First Unraid Deployment - disk pre-build guidance requested

[explosionhole]

Ahead of my first deployment, and to see & read opinions, best practices for Unraid, advice and certainly gotcha's. I would like the community guidance for a more segregated disk layout and management.

 

I have an HP Microserver Gen8, which I also upgrading itself to higher specs. Typical home server usage, emphasis on using Docker containers to run many functions for me and the obvious media server duties.

I expect to (in time) use the 4x drive slots to cover both, but there is a common use to add an SSD to the internal cabling available for the DVD drive. I will certainly buy a largest disk I can extend to that covers the parity (largest capacity in the array) drive, likely 10TB. I doubt being able to fully populate the whole server, and equally not sure what it should or could be either. Can I start with just 1 drive? Or 1 drive per disk-performance grouping?

 

My existing approach is to use SSD for higher performance needs, then media storage onto more durable and lower cost storage. Then there is a hybrid need between the 2, where use-case judgements need to be made or if possible split across a container or VM (i.e. MySQL binaries split from the data files). I would want to replicate this on Unraid, and would like insights in how Unraid does this compared to a typical Linux O/S use-case?

 

I might expect SSDs to be needed to run the containers from? Or is that in-memory too?

The data mapped / mounted into a container I would expect to run from either the "fast" or "large" data partitions, depending upon need?

 

If I started with 1x HDD (if not from day 1, as soon as a 2nd disk is added, this would become the Parity drive).

 

I need some input about the Microserver's ability to add a 5th drive, which is typically for a boot device SSD (what I currently do, too). But should I simply consider JUST the 4x bays for the data storage in this unit, and using/relying upon the file system tech of BTRFS?

- 1x Parity 10TB

- 1x SSD 1TB or 2TB for the FAST disk needs,

- 2x HDDs, for the LARGE mass storage, match up to the parity as prices / value dictates and over time

 

Or should I equally expect 2x SSDs in order to retain resiliency? Would the SSD need its own 2nd pair? Or would both disk "partitions" (driven from the disk type) be contained under a single Parity disk?

 

I would base my needs around a single disk loss strategy, supported with an off-site backup with BackBlaze too.

 

The available guides focus in one very similar use-case. Absolute newbie, so just trying to figure things out, while components are being shipped...