Best ZFS config for Drive count and max storage

[mawatson115]

So i am building a massive Plex storage box and i need to know the best way to setup the ZFS to maximize storage without causing problems.

My hardware:

Supermicro X9SRL-F
XEON E5-2680V2 10 CORE
8 x Samsung 16GB PC3L-12800R 2Rx4 DDR3-1600 ECC Registered Memory
HP H220 6Gbps SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT mode
24 bay Supermicro 4U Chassis with backplane.
24 10TB WD Red Drives

I have read around the forums that ZFS does not like having a single vdev above 10 drives? Is this still true? What would be better and more stable.

3 8 Drive ZFS raidz2
2 12 Drive ZFS raidz2 -- obv this would give me more flat storage but with it being 2 12 drive vdevs i don't want to run into issues with it.
Other suggestions are welcome.

Last question, would 128GB of ram be enough for 200TB of storage? I know the general rule is 1GB per 1TB but that just isn't feasible when storage is getting this high as the 32GB ram chips are crazy expensive. This box will be only used for a plex media server streaming 1080 and a single 4k stream.

As always thanks for any help.

 

[Jailer]

3 8 Drive ZFS raidz2

This is the configuration I would go with. You should be ok with 128GB of ram with your stated use case.

 

[Chris Moore]

So i am building a massive Plex storage box and i need to know the best way to setup the ZFS to maximize storage without causing problems.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/163444574100

 

[Chris Moore]

I have read around the forums that ZFS does not like having a single vdev above 10 drives? Is this still true?

Yes, still true. Probably always will be.

 

[Chris Moore]

Last question, would 128GB of ram be enough for 200TB of storage?

I have a server at work that is getting along just fine with 128GB of RAM and it has over 500TB of storage with over 167TB of data on the pool. If all you are doing with it is streaming media files for Plex, you could probably manage with 64GB of memory because the ARC (adaptive replacement cache) that is what most of RAM is used for in FreeNAS will always be refreshed by the next media file. The cache only really helps if you are pulling the same media repeatedly. If it is constantly changing, the cache doesn't really help much. You could possibly even manage with 32GB of RAM, but it depends on how the system will be used.

 

[mawatson115]

Sounds good. Thanks guys.

 

[blanchet]

I have a very similar system: Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630 v4, 128 GB of RAM and 24 x 12TB Hard Disks
I have setup to 2 x 12 disks in Raidz3 to maximize storage space, because the server is mainly used to store backup files.
Raidz3 is safer for me because sometimes I am out of office for 2 weeks and there is nobody else to change the disks