New to Unraid, planning setup

[Anon0511]

Sup,

 

I currently have a Deskmini A300 as Homeserver and a HP Microserver with DSM running and estimated the best Price/Performance path to go for my current situation. So I was planning to reuse as much as possible from my old Hardware because I plan to upgrade my PC to AM5 this year. I already bought Unraid a short time ago when it was 10% off as well.

Storage-wise that would mean I have 2x8TB from my current NAS and 2x2TB Samsung 980 Pro + 2x1TB MX500 from my PC. I will need my Docker Apps to run on the NVMe Disks (RAID1) and planned the normal SSDs as the Cache for the Shares (RAID1).

Now there is the ZFS topic and using ZFS would help me not buying a Parity Disk. Does it still make sense to use the SSDs as Cache for a ZFS pool? And how about the spindown? I have read different tellings about it. I do want to achieve power saving as much as possible.

 

Cheers

[itimpi]

1 hour ago, Anon0511 said:

Does it still make sense to use the SSDs as Cache for a ZFS pool?

When you create a ZFS pool you specify the raid level you want and that automatically builds in parity if you select a redundant level.   If you set any share to only be on that pool then not much point in trying to cache them.

 

if you are talking about ZFS in the main array then each drive is its own single drive pool with no redundancy, and you still need a parity drive if you want to be protected against a drive failing.   In this case caching shares DOES make sense as the main array still has the performance cost of updating parity even though individual drives may be using ZFS.

[Anon0511]

6 minutes ago, itimpi said:

When you create a ZFS pool you specify the raid level you want and that automatically builds in parity if you select a redundant level.   If you set any share to only be on that pool then not much point in trying to cache them.

So, it would be ZRAID1, but theoretically couldn't I still run the shares with Cache yes or prefer?

[itimpi]

Just now, Anon0511 said:

So, it would be ZRAID1, but theoretically couldn't I still run the shares with Cache yes or prefer?

Those settings would only make sense in the context of files also being on the main Unraid array.    You would use the ‘Only’ option if you wanted all of the share on a ZFS pool.

[Anon0511]

I don't quite understand. So let me try a different way. What would be the "best way" or your suggested way with the disks available?

[-MacGyver-]

You wouldn't have an unRAID array. With only the ZFS pool you want the setting at "only".

 

Without the array the idea of unRAID cache no longer exists, hence the reason itimpi started what he did.