Partitioning NVMe Best Practices for TrueNAS Scale

[Ph33lix]

Hello TrueNAS community!
I'm super new to the NAS game at all, let alone TrueNAS and its robust and super configurable feature set, so pardon my lack of understanding/using the appropriate lingo.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I've inherited a decommissioned Ubiquiti UAS-XG application server, and followed this guide for clearing the slate (grateful for TrueNAS Scale being built on Debian since it was as simple as following that guide to get the blue halo indicator LED to work LOL).
The UAS-XG server features 2 hot-swappable 3.5in drive bays, a Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F board with Intel XEON D-1521 (4 cores, 8 threads, 6MB cache, 2.4GHz), 32GB of ECC 2133 DDR4 RAM, 4 spare SATA3 ports, an M.2 slot that I've verified allows for NVMe use, and I've since updated to the latest AMI BIOS (v2.3) that can be found from Supermicro's website. For storage media, I have a 2TB WD RED NVMe on the way, and two Seagate Exos X18 16TB 3.5in disks that I intend to setup as a mirrored data pool.
The UAS-XG 1U case might have some space where I intend to stuff a couple of 2.5in WD RED SATA SSDs some time in the future.

I am interested in pursuing a bare metal TrueNAS Scale install on that UAS-XG platform since there's an opportunity to host Nextcloud and Pi-Hole as virtual machines (currently run them on an old Dell Latitude laptop) and that UAS-XG server seems to have enough resources for all that.

I've done as much reading as I could about using NVMe SSDs in TrueNAS Scale and am still learning about the nuances between SLOG, ZIL (I currently understand ZIL writes on a disk other than the data-pool constitutes to it being SLOG?), L2ARC (looks like Scale has L2ARC on by default but how do I verify it's using NVMe?), and storing metadata on speedier media than spinning rust. Needless to say as an absolute beginner, I'm caught up in analysis and choice paralysis.

Found this excellent thread from 6 years ago that seems to cover the topics I have in mind and will continue to re-read it to improve my understanding, but I imagine there might be changes to how this gets done since then.

TL:DR
Got a 2TB NVMe WD RED SSD that I don't know how to best deploy for use in TrueNAS Scale.
Do I go into Shell then partition it out with gparted, before going to Storage > Pools then add SLOG? Same for metadata?
I now see that booting off USB is not recommended, should I partition the NVMe SSD with a live linux instance, set a boot partition, then install TrueNAS Scale into that?

It seems I'm a little out of my depth and don't have a clear idea on how to get this aspect of setup/optimization started. Any help in any direction would be appreciated!
Thank you all!

 

[Arwen]

SLOG, ZIL (I currently understand ZIL writes on a disk other than the data-pool constitutes to it being SLOG?)

Yes, a SLOG is a Separate LOG device, not part of the pool data devices. (But still part of the pool.)

TrueNAS does not support "sharing" devices for multiple purposes. So, no, you do not manually partition a NVMe drive. In theory you can do so, but as a beginner you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot this early on.

In general, unless a new user clearly needs a SLOG or L2ARC, the new user should skip such complications. The can be added later if the need arises.

 

[Ph33lix]

Yes, a SLOG is a Separate LOG device, not part of the pool data devices. (But still part of the pool.)

TrueNAS does not support "sharing" devices for multiple purposes. So, no, you do not manually partition a NVMe drive. In theory you can do so, but as a beginner you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot this early on.

In general, unless a new user clearly needs a SLOG or L2ARC, the new user should skip such complications. The can be added later if the need arises.

Cool, thanks for that thought. I think I needed to hear that; something along the lines of "stop over thinking and just start using the darned thing already." hahaha

Came across this thread and since my home environment will have 2 people simultaneously hitting it at most (with me being 99% of the usage share), no NVR of cable TV (got no cable TV to begin with) and no security camera streams (yet), I should be more than fine purposing that 2TB NVMe as yet another VDEV. Perhaps for editing videos with B-roll and other reusable assets off the networked drive as opposed to bogging my laptop down with all that extra footage.

Thank you!