TrueNAS vdev: Six hard drives in Raidz3?

[giorgost]

Hi everyone! I am reaching out for some advice regarding setting up a TrueNAS system, primarily for backup purposes (yes, I'm aware TrueNAS isn't strictly backup, but bear with me for a moment).

 

My initial plan involves utilizing six 14TB drives to make a vdev with Raidz3. In TrueNAS, I will be backing up the files of my external SSD (and, in the future, the files of a desktop) and storing less frequently used files. Additionally, all data will be periodically backed up to external HDDs and Google Drive on a daily basis (see the attached image). Given that my work often takes me away from home for several months at a time, I believe Raidz3 will provide the necessary parity to ensure the safety of my files. For instance, if one hard drive fails, I'll continue using the TrueNAS; however, if two drives fail, I will power down the system until I can return home and replace the problematic drives.

 

Do you see any potential issues with this setup? Any suggestions or adjustments you would recommend? As far as I can tell, the main drawback is the potential cost of creating a second vdev for my pool, requiring the purchase of six additional hard drives.

 

On another note, should I buy a 500GB ssd as a cache or won’t this affect the performance of my TrueNAS system?

 

Thank you very much!

 

 

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM

Motherboard: ASRock X570 Pro4 ATX AM4

Memory: Crucial CT32G4DFD832A 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL22 (x2)

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME SSD (x2)

Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 14 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM HDD (x6)

Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL ATX Full Tower

Power Supply: Corsair HX1500i (2022) 1500 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX

[Electronics Wizardy]

Raidz3 seems overkill, I'd probablly go z2 or z1 here, the chance of a dual of triple failure is pretty low with only 6 drives, and your have good backups too.

 

56 minutes ago, giorgost said:

 

 

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM

Motherboard: ASRock X570 Pro4 ATX AM4

Memory: Crucial CT32G4DFD832A 32 GB (1 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL22 (x2)

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME SSD (x2)

Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 14 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM HDD (x6)

Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL ATX Full Tower

Power Supply: Corsair HX1500i (2022) 1500 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX

Is this new or parts being reused? A cache drive won't really help here, 

and parts like the PSU are way overkill. 

 

You also want a GPU for setup and troubleshooting. I'd get that asrock rack board for the ipmi if your buying a board for a server.

[Bersella AI]

First of all, the processor and motherboard combo would be decent enough for this build. Issues follow then:

• Since the processor throws only tens of watts of heat, it can be cooled with a stock cooler without much issues. The Noctua may seem to be overkill, and even though it is selected for low noise levels, these hard drives would always make noises louder that it.
• The reason why 2 sticks of 1TB SSDs was introduced remains unknown. Also, the Ethernet will always be the bottleneck in uses of them. If no virtualization or further investments on Ethernet are planned, it's recommended to install them onto your working PCs, working as local drives.
• The introduction of whopping 64 GB RAM also remains mysterious in such scenarios. Typically, a RAM configuration of 16 GB or even 8 GB is sufficient enough in home use with 1 or 2 users, unless a few specific memory-intensive workloads have been planned.
  Also, a cache drive in ZFS can benefit a lot of concurrent sessions in iSCSI or NFS, but not with just 1 or 2 user, and it does not work at all with single-threaded protocols like Samba or HTTP. Grab a tiny Optane SSD instead for hosting TrueNAS itself, and a larger SSD for apps or VM hosting.
• As aforementioned, RAID Z2 would be sufficient, allowing dual drive failures as well.
• A much smaller power supply rated 400~500W would be sufficient for this build, unless additions of multiple GPUs for e.g. machine learning or AI generating have been planned.

[Needfuldoer]

You don't need an SSD "cache" drive, it won't speed anything up. That's not really how ZFS works, anyway.

 

For just six drives, run a RAIDz2. I'm running RAIDz3, but I have twelve drives. Always remember, RAID is not a backup! RAID is uptime insurance, so your system can stay running and recover from a drive failure without you having to restore from your backups.

 

Other than that, your hardware looks good.