Storage question

[phthatcher]

New to TrueNAS, a couple decades of computer tech / software dev / network admin / etc. I understand RAID concepts and approaches.

I'm building a NAS, all new hardware, atx case, ASRock mb, amd cpu, 32g ram. It will primarily serve as a Plex server, but also will have a need to store some documents such as tax returns, wedding photos, etc, no requirements on anything but plex to have read/write performance, and plex already handles read performance so no real requirement there.

I have 2 8TB drives and 2 4TB drives dedicated to storage, and a SSD for the OS. I'm looking for the best method to configure them for storage capacity. They will have offsite backup so redundancy/reliability isn't as much as a concern as storage capacity.

My current Plex server (an older gaming desktop with Win11) is aging and I'm worried about failure (had a drive fail recently) which is the reason for the new build.

So, with 2 8TB and 2 4TB drives (8TB drives are brand new, 4TB drives are 6 months old), what would be an ideal setup for TrueNAS considering I'm prioritizing capacity over redundancy.

From what I've read, I'm thinking I create a pool with 1 vdev containing the two 8TB drives (mirrored), and another pool with 1vdev containing the 4TB drives (mirrored), I can put the Plex movies on one and the Plex TV Shows on another. I'm thinking I'll end up with approx 12TB storage capacity which is good considering my current Plex server has about 7TB. This should give me some local redundancy plus extra space. I'll rely on offsite storage for catastrophic failure.

My concern is, from what I've read, if you lose a vdev you lose the entire pool, so if I put two vdevs (2x 8TB & 2x 4TB) in the same pool, if I lose both 4TB drives I lose everything, hence building two pools with 1 vdev each, maybe I'll lose movies, maybe i'll lose TV shows, but at least I dont lose it all and the offiset recovery doesnt take as long.

Main Question: Would using 2 pools, with 1vdev being 2x 8TB mirrored in 1 pool and 1vdev being 2x 4TB mirrored in the second pool be a good configuration?

 

[joeschmuck]

If you create a mirrored vdev as a single pool, if you lose one drive, all is good, it's mirrored. You lose both drives, data gone. Does not matter which pool you are talking about.

One of the better redundant ways to go if you have no real IOPS requirements, one pool RAIDZ2. You could use four 8TB drives and have about 15TB of storage. I didn't look up the actual storage capacity. And you can lose any two drives and still have your data available. That is my advice if you want to use the 8TB drives, buy two more and RAIDZ2 it. This way you don't need to split up your data.

 

[phthatcher]

If you create a mirrored vdev as a single pool, if you lose one drive, all is good, it's mirrored. You lose both drives, data gone. Does not matter which pool you are talking about.

One of the better redundant ways to go if you have no real IOPS requirements, one pool RAIDZ2. You could use four 8TB drives and have about 15TB of storage. I didn't look up the actual storage capacity. And you can lose any two drives and still have your data available. That is my advice if you want to use the 8TB drives, buy two more and RAIDZ2 it. This way you don't need to split up your data.

Thanks for the reply, and buying more 8TB isn't off the table, but I'm trying to find a way to make my fairly new 4TB drives effective. Previously, I had the two 4TB's set up to serve my Plex server entirely, along with some other random "long storage" items, and I use an offsite storage service (IDrive) for long term backup. Nothing on this system has to be redundant to the point of immediate availability, outages to data for a few days is okay because of the offsite backup.

I had the 4TB's mirrored using Windows 11 drive management tech, as I built up my Plex server (burning CDs), but towards the end of burning discs I outgrew 4TB, so I modified the config so I had no local mirroring/redundancy and went 100% storage capacity, so my 4TB mirror went to 8TB storage with IDrive backup in case I lost a drive. In this scenario, I could restore a drive that failed using IDrive tech, either by downloading to a new drive over the internet or asking them to send me a drive with the data. Regardless of the restore technique I was covered, the only difference was days to recover. For me, thats okay. My plex data doesnt change often now that its established, but its around 7TB.

I'm converting that system from Win11 8TB storage (2x4TB) to a TrueNAS and purchased 2x8TB (black friday deal), but I'd still like to utilize the 2x4TB. I don't have enough "random storage, like tax documents, photos etc" to dedicate and mirror the 2x4TB's, most of the space will be empty. If I use the new 2x8TB mirrored for Plex I have about 1TB of growth potential before I have to make a change.

Considering I have max capacity of 2x8TB and 2x4TB I have 24TB raw storage, and I'd like to use it in a meaningful fashion considering I will offsite backup all of it and redundancy/restore time isnt an issue. So what is a good config for TrueNAS so that 1-2 failures wont make me lose 100%, I may have some unavailability/restore time but thats okay, I just don't want to have a lightning strike that goes through my UPS and tags a couple drives and I lose everything and have a much longer restore time via IDrive.

