gregnostic
Dabbler
- Joined
- May 19, 2016
- Messages
- 17
Expected Usage:
The server's primary role will be streaming media via Plex and (maybe) Emby. The vast majority of the content is Blu-ray rips. I've got a gigabit connection at home and I'll be letting some friends and family stream from my server. My inital goal is to support transcoding six simultaneous 1080p streams, and to eventually support transcoding four to six 4K streams by adding a second CPU. (Hence the otherwise-overkill CPU specs.)
I'll be doing backups of a handful of computers of multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux). Usually three or four clients at any given time. Time Machine for the Mac and, er, something else for the rest. (I'm still pondering my options here.)
And finally, a few Samba shares. One for adding new content to the media library (by far the largest share), and a few others for miscellaneous other files. It's unlikely that there will ever be more than a few people accessing the file shares at any given time. In fact, with rare exception, it'll just be me.
Specs:
Case: SuperMicro CSE-846BE16-R1K28B
Motherboard: SuperMicro X10DRi
CPU: 1x Intel Xeon E5-2630 v4
Heatsink: 1x SuperMicro SNK-P0048PS
Memory: 4x SuperMicro MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (8GB)
OS Storage: SuperMicro SATA DOM (16GB)
HBA: LSI SAS 9211-4i
I've done a fair bit of research on the hardware and I think it should be solid for this purpose, but if anyone has any feedback, I'd appreciate it.
Thoughts and Questions:
I'll be starting with one CPU and 32GB of RAM, but it's a dual-socket board and I'm planning to add a second CPU and another 32GB of RAM sometime down the road as needed. I can bump the RAM up to 64GB right now, but from what I've read, 32GB will be plenty for a while, and that 64GB should probably be sufficient to cover the final goal of 24x 6TB disks.
I'm planning to use six-drive RAID-Z2 vdevs. I'll start with either one or two vdevs and gradually add one vdev to the zpool at a time until the chassis is full. (Much as I'd love to fill the thing with 24 drives all at once, my budget doesn't permit that.) I'm hoping you all can help me make up my mind as to what disks to use at the start.
I've got an existing NAS with eight 3TB drives—Toshiba DT01ACA300—in a RAID-6 array. They've been running solid for the better part of a year now but I'm outgrowing the existing system, both in storage and in CPU capacity.
Given that, I'm considering two main strategies for populating the drive bays:
First is the easiest, but also most expensive, especially upfront. Start with one vdev of six 6TB drives (probably WD Reds). Then I'd copy everything over from the old NAS and decommission it, drives and all. Grow the zpool one vdev at a time with more 6TB disks. Job done.
Second is to pick up six more of the same 3TB Toshiba drives I'm already using, set up the first vdev, copy over the data from my old NAS, then take six of the eight drives from the old NAS and use them for a second vdev. For future expansion, I'd go for 6TB disks for the remaining two vdevs. Then if I needed to expand beyond that, I'd swap out the 3TB disks and expand the vdevs. It would probably be quite some time before I hit the point where I'd need to start swapping disks and expanding vdevs, though.
Both options would result in the same net amount of storage in the beginning (roughly 16TB when leaving 20% free) but the second option would cost about $900 less. I haven't really seen much in the way of information saying whether or not to avoid mismatched drive capacities and speeds (the Toshibas are 7200 RPM) in a RAID-Z2 setup to know if it's a bad thing or just a "not ideal" thing. While I'd like to take advantage of hardware I already have, I also don't want to do anything that will cause me a lot of pain down the road. (I know that upgrading vdevs can be laborious, but I'm OK with that.)
Is it worth using mismatched drives to save $900 upfront or would I be better served just sticking with the larger capacity drives from the get-go?
EDIT: Updated to clarify my intention with the Samba shares.
The server's primary role will be streaming media via Plex and (maybe) Emby. The vast majority of the content is Blu-ray rips. I've got a gigabit connection at home and I'll be letting some friends and family stream from my server. My inital goal is to support transcoding six simultaneous 1080p streams, and to eventually support transcoding four to six 4K streams by adding a second CPU. (Hence the otherwise-overkill CPU specs.)
I'll be doing backups of a handful of computers of multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux). Usually three or four clients at any given time. Time Machine for the Mac and, er, something else for the rest. (I'm still pondering my options here.)
And finally, a few Samba shares. One for adding new content to the media library (by far the largest share), and a few others for miscellaneous other files. It's unlikely that there will ever be more than a few people accessing the file shares at any given time. In fact, with rare exception, it'll just be me.
Specs:
Case: SuperMicro CSE-846BE16-R1K28B
Motherboard: SuperMicro X10DRi
CPU: 1x Intel Xeon E5-2630 v4
Heatsink: 1x SuperMicro SNK-P0048PS
Memory: 4x SuperMicro MEM-DR480L-SL01-ER21 (8GB)
OS Storage: SuperMicro SATA DOM (16GB)
HBA: LSI SAS 9211-4i
I've done a fair bit of research on the hardware and I think it should be solid for this purpose, but if anyone has any feedback, I'd appreciate it.
Thoughts and Questions:
I'll be starting with one CPU and 32GB of RAM, but it's a dual-socket board and I'm planning to add a second CPU and another 32GB of RAM sometime down the road as needed. I can bump the RAM up to 64GB right now, but from what I've read, 32GB will be plenty for a while, and that 64GB should probably be sufficient to cover the final goal of 24x 6TB disks.
I'm planning to use six-drive RAID-Z2 vdevs. I'll start with either one or two vdevs and gradually add one vdev to the zpool at a time until the chassis is full. (Much as I'd love to fill the thing with 24 drives all at once, my budget doesn't permit that.) I'm hoping you all can help me make up my mind as to what disks to use at the start.
I've got an existing NAS with eight 3TB drives—Toshiba DT01ACA300—in a RAID-6 array. They've been running solid for the better part of a year now but I'm outgrowing the existing system, both in storage and in CPU capacity.
Given that, I'm considering two main strategies for populating the drive bays:
First is the easiest, but also most expensive, especially upfront. Start with one vdev of six 6TB drives (probably WD Reds). Then I'd copy everything over from the old NAS and decommission it, drives and all. Grow the zpool one vdev at a time with more 6TB disks. Job done.
Second is to pick up six more of the same 3TB Toshiba drives I'm already using, set up the first vdev, copy over the data from my old NAS, then take six of the eight drives from the old NAS and use them for a second vdev. For future expansion, I'd go for 6TB disks for the remaining two vdevs. Then if I needed to expand beyond that, I'd swap out the 3TB disks and expand the vdevs. It would probably be quite some time before I hit the point where I'd need to start swapping disks and expanding vdevs, though.
Both options would result in the same net amount of storage in the beginning (roughly 16TB when leaving 20% free) but the second option would cost about $900 less. I haven't really seen much in the way of information saying whether or not to avoid mismatched drive capacities and speeds (the Toshibas are 7200 RPM) in a RAID-Z2 setup to know if it's a bad thing or just a "not ideal" thing. While I'd like to take advantage of hardware I already have, I also don't want to do anything that will cause me a lot of pain down the road. (I know that upgrading vdevs can be laborious, but I'm OK with that.)
Is it worth using mismatched drives to save $900 upfront or would I be better served just sticking with the larger capacity drives from the get-go?
EDIT: Updated to clarify my intention with the Samba shares.
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