First time setting a TrueNas machine…

[Botafoguense1965]

Hi all. Since I found my self with a bunch of hard drives used for backing up several sources this was getting confusing (sounds familiar? )
I have pairs of 1tb, 2tb and 3tbs, so it seems logical to consolidate all 6 inside a case and drive them with TrueNas…cheap machine, just for the purpose of backing up data from multiple computers, Mac and PC and have it available to them…did my homework and have been searching the forum, so I’d like to check with you guys before start buying parts…
1. Setup should be grouping same size HDs in pairs and then use RaidZ 2 or 3..(2x1tb, 2x2tb, 2x3tb)
2. Plan to buy intelCore i3 or i5…will this simple scenario really benefit from i5?
3. 16gb of ram
4. Gigabit. Maybe someday 10gb. I’d love to connect directly to my MacBook using thunderbolt or USB-C but from what I read seems not possible, so the maybe 10gb option, would have to buy a Thunderbolt-10gb adaptor…
5. All in a tower for 6 HDs.
6. In this scenario do I need a boot SSD or using one of the HDs to boot is just fine?

Thanks for your inputs!
André

 

[Arwen]

First off, ZFS only uses the smallest disk in a RAID-Zx set, for all disks. Meaning in your case, 1TB would be unused in the 2TB disks, and 2TB unused in the 3TB disks. Thus, using your disks in a RAID-Z2 would be 4TB raw and RAID-Z3 3TB raw.

So, the only reasonable scheme is Mirrored pairs. That gets you 6TB raw space, (minus another 20% for keeping the pool in performance mode).

Yes, you need a separate boot device. TrueNAS is designed as an appliance for Enterprise. It is WAY easier to have a separate boot device for Enterprise users. So that is the way iXsystems designed TrueNAS.

Using 16GBs is fine for many casual uses, like for backups, (a write mostly application).

Can't comment about i3 verses i5...