The SSD World?

[denaba]

I am here to ask questions about SSD's. Currently I have two boxes and they have the spinny's in them (HGST) and I have used spinny,s since the FreeNAS days and works great. But since the advent of SSD's and now they have large capacity ones I was wondering if SSD's are a way to go.

My boxes do not do much. They are just used for storage for home use and only one computer accesses a box. Another will get files and add them to the pool and then the family will access a file or two afterwards so I would say the box runs 24/7 and only gets new files once a week or two; maybe three. Activity wise not much.

That is how it is used. But as mentioned I see SSD's in large capacity that can match what I have for my pool. I saw a feature for TRIM on version 13 U4 so it appears that some day SSD's will be storage pools? What are peoples take on this right now? I did not find a lot about using SSD's for main storage pools, however I did read to use them for slog, larc, etc., but not really for storage pools

Just wanted to see what are peoples thoughts on this and with my setup and usage are they ok to use? I understand how SSD's work in a Windows environment, but in TrueNAS with scrubbing and smart checks I wonder if those are things that are not needed (or still needed) in an SSD storage pool environment. I read the Auto TRIM should not be used; rather run it manually.

Anyways, just wondering how SSD's will do now and in the future with storage.

Thank you

 

[sretalla]

There's nothing to say that SSDs are bad or can't be used for data pools and there are clear advantages to doing so in some cases (where IOPS are important).

The only thing to watch out for (although clearly not a problem for your stated use-case) is the QLC drives (like Samsung QVO series), which have particularly low TBW ratings, so aren't any good with high write/re-write volumes.

For your case, it sounds like any kind of SSD should be more-or-less fine.

I note there are some known issues with some older NAND controllers such as those used in WD Green 3D SSDs, which aren't good due to some issues with how TRIM was not getting properly applied. I suspect there's nothing to worry about there these days though.

You can set TRIM to on for your pool(s), so make sure to do that if you do make the switch.

 

[somethingweird]

Personally whatever is the cheapest affordable (for me) and reliable for main storage. (my NAS does really nothing @ home), For VM/jails - I was thinking of moving it to SSD in the future.

 

[Whattteva]

The only thing to watch out for (although clearly not a problem for your stated use-case) is the QLC drives (like Samsung QVO series), which have particularly low TBW ratings, so aren't any good with high write/re-write volumes.

Sounds fine for his use case though. It sounds like it's one of those write-once, read-a-lot scenarios.

I'd also like to add that those cheap QLC SSD's suck even worse than fast HDD's when used in VM's (block storage).

 

[denaba]

Thank you everyone for responding.

@sretalla - Yes, read that too in another thread about the WD Greens and TRIM.
@somethingweird - yes, me too. Wondering if in my future SSD's will be a pool for me
@Whattteva - You hit the nail on the head. In my case that is exactly how my boxes are used. Box A - add files (write once) and then through a Windows computer I access (read) those files. Box B also has Truenas and is the backup, but same scenario; Reads from box A and copies (writes) to Box B.

I saw some 8TB Sammy's for less than $500.00, but those are the ones that sretalla mentioned; QVO's with QLC. Saw another of the same brand, but with MLC

I do have a question about TRIM. On both boxes I have NVMe SSD sticks and they have TrueNAS loaded on them as the boot-pool. I saw a feature of TRIM and was reading (not getting it though) that setting the TRIM feature to Auto is not good. Some say it is fine to use. Wondering a few things;

a- If auto is good then setting it seems to be straight forward. But can the TRIM be set to Auto and on a schedule date and time?
b - If Auto is not advisable then I did read one thread where it said that, but stated that the person runs it manually. How does one run TRIM manually on the boot pool?
c - I also read aa thread that you can add the TRIM as a cron job, but looks like you have to set commands which I am not sure of what the command lines to insert in to the field to set it as a cron job.

Questions which flow to even having an SSD pool

Thank you for the replies.

 

[somethingweird]

@denaba - if you need something now, I'll stick with HD for main storage - (cheaper than SSD per TB?) . - they are here to stay for a little longer.

 

[NugentS]

You can manually trim a pool with the command zpool trim "poolname"

I have auto-trim turned off, and manually run trim with a cronjob every so often