Hi
I've been using a Synology NAS for more than eight years now. But recently, the hardware limitations of my DS2413+ put me in situations where the NAS became unresponsive just because of some simple tasks. My monthly backup to a LTO tape crashes frequently, most Docker tasks run more badly than well, which I no longer want to put up with.
Thus, I decided to switch to new hardware which is upgradeable and not bounded to one hardware manufacturer as with Synology and which is capable of running Docker containers and VMs flawlessly.
In addition, I would also like to rely on FOSS for my future NAS, which is why I will be using TrueNAS.
In the past I had good experiences with HPE servers, so I thught about going with that manufacturer.
Here is my hardware composition:
I've been using a Synology NAS for more than eight years now. But recently, the hardware limitations of my DS2413+ put me in situations where the NAS became unresponsive just because of some simple tasks. My monthly backup to a LTO tape crashes frequently, most Docker tasks run more badly than well, which I no longer want to put up with.
Thus, I decided to switch to new hardware which is upgradeable and not bounded to one hardware manufacturer as with Synology and which is capable of running Docker containers and VMs flawlessly.
In addition, I would also like to rely on FOSS for my future NAS, which is why I will be using TrueNAS.
In the past I had good experiences with HPE servers, so I thught about going with that manufacturer.
Here is my hardware composition:
- Server: HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 4214 1P 16GB-R P816ia 12LFF 800W PS Server (P02468-B21):
- CPU: Intel Xeon Silver 4214 (12 Core, 2,2 GHz, 16,5 MB, 85 W)
- Memory: 64GB or 128GB DDR4 RAM
- Storage Trays: 12x 3.5"/LFF Hot-Swap Trays
- Data Storage (Data Vdev): 6x 20TB 3.5" HDDs (RAIDZ2 --> two disk parity) (e.g. SEAGATE Exos X20 HDDs)
- OS Storage: 2x 250GB NVMe M.2 SSD (Mirrored; while installing TrueNAS)
- Cache Storage: 1x 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD (with a lot of total-TBW)
- Built-in Storage Controller 1: HPE Smart Array P816i-a SR Gen10 (16 SAS-Lanes, 4 GB Cache, Hardware RAID) (804338-B21)
- Built-in Storage Controller 2: HPE Smart Array S100i SR Gen10 (14 SATA-Lanes, Software RAID)
- HBA Storage Controller
Since hardware RAID controllers are to be avoided and the DL380 has a built-in hardware RAID controller, I thought about buying the LSI SAS 9305-16i (or LSI SAS 9305-24i as the 16i is not often available in my region) for my 6 HDDs. And in case I need to expand my storage in the future, I'd still have more than enough SAS Lanes. - The DL380 has no M.2 slots. Do you have any M.2 NVMe PCIe Controller card which you could recommend? 4x M.2 Slots would be perfect :)
From HPE self, I only found a HPE Universal SATA 6G AIC HHHL M.2 SSD Enablement Kit (878783-B21) which looks like powered (?) via PCIe, but has SATA ports & cables for the actual data transfer which seems to thwarts all advantages from NVMe SSDs.