Galooch

Perfect! Thank you again @JorgeB. Thanks for the ASM116 reminder as I do plan on using 6 of the SATA ports to start giving me 4 slots for future expansion. However, the ASM116 will give me those 6 so I only need one for now leaving one of my nvme slots open if/when I need it. One last question on potential expansion...you mentioned HDDs but I my final 4 slots in the future will be SSDs. When that time comes, I assume I could simply plug those SSDs directly into my MB SATA ports and move 4 HDDs to the ASM1166s so that those two controllers will only be handling HDDs. Is that the best way to handle that and avoid bottlenecks?

Thanks for this thread @JorgeB as it has been extremely helpful! I am just starting out my first Unraid build and wanted to confirm a few choices as I find myself getting confused sometimes regarding lanes and throughput etc. My motherboard is an Asrock Z790 PRO RS WIFI which has 4 m.2 slots. I would like to add 10 SATA ports. Based on reading this thread, I think I should be good with 2x JMB585-based cards (avoiding port multipliers). Here is the current plan for my m.2 slots: M.2 Slot M2_1: 1TB NVMe SSD (WD Black SN850X) - zfs mirrored cache M.2 Slot M2_2: JMB585 5-port SATA expander (IOCREST SATA Expander) M.2 Slot M2_3: 1TB NVMe SSD (WD Black SN850X) - zfs mirrored cache M.2 Slot M2_4: JMB585 5-port SATA expander (IOCREST SATA Expander) My questions: Thoughts on the JMB585 card selected? It looks to match the criteria of the original recommendations, but it does mention "Can support port Multiplier that is not in a RAID configuration" in the description but not sure what that means since it is only 5 ports and is JMB585. Does that sound like a red flag? Thoughts on my m.2 slot plan? Would I have any bottlenecks with this setup? None of my PCIe slots are in use today, but I would like to maybe add a mid-range GPU down the road in the PCIe5x16 slot. Would my m.2 and PCIe slots be competing with each other and hurting performance? Thanks again in advance to any one who might be able to help!

Thanks for the quick response @trurl. Given the small size of the SSDs and your suggestion, its not good idea to create a zfs or btfs cache pool with them and the nvme? I assume that those small drives would limit the nvme in various ways. In that case, would my best path towards cache redundancy be to simply get another 1TB nvme and do a zfs mirror? In the end, this would free up the 4 SSD slots for future use as necessary. Perhaps in the future, I could create move my critical zfs pool data over to an a larger all-ssd zpool and free up those 3.5 slots when the media library requires it in my unraid array, if that makes sense...unless there may be another use case for those future SSDs.

Hi all, As a (soon-to-be) former Synology user, I am currently in the process of planning out my next NAS system and Unraid is currently at the top of my list. I am currently awaiting my new system parts to arrive. In the meantime, I have been doing a lot of research to best plan my filesystem and storage layout, and like most, have focused on zfs vs xfs use cases to see how and where it might be best to use. Below are my fairly standard use cases along with my general plan and initial reasoning, along with a few questions. I would appreciate any feedback on this setup and if there suggestions to improve. Thanks in advance and excited to join the Unraid journey with everyone. Use: standard media streaming, dockers, and light gaming VM usage Case: I am using a Fractal Define 7 which can house 14x3.5" and 4xSSDs. My motherboard has space for 3NVME 1. Unraid Array (xfs) - 11 drives - primary use case is for non-essential large media files, minimal writes, periodic reads; potentially use to house additional copy of more critical data if I can automate that. 18TB - parity1 18TB - parity2 16TBx3 10TBx1 8TBx3 4TBX1 2TBx1 2. ZPool (zfs - raidz1) - 3 drives - primary use case is for more critical data such as documents, family photos/videos etc.; this woudl also let me take advantage of zfs compression unlike my media files that may have a more limited benefit. The current size of these critical file is around 2TB so I have some room for growth for now. 4TBx3 3. Cache (zfs?) - from my reading, this cache is where I will likely keep my VMs and Docker containers/appdata. Cache is where I need a bit of guidance on the best way to configure things to start off: Does having both an Unraid array for media, and a smaller zpool for data impact my cache choice? Would they both leverage it? Since I have a combination of a new NVME and some older/smaller SSDs, I'm not sure the best way to start considering I will have the space to add 2 NVMEs and 2SSDs down the road. What is the best way to use my current remaining discs today and what might might upgrade plans be given the extra slots? NVME A: 1TB NVME B: N/A SSD A: 250GB SSD B: 60GB SSD C: N/A SSD D: N/A Again, thanks for reading this far and happy to join the Unraid community!