Help with Multi-Disk-Setup and USB

[jps229]

Hi
I'm new here because I decided to rebuild my IT environment and also switch from my QNAP NAS to TrueNAS. I thought it out nicely and prepared a few things to make this possible (devices, division, migration, etc.).
Unfortunately, I only watched the evaluation videos regarding TrueNAS and didn't read anything in this forum, so I'm now at a critical point.
I bought various hardware for my new NAS
- a mini PC (Intel Alder Lake-N100, 1TB NVME, 1TB SSD, 16GB DDR4)
- a Yottamaster 5 Bay RAID hard drive enclosure [PS5RU3]
- a Lian Li EX-503 HDD Hot Swap enclosure (I had this one for a few years already)
- both cases should be connected to the USB 3 ports of the PC
- 3x 8TB SATA HDD
- 3x 2TB SATA SSD
- I might want to reuse a few more disks for backup raids
Installation went well (TrueNAS-SCALE-23.10.0.1), as did installing the 8TB HDDs in the Lian Li housing and I was able to create and test my media storage. I then added 2 more HDDs as a second data set, and that worked too.
Now I wanted to connect the 3x 2 TB SSDs in the Yottamaster. But they are only recognized as one disk!
I now know that the problem is known here and also that a USB setup is not recommended. Unfortunately too late.
Now I have to see how I can carry on anyway. For now, I'm willing to take the risks with the USB setup since I can still keep my old NAS as a backup.
Now my questions:
1.) Does anyone have a Yottamaster case and managed to get it to work? With "lsblk" all disks are recognized, but not in the GUI.
2.) Which 5-bay case works reliably so that the disks can be addressed individually?
3.) I didn't plan to do it that way, but I could repurpose my old desktop (i7-3770K@3.50GHz, 32GB RAM, Big Tower) later. I have several SATA controllers in there. But I would have to migrate everything first before that could happen.
- Can I set up the setup now with the mini PC and then later install trueNAS on the desktop and migrate the disks/datasets (including USB to SATA)? Is that possible?

Thank you for any help. And as I said, I understand that USB setups are not recommended, but want to move forward for now.

 

[jps229]

Can anybody verify this sabrent-case is working (e.g. shows 4 bays in the Scale-GUI)?

https://www.amazon.de/SABRENT-Docking-Stations-2-5-Inch-Station/dp/B0711L68MS?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1&psc=1

(sorry, I've seen no edit-button for my first post.)

 

[somethingweird]

If you're looking for external setup - you need external SAS (HBA with external ports) / eSATA setup (no port multiplers must be 1 to 1). (details are beyond my knowledge)

 

[Redcoat]

Welcome to the forums!

Forum member and contributor @Arwen has written extensively on the topics of external storage, particularly for backup.

Recently she posted a report about the use (or, more correctly, the "non-use") of USB for pool storage - see https://www.truenas.com/community/r...-usb-attached-drives-for-data-pool-disks.190/ , which I believe you will find informative, given your stated couse of action.

Her resource on Backup will give you some insights on external drive use as mentioned by @somethingweird:
https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/how-to-backup-to-local-disks.26/

 

[jps229]

Welcome to the forums!

Forum member and contributor @Arwen has written extensively on the topics of external storage, particularly for backup.

Recently she posted a report about the use (or, more correctly, the "non-use") of USB for pool storage - see https://www.truenas.com/community/r...-usb-attached-drives-for-data-pool-disks.190/ , which I believe you will find informative, given your stated couse of action.

Her resource on Backup will give you some insights on external drive use as mentioned by @somethingweird:
https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/how-to-backup-to-local-disks.26/

Thank you. As written above, I have already read the instructions (including Arwen's) and understood that it is not recommended. In the short term, I have to continue like this or switch to another NAS software. That's why I now need a tip as to which 4 or 5 bay case works. According to the list, Arwen only uses single cases. I can't use 4 single cases, otherwise I would have to connect a USB adapter, which is also not recommended.

 

[jps229]

me again, sorry :)
Still thinking about variants. Can someone answer these two questions just to be sure this time?

- If I use the working case to initialize the second set of disks, could the dataset be recognized in the other case when I put them back in?

- And in general: If I switch from the mini PC to my old desktop and thus from USB to SATA, will the dataset that I now have and to which I am migrating data be recognized as a pool or can I import it as a pool? Or will I lose all the data again anyway?

 

[Arwen]

We generally don't use multi-disk USB attached chassis. So your asking for a recommendation about something we don't know.

Neither TrueNAS SCALE, or Core, are perfect. As I have said before in this forum, "There is no one NAS software to rule them all".

 

[Arwen]

me again, sorry :)
Still thinking about variants. Can someone answer these two questions just to be sure this time?

- If I use the working case to initialize the second set of disks, could the dataset be recognized in the other case when I put them back in?

- And in general: If I switch from the mini PC to my old desktop and thus from USB to SATA, will the dataset that I now have and to which I am migrating data be recognized as a pool or can I import it as a pool? Or will I lose all the data again anyway?

First off, it is helpful to know ZFS terminology.

For example, Dataset is not the same as Pool. All Datasets must live in a Pool. All Pools must be made up of storage, (aka 1 or more disks).

In general, ZFS Pools are independent from the server or chassis it was made in. Their are 2 caveats:

• OpenZFS has new features that if enabled on a ZFS Pool, may prevent that ZFS Pool from working in a different, but older version of software, (aka older version of OpenZFS).
• If the chassis you put the existing ZFS Pool disks in, does not support serial numbers properly, it is possible you can't import the ZFS Pool.

The first is one reason why some ZFS experts make sure to build their ZFS Pools in older versions of software. Then potentially enable some ZFS Pool features as desired.