As I understand it, if you lose a vdev you lose the entire pool, so I was thinking of creating 2 pools to reduce offsite recovery time, but is there a good config to do that with 2x8TB and 2x4TB? If not that is okay, I can get more 8TB drives, but if there's a config to use the 2x8TB and 2x4TB effectively for storage capacity and reduce total loss potential... thats what I'm looking for. If I lose both drives in a pool I understand I'll lose the pool, but if I split the purpose of each pool I have less recovery time from offsite recovery to restore that pool, but I don't lose the other pool. If I have it all in one pool, depending on my setup 2 of my 4 drives failing means 100% failure, if I use a different setup I don't have 100% failure but I reduce my storage capacity by half.

Again, getting new drives isn't out of the picture, but I don't need 100% local availability for this data. Ideally, what I anticipate I'll need for local storage long term is 10-12TB, if there was a way to have an 8TB and a 4TB in a pool dedicated to Plex movies, and an 8TB and 4TB in a pool dedicated to Plex TV shows and misc things, and have some minor local redundancy to turn 24TB into 12TB for convenience it would suit me.

if I mirror 2x8TB for plex I only have 1TB for growth, and 2x4TB for "misc" I have a lot of unused space, just trying to be effecient

 

[phthatcher]

Thanks for the reply, and buying more 8TB isn't off the table, but I'm trying to find a way to make my fairly new 4TB drives effective. Previously, I had the two 4TB's set up to serve my Plex server entirely, along with some other random "long storage" items, and I use an offsite storage service (IDrive) for long term backup. Nothing on this system has to be redundant to the point of immediate availability, outages to data for a few days is okay because of the offsite backup.

I had the 4TB's mirrored using Windows 11 drive management tech, as I built up my Plex server (burning CDs), but towards the end of burning discs I outgrew 4TB, so I modified the config so I had no local mirroring/redundancy and went 100% storage capacity, so my 4TB mirror went to 8TB storage with IDrive backup in case I lost a drive. In this scenario, I could restore a drive that failed using IDrive tech, either by downloading to a new drive over the internet or asking them to send me a drive with the data. Regardless of the restore technique I was covered, the only difference was days to recover. For me, thats okay. My plex data doesnt change often now that its established, but its around 7TB.

I'm converting that system from Win11 8TB storage (2x4TB) to a TrueNAS and purchased 2x8TB (black friday deal), but I'd still like to utilize the 2x4TB. I don't have enough "random storage, like tax documents, photos etc" to dedicate and mirror the 2x4TB's, most of the space will be empty. If I use the new 2x8TB mirrored for Plex I have about 1TB of growth potential before I have to make a change.

Considering I have max capacity of 2x8TB and 2x4TB I have 24TB raw storage, and I'd like to use it in a meaningful fashion considering I will offsite backup all of it and redundancy/restore time isnt an issue. So what is a good config for TrueNAS so that 1-2 failures wont make me lose 100%, I may have some unavailability/restore time but thats okay, I just don't want to have a lightning strike that goes through my UPS and tags a couple drives and I lose everything and have a much longer restore time via IDrive.

As I understand it, if you lose a vdev you lose the entire pool, so I was thinking of creating 2 pools to reduce offsite recovery time, but is there a good config to do that with 2x8TB and 2x4TB? If not that is okay, I can get more 8TB drives, but if there's a config to use the 2x8TB and 2x4TB effectively for storage capacity and reduce total loss potential... thats what I'm looking for. If I lose both drives in a pool I understand I'll lose the pool, but if I split the purpose of each pool I have less recovery time from offsite recovery to restore that pool, but I don't lose the other pool. If I have it all in one pool, depending on my setup 2 of my 4 drives failing means 100% failure, if I use a different setup I don't have 100% failure but I reduce my storage capacity by half.

Again, getting new drives isn't out of the picture, but I don't need 100% local availability for this data. Ideally, what I anticipate I'll need for local storage long term is 10-12TB, if there was a way to have an 8TB and a 4TB in a pool dedicated to Plex movies, and an 8TB and 4TB in a pool dedicated to Plex TV shows and misc things, and have some minor local redundancy to turn 24TB into 12TB for convenience it would suit me.

if I mirror 2x8TB for plex I only have 1TB for growth, and 2x4TB for "misc" I have a lot of unused space, just trying to be effecient

After reading my own response, what do y'all think if I had a solo 8TB drive for Plex movies, an 8TB for plex TV shows, both in their own pool, single vdevs for each pool. If I lose one I lose one, I recover them via offsite backup, and a 3rd pool that mirrors my 2x4TB's for "misc". Granted, most of my mirrored 2x4TB's will be empty but I end up with (no math applied) 16TB for plex with no redundancy, and 4TB for personal with redundancy. so from 24TB I go down to 20TB raw capacity, I dont see myself outgrowing 8TB for movies or 8TB for TV shows for plex in the near future, and definitely not 4TB for personal documents/photos in near future

 

[joeschmuck]

After reading my own response, what do y'all think if I had a solo 8TB drive for Plex movies, an 8TB for plex TV shows, both in their own pool, single vdevs for each pool. If I lose one I lose one, I recover them via offsite backup, and a 3rd pool that mirrors my 2x4TB's for "misc".

