Guidance for my setup

[spooknik]

Hello!

First time Unraid user and I am trying to determine the best setup for my drives. I have:
 

• (2) 16TB Seagate EXOS
• (2) 8TB Seagate Ironwolf
• (2) 1TB Samsung 970 EVO plus NVME SSD

 

I would like to run

• Network share and some applications like Jellyfin, Docker and VMs 
• Parity for each drive (16TB mirrors each other, and so forth)
• Cache (buffer?) for network sharing, to speed up reads and writes.
• ZFS if possible (Can it be on the main array?)

 

Challenges: 

 

I am used to ZFS and would like to keep using it, I realize ZFS support is still early on Unraid but would it be possible to make a mirrored pool with my mechanical drives? I notice most people I have seen make a pool for ZFS, but can this be done on the array? I am too new to Unraid to know the implications of using a pool vs. the array. I notice you must have a disk in the array to start it, so if my mechanical drives go in a pool for ZFS, do my ssd's then go in the array? (I am a bit confused on this point)

 

Sorry for the beginner questions, just trying to get to terms with Unraid 😊

[itimpi]

4 hours ago, spooknik said:

Hello!

First time Unraid user and I am trying to determine the best setup for my drives. I have:
 

• (2) 16TB Seagate EXOS
• (2) 8TB Seagate Ironwolf
• (2) 1TB Samsung 970 EVO plus NVME SSD

 

I would like to run

• Network share and some applications like Jellyfin, Docker and VMs 
• Parity for each drive (16TB mirrors each other, and so forth)
• Cache (buffer?) for network sharing, to speed up reads and writes.
• ZFS if possible (Can it be on the main array?)

 

Challenges: 

 

I am used to ZFS and would like to keep using it, I realize ZFS support is still early on Unraid but would it be possible to make a mirrored pool with my mechanical drives? I notice most people I have seen make a pool for ZFS, but can this be done on the array? I am too new to Unraid to know the implications of using a pool vs. the array. I notice you must have a disk in the array to start it, so if my mechanical drives go in a pool for ZFS, do my ssd's then go in the array? (I am a bit confused on this point)

 

Sorry for the beginner questions, just trying to get to terms with Unraid 😊

in the Unraid array any ZFS format drives are a single drive self-contained ZFS file system.

 

in the current release there is a technical requirement to have at least 1 drive in the main array, but if you do not want to actually use it to store anything then something like a small flash drive can satisfy this requirement.    You could then set up all your drives as pools.