Best direction for storage upgrade?

[NighthawkRMX]

Background:
I use my NAS for over the Network backup of my computers and general data storage.

I3 2120
Aeon H61 ITX Industrial motherboard
Atech 8gb (1x8) DDR3 sodimm
Enermax Platimax DF 500w 80+ Platinum
Cooler Master Elite 110 ITX case
Will have to check the version of freenas exactly.

Current storage situation:
Seagate Barracuda 500gb boot drive (was convenient, perhaps not best choice)
2tb Seagate Barracuda data drive


Notes:
Motherboard has support for msata ssd, 2 ram slots (laptop), just 2 Sata ports, and a 8x pcie slot.
Case only has room for 3 3.5in drives, but I have other cases with additional bays I can swap to.

2tb is pretty limited, expecially considering MY desktop alone has a 1tb nvme for boot and additional mechanical storage. Because of this I am looking for an upgrade. I also am looking to replace the 500gb boot drive with either an msata ssd or a usb drive since this drive is showing some signs of failure judging by the smart report.

I have a spare 2tb sata Barracuda lying around, that I would like to use.

Ideally, I would like to have 8tb storage, but I could do with a bit less. I would like redundancy in case of drive failure. The current drives, like most parts in this system (excluding ram and PSU), are quite old.

What would be the best way to achieve this without spending a fortune?

I know I would need some sort of pcie card to gain more Sata ports, and then run some sort of raid. Although sas is cheaper, I'd like to run sata so I can use both 2tb drives I have.

How well would 8gb ram tolerate zfs?

If I need to add a card, would getting one with hardware raid support be preferable to software raid? I have heard of software raid causing total data loss if the boot fails.

I am pretty inexperienced with this, so let me know if I am misunderstanding something.

 

[GBillR]

Hello and welcome to the forum. The resources area is your friend.

I know I would need some sort of pcie card to gain more Sata ports, and then run some sort of raid. Although sas is cheaper, I'd like to run sata so I can use both 2tb drives I have.

SAS HBAs are compatible with SATA drives. The lsi 9207-8i is cheap, works great when properly flashed to IT mode, and supports 8 SAS or SATA drives.

https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/dont-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

If I need to add a card, would getting one with hardware raid support be preferable to software raid? I have heard of software raid causing total data loss if the boot fails.

NO, NO, NO.

https://www.truenas.com/community/r...bas-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.139/

Consider reading this if you haven't already.

 

[GBillR]

Aeon H61 ITX Industrial motherboard

Quick search seems to indicate the PCIe slot on this board is only x4. That rules out my 9207-8i recommendation. You would need to find a supported HBA that is x4. I know there are some older ones out there that will work.

Additionally, 8GB is lite. I know it technically works, but if you are looking for 8TB of storage in Z2, you should consider an upgrade to 16GB, especially if you want to run any jails.

 

[NighthawkRMX]

Woops, I should double check things before going from memory. It is indeed an x4 slot, although the end is open so a longer card can fit with reduced bandwidth.

Here is a link.

EMB-H61A - Industrial Motherboards - Mini-ITX Motherboards

Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboard with Intel® 2nd/3rd Generation Core™ i7/i5/i3/Pentium® Processor

www.aaeon.com

Its a weird board, but I got this for very cheap from a friend so I can't complain. I'll do some research and reading and see what cards I can find.

Could I run 8gb and see if the performance is acceptable, and if not then upgrade? I already expect the performance to be less than fantastic since it's already going through a decade old dual core, mechanical drives, and my slow network.