Best config for 12 x 10Tb drives

[m0t0rh3ad]

Hello, I'm new to UNRAID. I've got server with such configuration:

Xeon D-1518

32Gb DDR4 ECC Reg

integrated HBA LSI 3008 16-ports

12x10Tb HDD drives HGST SAS

2x120Gb Kingston SSD (not server oriented)

NVidia GeForce 1050Ti for Video HW Transcoding

I plan use this setup for personal media server: movies, tv series, photos. Apps to install: plex, transmission, some nvr dockers

As I correct understood UNRAID philosophy, I can dedicate 2 drives for parity and all my data will be written sequentially on one disk per file and I can configure to utilize disks step-by-step depending on my data size. Other drives (unused) can be in spindown mode.

What will be the best disk configuration for my setup or you can suggest me something else?

Thanks!

[trurl]

Add disks as needed for capacity. Don't put them all in just because you have them.

 

The SSDs may be a little small for much caching but will be enough for dockers and VMs.

 

How do you plan to use Unraid? 

[m0t0rh3ad]

1 hour ago, trurl said:

Add disks as needed for capacity. Don't put them all in just because you have them.

 

The SSDs may be a little small for much caching but will be enough for dockers and VMs.

 

How do you plan to use Unraid? 

Thanks for answer.

I plan to use UNRAID as Media server - plex (with NVidia HW transcoding) for movies and music streaming, transmission for file downloading, and some solution (motioneye or zoneminder) for nvr (up to 4 cameras). Maybe 1-2 VMs for different purposes. 

So, your advice add drives one by one when previous will be out of space? Right now I got another NAS with about 36-37Tb of data and plan to move it to the new solution, maybe UNRAID.  So I need only 6-7 drives (out of 12): 2 for Parity and 4-5 for Data, and your recommendation that other disks should not be installed in server?

[Frank1940]

1 hour ago, m0t0rh3ad said:

So I need only 6-7 drives (out of 12): 2 for Parity and 4-5 for Data, and your recommendation that other disks should not be installed in server?

 

That would be mine also.  Adding a new data disk to Unraid is a simple operation.  Each additional disk is another point of failure.  (Granted fixable but why add the potential for a problem when it serves no purpose.) 

 

But if the disks are new, I would throughly test them to avoid the infant mortality issue while the disk is still under warranty.  You could use the manufacturer's testing program or either of the two Unraid utilities-- The Preclear Plugin or the Preclear Docker.  Try to get about a hundred hours of testing on each disk. 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Frank1940

[trurl]

You don't have to wait until full to add another. In fact I recommend keeping some free space on each disk. 

 

Even if you use larger cache disks, don't cache initial data load. Mover is intended for idle time and trying to cache more than cache will hold is going to cause problems. You can make initial load faster by adding parity after completing transfer. 

[m0t0rh3ad]

Another question. What about read performance? As I understood I can use SSD drive only for Write Cache. How can I speed up read performance? 

[trurl]

Each disk in the Unraid array is an independent filesystem, no striping. This is how Unraid allows you to mix different sized disks in a parity protected array. Each disk can be read by itself on any Linux. Files cannot span disks, but folders can (User Shares).

 

Read speed from the array will be at the speed of the single disk containing the file being read, write speed somewhat slower than single disk since parity is updated realtime.