New & first TrueNAS Scale build

[lv8pv]

Hi new to the forum and my first post.

I'm in the process of setting up a TrueNAS Scale (named truenas1)

The disks I have are the following.
1x Samsung 850 EVO 500GB (for the OS)
4 x 4gb New, Seagate Ironwolf
2 x 4gb 1 year old, Seagate Enterprise Exos

What disk/raid setup would be the best for this ?

I'm a wildlife photographer and have lots of RAW photo and edited photos that CAN NOT be lost.

For now I will be using this TrueNAS (truenas1) as backup for the data/images I have on my working PC. I'm using AOMEI Backupper to backup from my working PC too the (truenas1)

A little later when I can afford more disks (I have the hardware) I will be setting up a second TrueNAS Scale (truenas2) When I do that, my plan is to get away from having the images stored on my working PC with backup too (truenas1) and use (truenas1) as working storage with backup to (truenas2).

My knowledge on these matters are sparse, so tips are much welcomed.

Depending on how (truenas1) will be setup (taking into account my end goal, and tips from this group) what number and size disks should I get for the future (truenas2)

Hope this was somewhat clear

Thanks for reading this.

 

[Arwen]

From your post, you just need a SMB share to your PC. SMB prefers fast CPU over more cores. Keep that in mind.

The size of the boot device needs to be 16GB or larger, (though I would suggest at least 32GB today). So unless your Samsung 850 EVO 500GB is free / unused and hanging around, then don't buy such a large one.

When using large disks, (>1TB), it is suggested to not use RAID-Z1, (similar to, but not quite the same as RAID-5). With RAID-Z2 you can loose any 2 disks and not experience any data loss. With just 6 disks, the even more secure RAID-Z3 is not suggested because 1/2 of the disks / storage is used for parity.


Direct Photo editing off of a NAS share can sometimes be slower than desired. Depends on lots of things, like network speed, amount of memory in both NAS & PC, ZFS pool layout, etc...

A slight alternative is to copy the RAW file(s) to be edited to your PC. Make the changes, and save the edited files back to the NAS share.

 

[lv8pv]

From your post, you just need a SMB share to your PC. SMB prefers fast CPU over more cores. Keep that in mind.

That is what I'm doing. The box is up and running as a test, with only one 6gb disk to let me test how this work before committing to a setup.

The size of the boot device needs to be 16GB or larger, (though I would suggest at least 32GB today). So unless your Samsung 850 EVO 500GB is free / unused and hanging around, then don't buy such a large one.

Thank you, that is useful to know. The 850 EVO is an old disk that I had to begin with along with all the hardware. Only I have ordered are the 4xSG Ironwolf. I read somewhere that you should use identical disks, this is why I wonder if mixing my 4 new Ironwolf is with the two old Seagate Enterprise Exos. I guess it works as they are all 4tb ?

When using large disks, (>1TB), it is suggested to not use RAID-Z1, (similar to, but not quite the same as RAID-5). With RAID-Z2 you can loose any 2 disks and not experience any data loss. With just 6 disks, the even more secure RAID-Z3 is not suggested because 1/2 of the disks / storage is used for parity.

I had hoped I could run this now as 2-Way Mirror, according to this page https://jro.io/capacity/ I would get 10.75 TiB of usable space.

Later (1-2 mnt from now) when I set up the second truenas2 I wondered if perhaps I could just change both NAS to 5-Wide Z1, and keep one disk on each in spare. That would give me 14.404 TiB or so ? Replicate truenas1 too truenas2 ?

I have no clue if this make sense... or are logical.

Direct Photo editing off of a NAS share can sometimes be slower than desired. Depends on lots of things, like network speed, amount of memory in both NAS & PC, ZFS pool layout, etc...

A slight alternative is to copy the RAW file(s) to be edited to your PC. Make the changes, and save the edited files back to the NAS share.

This is no problem. You never edit the RAW files. They are store and forget . The editing is done in the LR database or to exported TIFS/PSD. So my priority would be read speed, not write speed. And never lose a file. Although I only have 1gb LAN so I guess that will be the bottle neck with speed for now.

The box I have up and running now is the following

TrueNAS-SCALE-22.12.1
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
31.3 GIB Ram

Thank you Arwen for taking the time to respond. =)

 

[Arwen]

...
Thank you, that is useful to know. The 850 EVO is an old disk that I had to begin with along with all the hardware. Only I have ordered are the 4xSG Ironwolf. I read somewhere that you should use identical disks, this is why I wonder if mixing my 4 new Ironwolf is with the two old Seagate Enterprise Exos. I guess it works as they are all 4tb ?
...

There is no problem running different models or even different vendor disks. Just keep in mind that the speed of the vDev will be the speed of the slowest disk.

...
I had hoped I could run this now as 2-Way Mirror, according to this page https://jro.io/capacity/ I would get 10.75 TiB of usable space.
...

Yes, you can use 2 way Mirror vDevs. Check to make sure your Ironwolf and Exos are exactly the same sizes. Otherwise you could end up with minor problems performing disk replacements.

...
Later (1-2 mnt from now) when I set up the second truenas2 I wondered if perhaps I could just change both NAS to 5-Wide Z1, and keep one disk on each in spare. That would give me 14.404 TiB or so ? Replicate truenas1 too truenas2 ?

I have no clue if this make sense... or are logical.
...

It does not make much sense to use RAID-Z1 with hot spare. In general you would simply add the disk in, and use RAID-Z2. Their are rare cases where performance penalty of adding an additional parity suggests RAID-Z1 with hot spare.

...
This is no problem. You never edit the RAW files. They are store and forget . The editing is done in the LR database or to exported TIFS/PSD. So my priority would be read speed, not write speed. And never lose a file. Although I only have 1gb LAN so I guess that will be the bottle neck with speed for now.
...

Yes, that was what I meant, the edited file would have a different name during the save process.

...
The box I have up and running now is the following

TrueNAS-SCALE-22.12.1
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz
31.3 GIB Ram

Thank you Arwen for taking the time to respond. =)

You are welcome.