That sounds fine as you know the risks. To be completely honest with you, I see some people put a lot of money into Plex and storing a lot of video content and I don't understand why. I guess if you had a terrible internet connection for streaming, but this is a very expensive way to store movies and TV Shows. I have about 60 movies right now and I watch a few last week when I have an internet blackout that lasted all day and evening. It was back on the following day. So I watch a few movies that I like to watch over again. But my NAS is mainly for backups of my computers (wife, daughter, my laptop and desktop) and for financial data and some software I purchased. With the exception of the computer backups, I could fit it all on a 2TB drive. I'm so over the bragging rights to having 1000+ movies at the push of a button because there are probably millions available over the internet streaming services. Just my opinion and you know what they say, everyone has an opinion.

So, you can do the single stripe vdevs, it would work fine until a drive failure occurs. But you have a backup so no big deal except for the time it takes to recover 8TB of data (a long time).

Have fun!

 

[phthatcher]

That sounds fine as you know the risks. To be completely honest with you, I see some people put a lot of money into Plex and storing a lot of video content and I don't understand why. I guess if you had a terrible internet connection for streaming, but this is a very expensive way to store movies and TV Shows. I have about 60 movies right now and I watch a few last week when I have an internet blackout that lasted all day and evening. It was back on the following day. So I watch a few movies that I like to watch over again. But my NAS is mainly for backups of my computers (wife, daughter, my laptop and desktop) and for financial data and some software I purchased. With the exception of the computer backups, I could fit it all on a 2TB drive. I'm so over the bragging rights to having 1000+ movies at the push of a button because there are probably millions available over the internet streaming services. Just my opinion and you know what they say, everyone has an opinion.

So, you can do the single stripe vdevs, it would work fine until a drive failure occurs. But you have a backup so no big deal except for the time it takes to recover 8TB of data (a long time).

Have fun!

Off-topic from NAS, but my purpose for Plex and knowing their are so many streaming services is ... I purchased several seasons of shows, movies, etc, from Amazon Prime, when I got married there was no way to combine my purchases with my wife's unless we paid two subscriptions for one home. For me, I paid the same price for the digital product that I would for the physical product, but now they have the ability to remove "DVDs from my house". Secondly, I really enjoy shows like "The Office" that I may binge multiple times over the course of a few years, this year its free on amazon prime, next year its only on netflix, next year its not available at all, all these subscription services never give you the ability to "own" anything even if you've paid for its physical equivalent. For me, I use some streaming services for discovering "new" content, if I like it I purchase a physical copy and burn it to plex... Many TV series I've enjoyed over the years are not available to stream anymore from my paid services, but if I pay $20/month for a different paid subscription its available (for an unknown period of time, until the contract we arent aware of expires).

For me, Plex isnt status or availability, its the shows/movies I enjoy that I like to rewatch, that I've purchased, and dont want to "purchase" again when my streaming services stop serving it, but a new service does. I'd rather buy the series on DVD/Bluray, burn it, and never worry about it again. Its also a great place for home movies (grandparents/parents, holidays, kids, etc) that can propogate. If you post them to FB or youtube, the odds your kids/grandkids ever see it as adults is slim, its a new generation "heirloom"

 

[joeschmuck]

I like the way you explained it and I completely understand and agree. To be honest, I personally dislike purchasing a movie from a cloud service. There was some cloud service many moons ago that folded and I had a few cheap movies there and I could care less about them but the service went away and was transferred to another service, then something happened and the movies were gone. I want to have it in my physical hand. It could be a digital download, but I will not purchase a cloud stored movie. I have ripped many of my DVD/BRay collection, but only the ones I know I will watch over and over again. Anything else, I can pull the movie and wipe off the dust.

 

[Arwen]

I keep some local media too, (3,736 MP4s last count). Just in case. And some things that are not always available on streaming for the channels I have available.

To be clear, some of the videos are specials. For example, my fancy, special edition of Terminator 2: Judgement Day has 3 versions of the movie, AND 55 specials. (Where were you on Judgement Day & Hour? I was answering my pager! You?) Other numerous videos are because I have long running series, (10 seasons of Stargate: SG1... plus Stargate: Atlantis).

 

[joeschmuck]

That is a few movies. I really like Stargate SG1 and even Atlantis, but I didn't fancy SGU. Just too dark for me. Stargate streams for free on Pluto TV. They stream 24/7.

 

[Arwen]

Many of my DVD purchases started at 2000 when I cut the cord, (quit cable T.V.). I had moved and never bothered to get cable T.V. at my new place. Plus, I drove by a Blockbuster on the way home from work. Even two other Blockbusters were on the alternate route home...

My DVD & Blu-ray purchases slowed down around 2010. Then, streaming services covered my needs. I do buy some things just in case... And buy some odd series or movies that were not available on streaming services, (buy or rent), when I wanted to watch them.

 

[joeschmuck]

Blockbusters, I remember them well. I remember when Netflix first came out as a mail order service. 3 movies at any given time. Okay, way off topic.