Comments welcome for TrueNAS x 2 config and storage use (one is for snapshots only)

[Bikerchris]

Hello all,

I wonder if anyone had any comments on my intended use and config?

I'll have two TrueNAS boxes (no VMs, simple 'bare metal' install), one for primary storage and the other as snapshot storage (do see signature).

I would use Backblaze B2 on the primary, only backing up essential work files and a few personal files depending on cost. I've been using the personal version for 5 years now and I'm very happy with it.

PRIMARY - I'm so far intending to have 8 x 4TB drives in RAIDZ2 to create one pool. With a view to replacing drives as necessary with 6TB or greater as time marches on.

SECONDARY - would have 2 x 10-12TB drives Mirrored. Stored in a separate building.

During a day, the Primary Server would be used by me for work purposes, in the evening/weekends it may be used for pleasure (Plex), and at night time the snapshots would occur, along with any scrubs. (not simultaneously). It would only be accessed from one network, no remote access. I'd really like to try SyncThing again too.

Current stored data: 9TB, so it seems the above pool size would be just under twice that.
New data per year: 100-200GB, though I will try to trim the surplus data when possible, and this could be around 50GB yearly.

Does this sound sensible? Thanks in advance.

Chris

 

[sretalla]

If your intent is purely storing files and maybe a bit of media watching, that all sounds fine.

If you want to run VMs, reconsider your pool layout (and consider involving some SSDs) to improve IOPS for block storage.

 

[Bikerchris]

If your intent is purely storing files and maybe a bit of media watching, that all sounds fine.

If you want to run VMs, reconsider your pool layout (and consider involving some SSDs) to improve IOPS for block storage.

Thank you very much for that.

So far I don't think I'll get involved with VMs, i have tried them, but can't see a useful application in my normal work life. I do have Plex and any other Jails running on a 250GB NVMe drive, not sure if that's entirely necessary though, only did so because I had one spare!

 

[sretalla]

Jails running on a 250GB NVMe drive

That's possibly a small boost to performance of your plex library, but otherwise as you mention, not really needed.

It could serve as suitable storage for a couple of VMs if you weren't worried about data loss. (replication jobs could get things to your protected pool, but you couldn't keep up to the last minute from being lost if the NVME fails).

 

[Bikerchris]

That's possibly a small boost to performance of your plex library, but otherwise as you mention, not really needed.

It could serve as suitable storage for a couple of VMs if you weren't worried about data loss. (replication jobs could get things to your protected pool, but you couldn't keep up to the last minute from being lost if the NVME fails).

Thank you for confirming, very much appreciated.

Understood on the NVMe drive usage, I might play with VM's at some point, but very casually. I didn't find VM's very good on FreeNAS, perhaps that's changed with TrueNAS?