First TrueNAS SCALE build, hardware validation

[Violet]

Hi guys,

After several days of reading and researching I think I put up something usable so I'd like to ask for opinion on this.

I'll start with usage: This is mainly my personal NAS, so at most, there'll be 2-3 clients conencted to it. I'll be running about 19 containers on it, some less demanding like Photoprism, nginx proxy or something more demanding like tdarr and plex. I'd also like to spin up some Ubuntu desktop and server editions, to test stuff related to my work, the VMs will most likely not run 24x7 though. I will also be running a home assistant VM.

Now for the HW part:
MB: ASRock - X570D4U
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600
Case: Fractal Design Node 804
RAM: 2x Micron 32GB PC4-2666V ECC UDIMM
PSU: Seasonic Focus PX 550 Platinum
HBA: something like LSI 9207-8i
Drives (already have these, so I'll use them): RADZ1 4x 8TB Seagate SkyHawk - dont ask, they were just cheap

So my first question, is this something that would work? Or is there anything you'd change out?

My second question, I'm coming from Syno DS920+, where I had the ability to use NVMe SSD read-write cache. Because of the conatiners, my IOPS spike to about 9k writes and 1k reads pretty often (every 10-15 min or so). Are the write IOPS something that the ARC would be able to absorb? These spikes usually last only around 2-3 sec.

I don't really do that many sequential stuff, except plex streaming, which wouldn't benefit from the cache anyways.
So based on the resources I have read, and that I will be using mostly SMB, I wouldn't benefit from SLOG SSD, or any L2ARC. Ff I'm mistaken, please correct me.

Thanks all for the help

 

[jgreco]

Are the write IOPS something that the ARC would be able to absorb? These spikes usually last only around 2-3 sec.

No. ARC is read cache. The ZFS write cache is handled by the transaction group mechanism, and happens in main memory. You need both sufficient main memory and also a fast enough pool, in which case ZFS can generally soak up whatever you can throw at it. Short bursts tend not to be a problem, but remember that ZFS writes get slower as a pool fills and also as fragmentation increases, so maintaining a fair amount of free space on your pool is an important part of your performance strategy as well.

 

[Violet]

Oh yeah sorry, I might have misinterpreted myself. I kinda thought of ARC as cache because of the TXGs, which is not entirely true.

Rright now, I have about 16.2TB or 77% of the RAID5 on my Syno used, and I assume I won't fill it up in the next months / year.

I might also get my hands on some enterprise SSDs for pretty cheap, so I will most likely be doing another pool only from SSDs, but that's something that's weeks away.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

As a note, running VMs on a NAS isn't a great idea; because doing so would share unused resources it would seem like a symbiotic relationship, however...

If your data is at all important you want to step up from RAID-Z1 to Z2 which most people here run. If you're running VMs you want ECC RAM and an Intel Xenon processor for 4-bit ECC instead of one-bit.* You probalby also want to watch "Zebras All The Way Down."** You want a solid network card, not Realtek.*** You know you want a solid HBA, which you have.

You probably also want to establish 3-2-1 backup...though most new people don't. Mistakes happen, suff gets gone, backups mitigate the cost. Nobody is telling you to spend money you don't want to, though you should give reasonable forethought to the inevitable rare occurance of things going seriously sideways. Backups are like buying insurance: You hope you don't need it, but if you do you're glad you have it.

On the VM front, there's a YouTuber from Germany who loves Proxmox and TrueNAS and integration and saving on electricity costs, but toward the end of his home lab tour video he explains why he only runs TrueNAS as a NAS.****

Along the same lines there are lots of YouTube videos on Network Segmentation and Segregation (for security and speed), you might want to watch a few in your free time.

Hope this helps,
Hedge

---
*Search Xenon 4-bit ECC / User WI_Hedgehog on this forum.

**Similar search to previous.

***Yeah, all this stuff is on this site--awesome, isn't it?

****As an aside, he also runs servers on consumer-grade hardware. He states that's not a great idea but explains his reasoning; I think it's crap. Replace the fans with Noctua or industrial fans that are quiet. Set the power-saving modes and sleep states for minimal energy usage; newer chips sip power whenever possible. Go the extra mile to customize systems for the need. But he's a software guy unwilling to step out of his skin and try something new, which is fine, he's honest about it and not telling others to follow in his footsteps so in that respect he gets my respect, and not everyone wants to fiddle with figuring out airflow, fabricate ducting, and spend a bit more on electricity to gain reliability.

 

[Violet]

I think I might have a spare 8tb drive somewhere, so I will add it in to make a 5-wide RAIDZ2.

I'll have an unbuffered ECC RAM with the Ryzen, as this is, in my opinion, solid middle ground for me, in regards to price for newer Xeons, boards etc. or the power hungriness and lower performance of older Xeons. The only "critical" VM would be the home assistant one, and even that, I can deal with redeploying, I do have daily backups of my configs etc. Other linux VMs will be running only from time to time to try some things. Few hours a week at best. - I would love to have dedicated hypervisor for that, but no budget right now :(

The board has Intel i210 for both ports, so I should be good there.

As for the backups, I don't do 3-2-1, but I backup all my important data to google cloud nightly. Which is the next best thing I could get, since the google cloud storage is *free* with Google workspace.

I'll definitely check on the video and materials you listed, thanks for that. And I'll sleep on the Xeon thing and see how many options I have in the same price category.

Thanks a lot once again

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

As a note (not arguing your AMD decision), AMD ECC might be more of it accepting ECC memory and not crashing though not actually doing error checking.

NEWBIE - First build mITX, ITX Home Server

Hello guys, I spend some hours searching on the web and reading articles and different forums about Home Servers and I think I would like to build one by myself. I don't really like the idea of Synology or QNAP because of their restrictions. I tried to create some configurations for myself and...

www.truenas.com

 

[Violet]

I've gone through some links, I didn't find any mentions regarding if the unbuffered EEC actualy does something, or it is just accepted by the CPU as you mentioned. 4bit ECC would be nice, but those Xeons are waaay to new to be affordable :( So I guess I'll just pray and hope that the unofficial EEC support on AMD Ryzen works and saves my butt some day