Hardware Basic for r730

[Yser]

Question about Hardware selection. I'm new, so might not know all the technical jargons.

I'm considering getting an R730 with 8 bay of 3.5" drives to use with TrueNAS Scale.
Use cases: BlueIris surveillance, small business, small-scale data analytics, smart home. Not into gaming or video multimedia server.

1. The drives might be be 1 SSD boot + 7 x 3.5"-HDD.
Since the recommendation is to run the system in SSD. Does it mean, I would only have 7 left for Hard Disk Drives?

2. And the side of this SSD should be as large as I could afford to not waste the space?

3. Can this SSD be partitioned so I can use for 100 GB for Boot and the rest be used as a normal drive?

4. Can I have the SSD boot as a USB drive, and have 8 x 3.5" HDD drive instead?

5. HBA recommendation.
Choices are: HBA330 ($55), AOC-S3108L-H8iR-16DD ($234).
Since I will be using mostly HDD for lower cost, would HBA330 be enough?

The choices of H330, H730, H730P, and H830 are out of the questions because these are RAID, and would require special flashings to IT HBA mode? I'm not technical enough to go through flashing.

Possible configuration is as follows:
Processor: 2x 2.30Ghz E5-2698v3 16-Core - Total of 32x Cores
RAM : 4x 32GB PC4-21300-R (2666Mhz) - Total of 128GB of memory
Power Supply: 2x 1100W Platinum
RAID Controller: HBA330 Pass-Through SAS Non-RAID 12GB/S
Storage: 7x Dell 3.5'' Caddy / Sled
3.5''-to-2.5'' HDD Converters
DRAC: iDRAC 8 Express (Included)
Network Daughter Card: Dual-Port 10GB SFP+ + Dual-Port 1GB RJ-45 - DELL_0C63DV
Bezel: Bezel with Key
Rails: Sliding Rails (4-Post)
Warranty: Standard 1 Year

Thanks for your help.

 

[Ericloewe]

1. The drives might be be 1 SSD boot + 7 x 3.5"-HDD.
Since the recommendation is to run the system in SSD. Does it mean, I would only have 7 left for Hard Disk Drives?

The good news is that the 8-bay variants have a useless optical drive slot, which you can repurpose to hold one or more SSDs: https://www.icydock.com/goods_cat.php?id=177

2. And the side of this SSD should be as large as I could afford to not waste the space?

Not really, even 120 GB is plenty.

DRAC: iDRAC 8 Express (Included)

Might want to buy the upgrade so you get iKVM functionality.

 

[Yser]

1. Re: Optical drive to SSD. That's a good idea. Thanks. I'll look into it.
2. Size of SSD. I see. Looks like 8 x 3.5" HDD is possible. Thanks.
3. iDRAC 8 Express --> Enterprise. Good point. Thank you. Should be worth it.