L2ARC & SLOG drives | Are they needed? Best RAID / Mirror config

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

After my recent research in the last couple of weeks here's the system I've decided on:

Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Gaming K5
Intel® Core™ i5-7400 Processor
Ram DDR4 64GB ( 16GB x 4 ) 3200 Teamgroup T-Create Classic
550w PSU Gold

Storage:
5x 10TB Tosiba N300
2x 1TB NVME SSD Samsung 970
1x 250GB NVME SSD Samsung 970
1x 250GB SATA SSD WD

Expansion:
SAS HBA 6gbs (Pcie x8)
SPF+ 10GB Dual Port (Pcie x8)
M.2 Expansion x4 (Dual slot) (total of 4 slots with 2 in mobo) (Pcie x4)

Current thoughts on set up:

5x 10-TB HDD's all in one 'slow' pool for long-term storage and backup of 'fast' pool as RAIDZ1 (I really need more HDD's to justify RAIDZ2 which I may consider)

2x NVME 1TB will be a 'fast' pool, this is where the work-active files are stored (on expansion card) If this is backed up to the 'slow pool' I may not use an mirror

250GB NVME is a boot drive (on mobo)

250GB SATA SSD is for L2ARC or SLOG
I have one more mobo M.2 slot for the other (L2ARC or SLOG)

I have 8 more sata connections via the HBA card for later expansion, I could also add the L2ARC or SLOG here with SATA SSD

Server use: Media storage for content creators, hope to use files directly from the NVME storage in Premiere Pro

The NVME pool must be set up for max speed for direct file use

1. Do I need L2ARC or SLOG drive?
2. If so, are they best as NVME or will SATA SSD be sufficient?
3. Any better way to set up the RAID / Mirror config?

Any and all input is welcome :)

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Possibly research a bit longer. That mainboard does not support ECC. Would be a deal breaker for me.

 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

Possibly research a bit longer. That mainboard does not support ECC. Would be a deal breaker for me.

Im totally aware of this and decided not to use ECC

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you are only sharing files via SMB you won't see any improvement from an SLOG. You might profit from an L2ARC but I would start without one and check the ARC statistics. Only if all your memory is used and you still get a significant rate of ARC misses, might an L2ARC improve things.

Large SMB shared datasets with large directories can profit from a metadata vdev. But that one must have redundancy, e.g. be set up as a mirror, if you value your data. Because if that vdev is ever lost so is the entire pool. For SLOG and L2ARC a single SSD would be fine, but again, in an SMB only scenario, you won't profit from it. And in situtations where you profit from an SLOG, special considerations concerning the type of SSD have to be taken into account.

 

[NugentS]

As @Patrick M. Hausen says.

• Ditch any concept of SLOG - you don't need it and you don't have the right equipment for it
• L2ARC, try without first for a few weeks, then consider adding it if the ARC Hit rate is < 90%
• No ECC - but you have already commented on that

Now my own comments
Its gamer gear - make sure you turn off any form of over-clocking and anything you have in the way of ports that you aren't using.
You may be dissapointed in the performance of the M.2's if you hammer them hard as they tend to perform well for a limited amount of data and then the performance tanks and TN complains about devices with slow performance. YMMV depending on how you use these.

 

[jgreco]

SAS HBA 6gbs (Pcie x8)
SPF+ 10GB Dual Port (Pcie x8)

This is almost completely useless information; it matters very much WHAT you use for these cards, not that you HAVE the cards. If you can tell us what HBA and ethernet card you're using, that's much better.

 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

If you are only sharing files via SMB you won't see any improvement from an SLOG. You might profit from an L2ARC but I would start without one and check the ARC statistics. Only if all your memory is used and you still get a significant rate of ARC misses, might an L2ARC improve things.

Large SMB shared datasets with large directories can profit from a metadata vdev. But that one must have redundancy, e.g. be set up as a mirror, if you value your data. Because if that vdev is ever lost so is the entire pool. For SLOG and L2ARC a single SSD would be fine, but again, in an SMB only scenario, you won't profit from it. And in situtations where you profit from an SLOG, special considerations concerning the type of SSD have to be taken into account.

Thank you.

Will set it up and check ARC results

 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

As @Patrick M. Hausen says.

• Ditch any concept of SLOG - you don't need it and you don't have the right equipment for it
• L2ARC, try without first for a few weeks, then consider adding it if the ARC Hit rate is < 90%
• No ECC - but you have already commented on that

Now my own comments
Its gamer gear - make sure you turn off any form of over-clocking and anything you have in the way of ports that you aren't using.
You may be dissapointed in the performance of the M.2's if you hammer them hard as they tend to perform well for a limited amount of data and then the performance tanks and TN complains about devices with slow performance. YMMV depending on how you use these.

Thanks. Right all OC settings off and unused ports disabled.