asheenlevrai
Cadet
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 9
Hi :)
I have 0 experience with TrueNAS yet but I'm currently considering using TrueNAS Scale to setup a (couple?) NAS(es) in order to store/share files and maybe another rig for remote backups.
I assumed that TrueNAS would be like many other NAS OSes and would thus run its OS from a USB dongle. Apparently that was the recommendation back in the FreeNAS era of the project... I realize it is now recommended NOT to use a USB dongle but rather an SSD (or a sATA DOM) to increase both performance and reliability.
I understand the concerns but it seems to me that an SSD dedicated for the OS brings its own set of drawbacks:
- 1st of all, this is a waste of an SSD in terms of space (OS requires 8-16GB AFAIU), even if the price of small SSDs is currently low (anything below 120GB today is actually more expensive), most of the space will remain unused.
- it's also a waste of a sATA port. This is particularly relevant in rigs where sATA ports are a limiting factor.
- SSDs (especially cheap ones or old repurposed ones) are also prone to unpredictable/unannounced failure. Using a RAID1 SSD array for the OS (I don't even know if this is technically possible in TrueNAS Scale) would result in even more waste of space and sATA ports.
It seems to me that a decent solution would be to implement something like what was done in Synology DSM where the OS is located on a partition distributed among all (storage) drives. A drive failure thus doesn't result in the loss of the OS. However, I understand that performance-wise this won't reach flash-storage levels. Except maybe for rigs with many drives, which is probably not representative of most home users (running small 2-disks setups).
I'm probably missing something here and I wonder what it is. Maybe something related to how ZFS works since I'm not familiar with it.
Thank you very much in advance for your feedback.
Best,
-a-
I have 0 experience with TrueNAS yet but I'm currently considering using TrueNAS Scale to setup a (couple?) NAS(es) in order to store/share files and maybe another rig for remote backups.
I assumed that TrueNAS would be like many other NAS OSes and would thus run its OS from a USB dongle. Apparently that was the recommendation back in the FreeNAS era of the project... I realize it is now recommended NOT to use a USB dongle but rather an SSD (or a sATA DOM) to increase both performance and reliability.
I understand the concerns but it seems to me that an SSD dedicated for the OS brings its own set of drawbacks:
- 1st of all, this is a waste of an SSD in terms of space (OS requires 8-16GB AFAIU), even if the price of small SSDs is currently low (anything below 120GB today is actually more expensive), most of the space will remain unused.
- it's also a waste of a sATA port. This is particularly relevant in rigs where sATA ports are a limiting factor.
- SSDs (especially cheap ones or old repurposed ones) are also prone to unpredictable/unannounced failure. Using a RAID1 SSD array for the OS (I don't even know if this is technically possible in TrueNAS Scale) would result in even more waste of space and sATA ports.
It seems to me that a decent solution would be to implement something like what was done in Synology DSM where the OS is located on a partition distributed among all (storage) drives. A drive failure thus doesn't result in the loss of the OS. However, I understand that performance-wise this won't reach flash-storage levels. Except maybe for rigs with many drives, which is probably not representative of most home users (running small 2-disks setups).
I'm probably missing something here and I wonder what it is. Maybe something related to how ZFS works since I'm not familiar with it.
Thank you very much in advance for your feedback.
Best,
-a-