pinterpass
Cadet
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2023
- Messages
- 3
I'm new to TrueNAS and am in the process of migrating away from Netgear's EoL'd ReadyNAS line, which has served me well for 10+ years. This is my very first homebuilt NAS.
Based on what I've researched, I'm leaning toward mirrored drives (decent redundancy, faster recovery). But because I don't know what I don't know and this whole pool–dataset–share paradigm is new to me, I was hoping to solicit advice on the best way to set up TrueNAS pools and datasets for my use case.
Which is:
However, as I understand ZFS/TrueNAS, the idea of using dedicated pools for different datasets is appealing. My assumption is that performance would benefit if, say, one user is streaming 4K video from the dedicated Plex pool of HDDs and another user is backing up large files to the dedicated data pool of HDDs.
My physical storage media in this new build is: 2x 4TB NVMe SSDs, 6x 20TB HDDs. I also have two spare 4TB SATA SSDs that I could add, although that would max out my motherboard's eight total SATA slots. I would like to be able to add more high-volume storage in the future if necessary without resorting to PCIe SATA cards.
What I was envisioning was having an audio library stored on 2x 4TB NVMe SSDs (1x mirrored pair), the video library on 4x 20TB HDDs (2x mirrored pairs) and all the remaining storage on 2x 20TB HDDs (1x mirrored pair).
But here's my question to the TrueNAS veterans and experts: If you had the above use case, what might your approach be?
In other words, does that strike you as the optimal setup? Would it be better to have the NVMe drives reserved for metadata caching? Does the Plex app need a dedicated pool (in which case, splitting out audio and video into two separate pools might be unwise)?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Based on what I've researched, I'm leaning toward mirrored drives (decent redundancy, faster recovery). But because I don't know what I don't know and this whole pool–dataset–share paradigm is new to me, I was hoping to solicit advice on the best way to set up TrueNAS pools and datasets for my use case.
Which is:
- Plex: Our household's NAS is our media hub. We rip CDs and DVDs/Blu-rays to lossless audio/video (increasingly 4K HDR MKVs) for local streaming, sometimes with multiple family members streaming media simultaneously. A Raspberry Pi-based Logitech Media Server instance (yes, we still use Squeezeboxes!) also draws on the audio repository.
- Time Machine: We have multiple laptop/desktop Macs and like to have network backup.
- Multi-user network storage: We use the NAS to access common files from multiple clients, to offload files from clients (archival storage) and to have user-based repositories. Basically, it's a giant attic for infrequently used files and large backups.
- Possible virtualization: I primarily use a Mac but occasionally use Windows-only software. I do have a dedicated Windows gaming-oriented desktop that I can access locally or remotely. But rather than clutter up my gaming rig with productivity software, it might be nice to have a work-oriented Windows VM that I could access from any machine.
However, as I understand ZFS/TrueNAS, the idea of using dedicated pools for different datasets is appealing. My assumption is that performance would benefit if, say, one user is streaming 4K video from the dedicated Plex pool of HDDs and another user is backing up large files to the dedicated data pool of HDDs.
My physical storage media in this new build is: 2x 4TB NVMe SSDs, 6x 20TB HDDs. I also have two spare 4TB SATA SSDs that I could add, although that would max out my motherboard's eight total SATA slots. I would like to be able to add more high-volume storage in the future if necessary without resorting to PCIe SATA cards.
What I was envisioning was having an audio library stored on 2x 4TB NVMe SSDs (1x mirrored pair), the video library on 4x 20TB HDDs (2x mirrored pairs) and all the remaining storage on 2x 20TB HDDs (1x mirrored pair).
But here's my question to the TrueNAS veterans and experts: If you had the above use case, what might your approach be?
In other words, does that strike you as the optimal setup? Would it be better to have the NVMe drives reserved for metadata caching? Does the Plex app need a dedicated pool (in which case, splitting out audio and video into two separate pools might be unwise)?
Thanks in advance for any advice!