NAS build advice (New to TrueNAS)

[Sharif]

That's the part list

Part List - AMD Ryzen 5 4600G, Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 ATX Full Tower - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Ryzen 5 4600G, Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 ATX Full Tower

pcpartpicker.com

System usages, it'll be used in a small office as NAS (Surprise) and backup of data from current portable storage devices.

The goal is to run 3x 16 Tb drives and slowly keep adding as time goes on.

My questions:
My selected motherboard has 8 sata ports, will I be able to eventually use all those ports in combination off the chosen CPU?
ZFS, what's a good place to be at when it comes to ram amount? Anything in particular I would additionally need to set up ZFS?
My PSU, PC part picker says it'll be okay with 8x drives (It has 8x sata cables) from your experience is that good enough?

 

[ChrisRJ]

For PSU sizing, please check this out:

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance

I've seen about 1,000 threads like this one where people decide that they can power a dozen hard drives off a 360 watt supply. DO NOT DO THIS. I've seen another 1,000 threads where people decide to buy the cheapest power supply that they can...

www.truenas.com

How exactly do you want to add drives? Are you aware of the ZFS limitations in that respect?

 

[Sharif]

For PSU sizing, please check this out:

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance

I've seen about 1,000 threads like this one where people decide that they can power a dozen hard drives off a 360 watt supply. DO NOT DO THIS. I've seen another 1,000 threads where people decide to buy the cheapest power supply that they can...

www.truenas.com

How exactly do you want to add drives? Are you aware of the ZFS limitations in that respect?

Mainly to keep the cost down, the goal is to set it up with just 3 or 4 drives in the beginning and slowly add more as we see fit

 

[Arwen]

@Sharif - The comment by @ChrisRJ is because "slowly add more as we see fit" may not work as you think it does. ZFS has specific limitations since it was developed as an Enterprise file system by Sun Microsystems. Not for home. It works great at home, it is the limitations new users can have trouble with.

For example, using exactly 3 drives, you are stuck with either a 3 way mirror or RAID-Z1 which is not recommended with larger disks.

If you have exactly 4 drives, you can have either 2, 2 way mirrors or RAID-Z2. Both of which use half the disk storage for redundancy. Some people would go with RAID-Z1, but as I said, it is not recommended.

The project to expand a RAID-1/2/3 is not finished, and may not be finished for years. So, if you build a 3 disk RAID-Z1, or a 4 disk RAID-Z1 / -Z2, you can't not add a disk. You have to backup, destroy, re-create with 4 or 5 disks and restore the data.

That said, you CAN grow your storage. It is just "different" than adding 1 disk.


If you already know this great. If not, this was intended to help you understand how ZFS can not just "add a disk" the same way as other RAID schemes.

 

[Sharif]

Thanks for all the input!

Decided to go with an off the shelf synology, more so for its convinces!

I do totally see myself running a NAS someday with some random hardware just get a hands on experience on what freenas is like

 

[Arwen]

Good luck.