Advice on pool layout - 4x10TB raidz2?

[moodx]

Hi all! This is my first post in this forum and I'm looking to build my first NAS for home use. We have WD 24TB My Cloud EX4 but it is slow and would like to have a NAS my own.

- Use Case

- Archive family photos and videos(Converted VHS, iPhone video, and h264 from mirrorless camera).
- Plex (I will probably need transcoding as I will be streaming from a smart TV).
- Experiment with other containers (Sonarr, radarr, PiHole).
- Not interested in running any VMs

- Hardware

Mobo: Gigabyte C246M-WU4 (Bought)
CPU: i3-8100 (Bought)
RAM: Crucial CT16G4WFD8266 (Bought)
HDD: 4x WD Red Plus 10TB
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 8 Pro /Define R7 XL/ Fractal Design Node 804
PSU: 650W PSU (I don't have specific model right now)

- Software

Truenas Scale with the following pool configuration:

4x10TB in raidz2. If I need more storage I will create another vdev with the same layout. I think this the best way to utilize mobo 8 sata ports without the need of additional HBA card.

- Backup Plan
At the moment important files are backed manually to WD EX4 and couple of external drives

- Note

I found the prices to be cheaper for me in Amazon.sa

WD Red Plus 4TB - $92
WD Red Plus 6TB - $138
WD Red Plus 8TB - $293
WD Red Plus 10TB - $225


Looking for your feedback!

 

[Bikerchris]

Hello! And welcome to the forum.

Disclaimer: There are many users on here that have vastly more experience than me.

It might be helpful to say how much of the 24TB drive you've used - perhaps 50%, etc.?

The Mobo/CPU/RAM package are good (ECC friendly, Intel NIC)

You may have a problem with usable storage space, which is around 15TB with your proposed configuration. What you could do instead is have 3 x 10TB in RAIDZ1 (15TB usable), then add another vdev of the same when needed. Don't forget you can also expand - i.e. start with 8TB and slowly replace them with 12TB if needed.

Or you could have 6 x 10TB RAIDZ2 to give you 30TB usable - reason for this suggestion is to give you 2 SATA ports available during the replacement of a drive.

The board has 2x NVMe slots, I would suggest a very low capacity drive (64/128GB) for use as a boot drive. The other slot can be used for the storage of containers, just get whatever size suits, but perhaps approx. 500GB as they're fairly cheap.

If you get bored of manually backing up to the external drive, you could build a low power/cheap machine that receives snapshots (an excellent feature of ZFS). 3 x 18TB RAIDZ1 is an option, but you could alternatively (and with high risk) put the 24TB drive into the main server and create a pool that receives periodic snapshots.

TrueNAS Scale is fairly mature and 'should' be fine, I mostly have Core machines running but do have a Scale machine that has been incredibly reliable.

If you are ONLY streaming Plex to a smart TV, you shouldn't need transcoding and it's very easy going on the CPU. You might want to consider trying Jellyfin which has matured incredibly as of late and I've been quite impressed.

Other Suggestions:

A UPS, I've had good compatibility with Riello (communicating with TrueNAS to turn off in the event of a power failure for x minutes, etc.). Like many systems, TrueNAS does not hard shutdowns.

There's no harm in a test install using any drives you have laying around, TrueNAS is not a plug and play system like unRAID, Synology, etc. This will let you test the system - it should be tested before depending on it. More importantly and if you're lucky, you would experience a drive failure with non-critical/personal data and practice resolution. You can also tinker with the ideal dataset and snapshot arrangement.

Do consider non WD Red Plus drives, that are often cheaper per TB.

Useful website for calculating usable storage space: https://wintelguy.com/zfs-calc.pl

I hope that helps.

 

[moodx]

Thank you for all the details! Really appreciate it

Sorry our EX4 is 12TB not 24TB and configured as raid-5. Current usage 4.09TB.

30TB usable might be an overkill as per the current usage so I think 6x6TB in raizd2 would be enough (18TB usable). I'm leaning towards raidz2 config as I'm not confident enough in 3x6TB raidz1 resilvering with and large drive. Correct me If I'm wrong.

I chose Scale mostly as I thought it would have better support for HW transcoding but based on your input I might not need transcoding Plex/Jellyfin (streaming to smart tv).

For backup, I might utilize the EX4 for ZFS snapshots for now..

Never thought I need a UPS before since electricity here is pretty reliable until we had a sudden shutdown last week .. this is definitely my sign >_<


Currently I have an old Core2 Duo laying around with some cheap 2.5" drives that I'm planning to install and experiment with Trurnas there.

 

[ChrisRJ]

You may have a problem with usable storage space, which is around 15TB with your proposed configuration.

No, 4*10 TB in RAIDZ2 will give roughly 20 TB. You basically loose 2 drives for parity with RAIDZ2.

TrueNAS Scale is fairly mature and 'should' be fine, I mostly have Core machines running but do have a Scale machine that has been incredibly reliable.

Scale is, relatively speaking, in its early days and far less stable than Core. That does not mean it crashes all the time. But for mission-critical stuff (that's where private pictures and videso belong to IMHO), I would always prefer Core.

Also, from what I've read (I am only using Core) the next release of Scale will not contain Docker anymore, but only K3S.

A UPS, I've had good compatibility with Riello (communicating with TrueNAS to turn off in the event of a power failure for x minutes, etc.). Like many systems, TrueNAS does not hard shutdowns.

While I would also use a good(!) UPS for a NAS, ZFS is stable in the event of a power outage. I seem to remember that XFS has weaknesses here, but ZFS should be as solid as it gets.

Do consider non WD Red Plus drives, that are often cheaper per TB.

They must be CMR drives, that is the only hard condition. In terms of price the data center drives are often cheaper than NAS ones.

 

[Bikerchris]

Thank you for all the details! Really appreciate it

Sorry our EX4 is 12TB not 24TB and configured as raid-5. Current usage 4.09TB.

30TB usable might be an overkill as per the current usage so I think 6x6TB in raizd2 would be enough (18TB usable). I'm leaning towards raidz2 config as I'm not confident enough in 3x6TB raidz1 resilvering with and large drive. Correct me If I'm wrong.

I chose Scale mostly as I thought it would have better support for HW transcoding but based on your input I might not need transcoding Plex/Jellyfin (streaming to smart tv).

For backup, I might utilize the EX4 for ZFS snapshots for now..

Never thought I need a UPS before since electricity here is pretty reliable until we had a sudden shutdown last week .. this is definitely my sign >_<


Currently I have an old Core2 Duo laying around with some cheap 2.5" drives that I'm planning to install and experiment with Trurnas there.

You're very welcome,

Now we know the correct existing media size (12 and not 24TB), of course 30TB is wildly overkill.

Do note @ChrisRJ 's post, I was being pessimistic regarding RAIDZ2, it seems you don't have to worry about leaving 20% of unused space - it is strange that TrueNAS by default gives a warning to the user when >80% of the capacity is used though? I might contact the Wintelguy and advise him of the mathematical error on his website.

As I may be providing false information, it's likely sensible that I discontinue my contribution to this thread.

Best of luck to you!