As for the second, it is one reason we don't use USB enclosures. It may or may not work. But SATA attached disks? Yes, that should work.

 

[fredbourdelier]

I'd like to ask experts here about a similar situation, and I appreciate any and all advice anyone has to give me on this situation.

First note, this is currently a "theoretical exercise" - the system I'm talking about below isn't built yet, all I have is a "bunch of parts" (not all the parts, but most of them) and I'm needing to figure out (1) what additional parts I might need, and (2) how to put them all together so that they might work right in the first few attempts. I do have a running SCALE Bluefin system, which is separate from this build, and runs fine, and won't be changed by what I'm doing here. I've also got two CORE server based systems running, one as a backup repo for VEEAM, and the other as a VMWARE data storage LUN hosting VM images using iSCSI. While I'm a relative newbie at TNAS, I'm not completely ignorant of the system.

The hardware I have is:
1. a DELL 730XD (HBA330 which I'll flash to LSI, 2CPU, plenty of RAM), 2 SAS SSD boot drives for the rear bays and enough SAS spinning drives to make a Z2/Z3 pool on the front bays
2. Bunch of loose SATA drives formatted as NTFS, previously used as offsite backups over months and years, which I don't want to restore but need to access randomly. I don't have enough hardware to mount all the SATA drives in a chassis, they're just bare drives at this point

What I need to be able to do is read the data at-will off the SATA backup drives. There's a lot of data on these drives (a lot of drives) and I probably need a few % of it - but it's a random %% and at random times, and I might not always be completely sure of the date/filename, so it might take some searching. Sure, I could paw through the drives one at a time when i need a piece of data, but that's just slow and annoying, if I can find a better way.

A few parameters: (1) this data is read-only, no changes ever need to (or should) be made. (2) speed is not a concern, nor is reliability other than I expect the system not to nuke my drives randomly, and (3) if a drive decides to fail for whatever reason, oh well too bad

I'm looking at an ESATA enclosure, maybe a SYBA or MEDIASONIC, with an ESATA controller in the DELL, and stuff it full of drives. For reliability, the whole assemblage would be on UPS, to avoid glitchy power issues that might affect the enclosure and not the main system

Questions:
(1) Is there a specific brand or chipset of ESATA controller that is known to work with TNAS SCALE?
(2) Is there an enclosure that works better or is known to be junk and should be avoided?
(3) How should I set up the external drives (if possible) to mount as R/O and can I set them to remount themselves automatically in case of system reboot?
(4) can externally mounted drives be set to spin down when not accessed? There's no reason to keep them powered up most of the time

Thanks!

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

@fredbourdelier : All answered in Resources, which are excellent and also explain why.

 

[fredbourdelier]

@fredbourdelier : All answered in Resources, which are excellent and also explain why.

Thought I read those and didn't see all the answers, but I'll check again. Thanks!

 

[Arwen]

Single eSATA can be okay, but SATA Port Multipliers are a disaster waiting to happen;

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

There are a few external JBOD disk enclosures that can be wired to HBAs;

RS6414S/6418S Overview | | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

The HighPoint RocketStor 6414S/6418S external 4- and 8-bay 6Gb/s SAS/SATA storage tower enclosures are designed for use with RocketRAID hardware.

www.highpoint-tech.com

Disclaimer, I have no connection to that company, nor it's products.

HBAs are not cheap SATA disk controllers;

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy ... a primer on basic SAS and SATA

With the introduction of SAS 12Gbps, seems like "it's time" to do a braindump on SAS. Work in progress, as usual. History By the late '90's, SCSI and PATA were the dominant technologies to attach disks. Both were parallel bus multiple drop...

www.truenas.com

What's all the noise about HBAs, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with, a server. RAID controllers typically aggregate several disks into a Virtual Disk abstraction of some sort...

www.truenas.com

 

[fredbourdelier]

Single eSATA can be okay, but SATA Port Multipliers are a disaster waiting to happen;

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

There are a few external JBOD disk enclosures that can be wired to HBAs;

RS6414S/6418S Overview | | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

The HighPoint RocketStor 6414S/6418S external 4- and 8-bay 6Gb/s SAS/SATA storage tower enclosures are designed for use with RocketRAID hardware.

www.highpoint-tech.com

Disclaimer, I have no connection to that company, nor it's products.

HBAs are not cheap SATA disk controllers;

https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/dont-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy-a-primer-on-basic-sas-and-sata.48/https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/whats-all-the-noise-about-hbas-and-why-cant-i-use-a-raid-controller.139/

I appreciate the info, thanks! I do understand there will be risks, but again I'm not trying to write to any of these disks, in fact if I can block writes that would be best. These are backups only to be read. too bad it's not like the old days where I could move a jumper and hardware block writes to the drives.

I just realized I don't need to buy a cheap HBA for eSATA, there are two SATA motherboard connectors on that unit which aren't used with the integrated MINI MONO PERC and a SAS boot and storage array. I just need a couple of DELL XK064 cables to connect SATA to ESATA and I can use on-board BIOS support, hoping TNAS SCALE will support onboard SATA for nonboot operations. The port multiplier issue would still remain if I want to have more than 2 backups active at a time. That will require some testing to validate.

 

[Arwen]

There are likely SATA interposer devices that will allow R/O access. Here is one;

USB 3.0 SATA / IDE Adapter with Write-Protection

USB 3.0 Sata / IDE Adapter supports speeds of up to 5Gbps with the ability to write protect it Data. It is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0 specs.

www.coolgear.com

While not cheap, if the goal is true R/O for certainty of zero changes, then something like this is required.