App install suggestions Q/A

[Whe3zy]

Hello Community,
After researching a bit on this forum, I have a few questions that I am trying to conclude the best answer for concerning placement/install of apps on TrueNAS Scale.

My current set up....
Box composed of the following drives

2 SSDs (238 GiB & 931 GiB)

3 HDDs (3.64 TiB & 3.64 TiB & 3.64 TiB)



Purposed layout

SSD 1: Boot-Pool 238 GiB (TrueNAS Scale OS)

+

HDD 1

HDD 2: NAS pool (Storage ie, Media files, Pictures ect) 7.14 TiB

HDD3

+

SSD 2: Application Pool 931 GiB (Plex, Next Cloud ect)



Questions:
1 -Should I assign the SSD 2 - 931 GiB drive meant for apps to the existing NAS pool or create its own separate pool called apps?

2 - With my purposed layout, Can Plex and Next-cloud access/utilize the data from the NAS pool (Media files, Pictures ect) If I create and place the install for the apps in the apps pool?

3 – If # 2 does work for placing apps in its own Apps pool, would the application configuration settings and meta data reside on the Application pool or would those files sit in the Boot-Pool? For the purposes of backing up configs and meta-data.

4 - If Next-cloud application is installed on the Application pool, will it allow me to use the NAS pool for a storage location for all Next-cloud storage and functions? Or will Next-cloud be restricted to the available storage space on the same Application pool that it is installed on (which is smaller in size vs space thats on the NAS pool)?

 

[danb35]

@Daisuke recommends creating a separate pool on SSD (or a mirrored pair of SSDs, preferably) for apps, and that seems likely to improve performance if nothing else. App configuration and metadata will live wherever the apps are installed. You can mount additional storage (on other pools or elsewhere) to the app by way of NFS or host paths.

 

[ZenMicro]

So Creating a Separate Pool as suggested and overriding TrueNAS Scale's recommendation of having a striped vdev, Can configuration be backed up to create a rebuild configuration?

@Daisuke recommends creating a separate pool on SSD (or a mirrored pair of SSDs, preferably) for apps, and that seems likely to improve performance if nothing else. App configuration and metadata will live wherever the apps are installed. You can mount additional storage (on other pools or elsewhere) to the app by way of NFS or host paths.

 

[Clauxorr]

Hello. I may have made a mistake here as well in planning and installing my first NAS for the first time on an idle PC I had around that I have repurposed.

The core of my storage is composed of 2 x 16 TB Seagate NAS Ironwolf Pro HDDs, which I mirrored in a pool (mixed mSATA SSD and M2 SSD cache - but that's a story for another time and another place...).
Long story short, I was hasty and eager to get on the road and installed the apps on the said HDDs pool. So every 5 to 6 seconds (on average) I hear the disks doing something and confirm with netdata that there are write operations going on. I suspect it's the applications doing that and thinking about creating a new pool and moving them there.

I'm wondering if and how I can do that without blowing everything up.

Thanks for any advice you may have for me. Meanwhile will browse the forums, the internet, and any documentation I can get to, but it'll take me a while.

Best regards,

PS: the more I use and dig into TrueNAS, the more I discover mistakes that I made in configuring the hardware and the TrueNAS itself. Please be gentle with me :)

 

[danb35]

I'm wondering if and how I can do that without blowing everything up.

Sure. Get a couple of SSDs, create a pool on them, then select a new apps pool. TrueNAS will offer to move the apps.

 

[Clauxorr]

Thank you very much for your time!

Your answer provided some useful guidance! I realize I went into this adventure without studying the fine docs for the TrueNAS, but for some people (me included), it's simply the way to do it - and I doubt I am the only one to have done it this way; Installing and setup are quite easy and I am grateful for this open-source NAS - ixSystems and community - for this. Then comes the awareness and realization and the will to optimize and do it right, expand, and make the ONE solution. It's where I am now.

Building on your advice, and digging in, and also based on my particular situation, I found even more:

The ZIL (SLOG) is recommended to be composed of 2 mirrored SSDs - or anything faster than the main storage media - and that the SSDs be over-provisioned to 16 GB capacity for best performance and endurance of the media.

- Mirrored - because they kind of hold your "writing promises"; If ZIL (SLOG) media fails, you risk data not being written on your storage media - data loss.
- Over-provisioned - Because there will be a lot of writing on the SSD media, which has a limited number of read/write cycles before it fails. By doing the OP, you ensure a longer life span of your ZIL (SLOG) media - and your pool in the end!

I've learned all this from the fine manual here: https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaletutorials/storage/disks/slogoverprovisionscale/

If you don't have enough SATA ports on your motherboard - which was my case - you have the option of buying a PCIe to SATA 3.0 adapter that works like a charm!

So thanks again! hope my re-post will also be useful to someone!

 

[Clauxorr]

A good friend of mine had suggested that I'd acquire - at a good price! an old, SH HP 820 Workstation. For the price, it looks like a good bargain - as it was fully functional! It arrived, I took my time to study it, and decided this would be my next TrueNAS scale!

HP Z820 Dual Xeon E5-2640 2.50GHz 64GB RAM Quadro K4200 Windows 10 Pro Computer

That Windows 10 (Vanilla) will go on a VM on the new TrueNAS - in case one of the kids needs a PC.

SAS external port, all 4 internal swappable bays are SAS, 5.25'' bays galore to fill in with x6 SSDs bays, dual Xeon, etc. you name it!

The challenge is in migrating my current TrueNAS (configuration in my signature) to this new hardware.

In the documentation, I've learned that TrueNAS is firmware - so I can install a new bootable SSD on the new machine.

What I haven't figured out so far, is if I can simply move/export my actual pool (mainly the 2 x 16 TB Mirror HDDs) from my current machine and re-import them safely to my newly installed machine - will all the data I have on them.

I'd only bother you with a simple "yes, you can!" or "NO! you can't" answer, and I'll take it from there. Wouldn't dare to impose more on you guys.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Samuel Tai]

What I haven't figured out so far, is if I can simply move/export my actual pool (mainly the 2 x 16 TB Mirror HDDs) from my current machine and re-import them safely to my newly installed machine - will all the data I have on them.

Yes, this is one of the cool things about ZFS and TrueNAS: The data pool is separate from the boot pool. Your data pool will be fine.