, and there generally pretty good, and easy to put something like TrueNAS on.

[LIGISTX]

For backing up iPhone, the sad but true reality is… just pay for iCloud. It’s the only solution that really works, besides back it up to a pc/mac and then backing up that machine. The only seamless way to backup an iPhone is via iCloud, which is one of the reasons Apple is getting sued right now by the US. 
 

As far as checksumming, yes. ZFS scrubs are what will check for and correct and big flips, and it’s easy to set up in truenas. I have mine run every 2 weeks, Wednesday night at like 1am. You should also schedule SMART checks, I think I do smart checks once or twice a week. 

[Needfuldoer]

On 4/22/2024 at 2:27 AM, Indian pc builder said:

If I have truenas and zfs running with 4 2 tb drives in raid (5 ? Idk what’s the best configuration for this with good parity?)

and as far as I can tell it does run checksums and things that u RAID doesn’t but do I need to them them manually or? Like how does it work ?

That's what ZFS does when it does a "scrub". Just set it to do that periodically and it will be fine.

 

On 4/22/2024 at 2:27 AM, Indian pc builder said:

also side note if it does,

do I need to look into an i5-13400 or can I run it with an i3-13100?

Any modern processor will be way overkill for a home NAS. (As we've told you a number of times.  )

 

On 4/22/2024 at 2:27 AM, Indian pc builder said:

also 16 or 32 gigs of ram ?

When it comes to ZFS, more RAM = more better.

 

On 4/22/2024 at 2:27 AM, Indian pc builder said:

also should I be looking into a cache drive or something? I was planning to use this:

 https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH

"Cache" SSDs don't make a big difference on ZFS in a home NAS application. 

 

Instead, I recommend using an SSD for your Plex database. It will make the client interfaces feel a lot more responsive than if Plex has to hit the spinning drive array for all the thumbnails and show metadata.

 

[LIGISTX]

3 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

"Cache" SSDs don't make a big difference on ZFS in a home NAS application. 

 

This. I forgot to put that in my reply…

 

Don’t even consider using a “cache” device with ZFS… there is no need for this in a home NAS unless you know exactly why you need it and have a good understand of ZFS to explain why. If you don’t, you don’t need it and it will just make things 1) cost more 2) potentially more susceptible to data loss. 
 

I suggest doing more homework on the truenas forums, read all of their posts which explain all of this in detail, then ask questions. They have so much literature on these topics you can spend days reading and learning, then you will have a much better idea what your talking about (ZFS doesn’t really have “cache drives”, you’d either be referring to L2ARC or a SLOG, neither of which you need, trust me). 
 

 

[Indian pc builder]

5 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's what ZFS does when it does a "scrub". Just set it to do that periodically and it will be fine.

 

Any modern processor will be way overkill for a home NAS. (As we've told you a number of times.  )

 

When it comes to ZFS, more RAM = more better.

 

"Cache" SSDs don't make a big difference on ZFS in a home NAS application. 

 

Instead, I recommend using an SSD for your Plex database. It will make the client interfaces feel a lot more responsive than if Plex has to hit the spinning drive array for all the thumbnails and show metadata.

 

I thought I had changed the parts list but it hadn’t updated apparently, anyway it should be fixed here:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH

 

Explain how I can separate my plex drives from my main storage drives while keeping all on the same computer running truenas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

also scheduled scrubs are tight 

 

[Needfuldoer]

29 minutes ago, Indian pc builder said:

Explain how I can separate my plex drives from my main storage drives while keeping all on the same computer running truenas.

Set the SSD up as its own pool, install the Plex app there.

 

https://techmikeny.com/blogs/techtalk/how-to-set-up-plex-on-truenas

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Indian pc builder said:

I thought I had changed the parts list but it hadn’t updated apparently, anyway it should be fixed here:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH

 

Explain how I can separate my plex drives from my main storage drives while keeping all on the same computer running truenas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

also scheduled scrubs are tight 

 

I'd get fewer bigger drives, like go 2x 12TB drives.

 

I'd get a cheaper case line the n2 here. I don't see the point of a expensive case with 8 bays when you dont meed much storage.

 

I'd drop that optane drive and get a bigger nand ssd for plex database,and a ssd for boot.

[Indian pc builder]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I'd get fewer bigger drives, like go 2x 12TB drives.

 

I'd get a cheaper case line the n2 here. I don't see the point of a expensive case with 8 bays when you dont meed much storage.

 

I'd drop that optane drive and get a bigger nand ssd for plex database,and a ssd for boot.

Fine 

 

I’ll drop the optane 

 

I can’t get jonsbo cases in India: what isn’t clear about that ? 
 

I’m not going over the storage I have for now. Maybe later I’ll set up more pools 

[Blue4130]

5 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

 

I can’t get jonsbo cases in India: what isn’t clear about that ? 

What isn't clear? You never once mentioned that you can't get jonsbo.

[Bersella AI]

13 hours ago, Indian pc builder said:

I thought I had changed the parts list but it hadn’t updated apparently, anyway it should be fixed here:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/14paavang/saved/DXRCrH

 

Explain how I can separate my plex drives from my main storage drives while keeping all on the same computer running truenas.

 

A few additional problems in this list:

1. 13th/14th Gen Core processors are generally way pricier than 12th Gen. For example, this Core i3-13100 is $32 (27.5%) pricier than i3-12100, while gaining only marginal performance improvements of 8.5%.
2. The inclusion of a wireless card on this motherboard does not seem to be meaningful in case of a server, as it would always be connected with wire to ensure stability.
   Also, the introduction of DDR5 RAM may not seem to be useful, and may add further costs. A B760/B660/H610 board with DDR4 support, adequate PCIe/M.2 slots, & w/o wireless cards would therefore be recommended.
3. Prices of Optane SSDs get skyrocketed with capacity beyond 16GB. Regular NAND-based SSDs are recommended instead, with the exception of Optane 16GB utilized as boot drive.
4. Prices of 3TB hard drives in some markets are virtually identical to 4TB ones, which would be thus preferred.

[Indian pc builder]

4 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

What isn't clear? You never once mentioned that you can't get jonsbo.

He still mentioned the n3

 

3 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

A few additional problems in this list:

1. 13th/14th Gen Core processors are generally way pricier than 12th Gen. For example, this Core i3-13100 is $32 (27.5%) pricier than i3-12100, while gaining only marginal performance improvements of 8.5%.
2. The inclusion of a wireless card on this motherboard does not seem to be meaningful in case of a server, as it would always be connected with wire to ensure stability.
   Also, the introduction of DDR5 RAM may not seem to be useful, and may add further costs. A B760/B660/H610 board with DDR4 support, adequate PCIe/M.2 slots, & w/o wireless cards would therefore be recommended.
3. Prices of Optane SSDs get skyrocketed with capacity beyond 16GB. Regular NAND-based SSDs are recommended instead, with the exception of Optane 16GB utilized as boot drive.
4. Prices of 3TB hard drives in some markets are virtually identical to 4TB ones, which would be thus preferred.

i have a hookup who gets be 20-30% off on everything so I don’t really care

I am hooking it up to my Ethernet switch 

ddr5 was chosen for its limited ecc capabilities 

The specific motherboard was currently chosen for the amount of data ports, however I will compare prices to a cheaper one with a PCIe card

 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Indian pc builder said:

He still mentioned the n3

 

 

 

Why wouldn't he? Its a great case and you didn't saw what was and wasn't available until after he mentioned it.

[Indian pc builder]

12 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

Why wouldn't he? It’s a great case and you didn't saw what was and wasn't available until after he mentioned it.

You know what, that’s my bad. I have list track if the chronology of the responses