Cache Help Please

[josephpritt20]

First let me say I'm new to Unraid and I have fell in love with it but still learning, I had this server on a mini pc first but bought a new HP computer (HP Pavilion Desktop PC, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) (TP01-2022, 2021) I am upgrading the ram to 32gb the max for the motherboard I right now only usb external drives which I know will affect the performance. I plan on taking all the drives out of their cases and install them internal with Sata instead of USB, My question is what are you guys recommendations on Cache drives what type of drive (M.2, NVME, PCIe, or Sata) (SSD or HDD) and what brand do you guys think is best. I do not plan on running VMs, only apps and programs like Sonarr and Radarr, I also planning on using it to be able to access those apps outside the network with my own Domain Name. I do plan on add a disk shelf later in the future. I right now have around 50TB attached to the disk array and for the cache I have a 2TB HDD USB External Drive, Buffalo Brand, and I am to improve the speed. I was looking at ebay for the enterprise ssd and not sure which to pick. I am not rich but would pay a good penny for a good drive rather then replace them all the time. So I look to you guys for the advice of the experts let me have it what do you guys think is the best. 

aon-diagnostics-20220118-1809.zip

[trurl]

57 minutes ago, josephpritt20 said:

usb external drives which I know will affect the performance

USB not recommended for array or pool disks for many reason besides just performance. Expect to have to work through some problems when you try to use those disks on SATA connectors. Unraid won't know the assignments of many of them, for example.

[josephpritt20]

I did not think of that if I remember the assignments would that make it easier I have not done it yet but I be in the next week or so. Are you talking about what number they are in the array?

[trurl]

Unraid normally uses disk serial number to identify which disk is assigned to which slot in the array (parity, disk1, ...)

 

Several of your disks aren't identified by the serial number because the USB interface doesn't pass that information. When you attach those disks as SATA, Unraid won't know which slot they were assigned to. These disks also are not passing SMART reports to Unraid, so it can't monitor the health of those disks.

 

In addition to those problems, USB connections are not reliable enough. If an array disk disconnects, it will be out of sync and have to be rebuilt. That won't really apply in your current configuration, since you have no parity to be in sync with, and so no way to rebuild anyway. 

 

Disconnects can also be a problem for multidisk pools such as you have for cache.

 

Sometimes USB interfaces modify the way disks are partitioned or sized and those could be difficult to fix also. Might not be possible to fix without the possibility of rebuilding from parity.

 

Do you have backups of anything important and irreplaceable?

[josephpritt20]

Yes I am keeping backups of the data, at this moment the only information that is stored on my array is the system information, I have a terra-master NAS that I had before I got unraid and almost all of my data is stored there. So if I have to redo my array it wont cause any data loss. After I get everything installed on my new computer I will be moving everything over to the Unraid array.

[trurl]

23 minutes ago, josephpritt20 said:

After I get everything installed on my new computer I will be moving everything over to the Unraid array.

You still will need

37 minutes ago, trurl said:

backups of anything important and irreplaceable

 

Parity is not a substitute for backup.

[josephpritt20]

Its not set up for parity I have all the important data like movies and shows on my NAS and the flash drive is backed up to the NAS also the other files like APPDATA and other files I will back up before moving everything