Storing files on cache drive permanently

[Reva]

Hi! I'm in the process of putting together my first server (not yet built) and have a few questions.

 

First off, my use case is not very demanding. The server will run Plex, Calibre + Calibre-Web and Nextcloud + a few other programs that aren't very demanding and don't require much space. It will not run any VMs. So appdata, dockers etc. should be lower than 200 GB if i'm not mistaken.

 

Here are all my drives and which files i want to store on each drive, including their sizes which are high estimates.

PC
    NVME 2TB:
        Books (150 GB)
        Audiobooks (200 GB)
    HDD 8 TB:
        Music (700 GB)
        Pictures (350 GB)
        Movies, Tv-Shows and Courses (4.4 TB)
        All Nextcloud files (1 TB)

Unraid Server
    NVME 2TB:
        Cache
        Appdata (Size?)

        Dockers (Size?)
        Books (150 GB)
        Audiobooks (200 GB)
        Music (700 GB)
        Other files from Nextcloud (>100 GB)
    HDD 2x14TB in the UnRaid equivalent of Raid 1 (1x14 TB data drive and 1x14TB parity drive in my case):
        Movies, Tv-Shows and Courses (4.4 TB)
        Pictures (350 GB)
        Picture and video files from Nextcloud (500-1000 GB)

Files to backup to remote location
    4 TB LaCie HDD:
        Books (150 GB)
        Audiobooks (200 GB)
        Music (700 GB)
        Pictures (350 GB)
        All Nextcloud files (1 TB)

 

Is the above doable?

Can I store my files permanently on a cache drive, as shown above? I.e. books, audiobooks and music on the same drive that acts as cache and stores all appdata, dockers and program files. Is this what "pools" are used for? Or would it be better with 2 ssds to separate the data?

 

Can the Nextcloud files be split up like that? If not they will all be on the 14 TB hard drives.

 

The server will have 2x14 TB Toshiba hard drives. If i want to use one for mirroring the other, am i correct that I set one of them as data drive and one as parity? And this will allow me to expand with new drives in the future so long as they are no bigger than 14 TB?

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Reva

[Reva]

Any guidance?

[JonathanM]

21 hours ago, Reva said:

Can I store my files permanently on a cache drive, as shown above?

Sure, set that share to cache only.

21 hours ago, Reva said:

Can the Nextcloud files be split up like that?

Yes, shares can have folders on multiple array drives and pools. You would set the share to cache: no if you wanted new files to be written to the array, or cache: only if you wanted new files to be written to cache.  Mover ignores cache no and only.

21 hours ago, Reva said:

The server will have 2x14 TB Toshiba hard drives. If i want to use one for mirroring the other, am i correct that I set one of them as data drive and one as parity? And this will allow me to expand with new drives in the future so long as they are no bigger than 14 TB?

Yes. When you add new drives the parity will no longer be a mirror, but it will still allow the reconstruction of a single failed drive as long as the other data drives are ok.

 

21 hours ago, Reva said:

Is this what "pools" are used for?

Previous versions of Unraid only allowed 1 pool, and it was always called cache. The ability to set up multiple pools is new, as is the ability to name them differently. The usage is still the same.

 

There is a restriction on automatic scheduled moves, each share can only have 1 pool assigned for scheduled movement, but if you manually put files on a different specific pool in a root folder, that folder is still part of the user share with that name.

 

Shares with cache: yes and cache: prefer will move files between their assigned pool and the main array when the mover schedule dictates.