Feedback on existing server expansion

[SkippyTheMagnificent]

Hello, all!

I have an existing fully-populated 8-bay Truenas CORE server running with zero issues. I also have an older Netgear ReadyNAS 424 box that's been EOL'd by Netgear that has its issues, but has 4 dasd in it that I'm looking to either replace with a newer Intel-based 4-bay NAS (re-using the 4-8Tb disks in) enclosure so I can set up a 2nd Truenas server -OR- instead, add a USB enclosure to add to the existing TrueNAS Core server. I'm asking because I know that using USB is not nearly as performant as a full 2nd NAS, but is considerably cheaper.

I'm looking for PROs/CONs of doing either... would a USB attached 4-bay storage add-on work? Should I avoid doing so in favor of using a 2nd NAS running Truenas and bite the bullet for an intel-based 4-bay empty NAS enclosure?

Feel free to hit me with the solid truth.

 

[Arwen]

Here are some hints about how USB attached data disks might perform;

Why you should avoid USB attached drives for data pool disks

This subject has been coming up quite often in the last year or 2. Perhaps because of TrueNAS SCALE has brought forth some attention to TrueNAS in general and ZFS in specific. Please note that this is about USB attached storage for ZFS data...

www.truenas.com

Yes, I know USB attached storage is much cheaper. But, one serious reason we don't recommend it here, is reliability. When it works, it may work just fine. Even for months. But, when it fails, it may take your data with it.

In theory, you can re-use your Netgear ReadyNAS 424 as a external disk enclosure. Assuming your power supply and disk back plane are fine. And you can add a 4e LSI SAS / SATA PCIe card in to your current TrueNAS Core server.

Their are other external enclosures, (like this one which I have no personal experience with);

RS6414S/6418S Overview | | HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

The HighPoint RocketStor 6414S/6418S external 4- and 8-bay 6Gb/s SAS/SATA storage tower enclosures are designed for use with RocketRAID hardware.

www.highpoint-tech.com

 

[SkippyTheMagnificent]

Ironically, I was talking with a friend from work last night... he mentioned having a Terramaster F4-423 sitting in a sealed box in his storage unit but his wife fussed at him for buying it and won't let him spend money on drives (something about kids, food, or mortgage... married people stuff). So, he's offered it up to me at a pretty significant markdown: FREE!, so it looks like my question might have been answered with literally zero cost. But, I'll I'll insist upon throwing in some $$ since I suspect it would help smooth things over with his wife. Then, once I follow a few of the links on the web that I've found on how to install Truenas on it, I might spin up a SCALE server to sit next to my CORE server (mostly for comparison between the two) to see how it runs.

Or, might it be better to install a 2nd CORE install? I'm not aware of any form of "interoperability" mode for CORE.

 

[Arwen]

Have no experience with Terramaster anything.

For compatibility between TrueNAS servers of any type, (Core <-> Core, SCALE <-> SCALE, or Core <-> SCALE), is that you want the ZFS pools to have the same / similar feature sets. It takes a bit of work to make this happen. And each new version of TrueNAS (Core or SCALE), may add new ZFS features. If you use the new feature, you may not be able to replicate your pool to a different server that does not have the new feature available.

In practice, many of the newer ZFS pool features are not really something the average person uses. Like new checksum algorithms or compression methods, (ZSTD). As long as the feature(s) are not active, you can send the pool to an older ZFS version.

But, it would be better to have the features disabled and you manually choose which to enable. Like if the feature is available on both servers, AND you want that feature.

I don't have the details of how to make a feature disabled pool in TrueNAS, other than loading an older version of the software and create the pool. Then upgrading the software, but NOT the pool features.


Last, what I mean by ZFS pool features are the ones from zpool get all not the type of pool, RAID-Zx or Mirror.

 

[SkippyTheMagnificent]

Good to know, thank you! I guess I'll start with Core (to match my existing server) and see what is available. I might just set up this 2nd server as mostly an iSCSI host for VMs running in my K8S cluster, since my original server is much larger for more diverse storage.