Home NAS Hardware configuration review

solitarius

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Hi everyone,

This is my first post after quite a few reads about TrueNAS. I am a long time Synology user and have decided to upgrade from my DS918+ to a TrueNAS Scale build for future proofing the thing.

I aim to build a NAS that will:
  • store photos
  • store video and audio files (served by a Plex server, in a docker container or a VM, advice are welcome here)
  • store a couple of servers daily backups files (most likely handled by BackupPC)
  • run a couple of small VMs
  • provide NFS shares that will be mounted by docker container on other servers in my home network
  • be connected to a 1GB network.
I have picked all the parts but since it will be a non négligeable cost I would love to have your feedbacks on this list in case I missed an obvious bottleneck or incompatibility.

In addition to the general to any issue you might see with this configuration, I was wondering if the difference of sustained transfer speed of the Red Pro (240MB/s) and the IronWolf (210MB/s) might be an issue.

Thanks for your inputs

Edit: Changed VM drive according to motherboard available slots.
 
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sretalla

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I was wondering if the difference of sustained transfer speed of the Red Pro (240MB/s) and the IronWolf (210MB/s) might be an issue.
Unlikely. Although a VDEV will only move as fast as the slowest member, so forget anything over 210MB/s (and probably forget that too depending on what you're doing).

The only issue I see with your config is your "cache" drive.

I would use that for a dedicated app/VM pool or something like that instead. Set a local replication task to ensure your single point of failure won't cost you too much if it goes bad.

With that amount of RAM and a reasonable workload, you won't likely get benefit from L2ARC.

Don't forget to set the recordsize on your media datasets to be 1M.

If your VMs are small and light in IOPS requirement, you may get away with "OK" performance, but don't expect a lot from them. (unless you do what I mentioned and have an app/VM pool on the SSD.
 
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Looks like a solid build, except for maybe the onboard SATA controller.

- 8 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug

If it doesn't support direct IT mode, you will likely have to buy a separate HBA controller


 

sretalla

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except for maybe the onboard SATA controller.
Yes, must have missed that... make sure you set RAID features off and have HDDs in AHCI mode only.
 

solitarius

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Jun 17, 2022
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Thank you guys for your insights.
Unlikely. Although a VDEV will only move as fast as the slowest member, so forget anything over 210MB/s (and probably forget that too depending on what you're doing).
So I guess it would probably be better if I stick to WD Red Pros (buying from different sources to limit the risk of having disks from the same batch bailing on me at the same time).
The only issue I see with your config is your "cache" drive.

I would use that for a dedicated app/VM pool or something like that instead. Set a local replication task to ensure your single point of failure won't cost you too much if it goes bad.

With that amount of RAM and a reasonable workload, you won't likely get benefit from L2ARC.

Don't forget to set the recordsize on your media datasets to be 1M.

If your VMs are small and light in IOPS requirement, you may get away with "OK" performance, but don't expect a lot from them. (unless you do what I mentioned and have an app/VM pool on the SSD.
Thanks for the suggestion. The VMs could totally run on this NVMe drive and be backed up on the RAIDZ2 pool at night. Event though the VM I plan to transfert (it is actually running) has an average 4 IOPS and peeks at 40 IOPS.
Looks like a solid build, except for maybe the onboard SATA controller.

If it doesn't support direct IT mode, you will likely have to buy a separate HBA controller

Would Adaptec ASR 71605 be OK ? They are mentioned here and there on the forum and are reasonably priced on the second hand market.
 

solitarius

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Jun 17, 2022
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Would Adaptec ASR 71605 be OK ? They are mentioned here and there on the forum and are reasonably priced on the second hand market.
Nevermind, I found several IBM M1015, Dell PERC H200 and H310 also. I think I'll go this way.
 
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