Video files server

[Julianh]

Hi All,

I've looked around at the other posts, but can't find exactly what I'm after. I have a home video server with about 30 T of files in JBOD running on an old windows server, offering out the data via a SMB share to Emby and Kodi (Kodi on the Lan, Emby on the internet.) Both point to the same SMB share.

I want to replace it with a TruNAS solution, as it's not fast enough. On 4K files I get "source too slow" or similar from Kodi. There are just a few family members, probably no more than 5 concurrently. I have a second system that I use as a backup, copying the data from the main to back up system, the turning the backup off.

So I just need it to serve the files, I was thinking of the following scenario.

Raid 0
1xSSD for OS - Bought 500gb
4x 8TB sata - I already have these
Dell EMC PowerEdge T140 Xeon E-2224G - 3.5GHz - 16gb

I will need to expand the raid to 40 GB later, but I accept I will have to take the data off, rebuilt it and copy it back.

I did consider an ebay raid controller to replace the internal one, but didn't think it as worth it as TruNAS does the disk handling.

Are there any word of wisdom you could give me?

Thanks

 

[danb35]

We don't do "RAID 0" with ZFS, we do striped disks, though the result is similar. That means you have no redundancy; when a disk fails, you'll lose all data in the pool. Since we assume people using TrueNAS care about their data, we thus don't recommend striped pools, but they're nonetheless a valid configuration if you're willing to assume that risk. But if you do configure your pool that way, you'd be able to add disks to it at any time and make use of their capacity.

You should not use any RAID controller with TrueNAS--as you correctly understand, TrueNAS/ZFS does the disk handling itself, and doesn't want a RAID controller interfering.

 

[Julianh]

Thank you Danb35, The data is backed up to a totally different system, and it's only video files, so if it dies, we can live with the down time, they can read a book

Do you think the server is up to the job? and would 16GB be okay? If I put in 32 would it sent it to cache?

 

[danb35]

Do you think the server is up to the job? and would 16GB be okay?

I'm not too familiar with the T140, but it sounds like it should be OK.