Help for Mixed Size All SSD Config, Please

[webuser30]

Good morning all. First of all, sorry for writing the next chapter of War and Peace. My "smart pill" must be kicking in and I'm a blabber mouth right now.

 

I'm about two weeks in on my trial license (and lurking here even longer) and so far love the product. I've poured through all the (relevant anyways) documentation, release notes, forum posts, etc, but haven't quite been able to piece together a good config for my edge configuration. I'd like to get input/recommendations on some of my first world problems, namely, how to best configure a mix of SSD sizes.

 

Here is the relevant info...

 

Drives are currently connected through a LSI SAS 9300-16i HBA and Adaptec 82885T expander (even though I don't need the expander YET). I have a Dell H350 (PCIe 4.0 12Gbps 8x port, essentially a rebranded LSI 9500-8i) on the way that I plan to flash to IT mode and use (with the expander). All drives are Enterprise Grade with the exception of the 2TB NVMe.

4x 30TB SSD (12Gbps SAS connected through HBA)

6x 15TB SSD (12Gbps SAS connected through HBA)

4x 8TB SSD (6Gbps SATA connected directly to the MB)

5x 8TB HDD (SAS connected to the HBA; optional for now, but I'd be very interested to hear recommendations on how to incorporate them)

1x 2TB WD SN770 NVMe (could be 2x or possibly 3x if need be)

Other basics:

* i5-12600k on a Z790 mATX PCIe Gen4 MB with 32GB DDR4 RAM (could upgrade to 128GB if needed)

* 10Gbps NIC (Currently only connected to a 10Gpbs NIC on my current media server, I'll probably just use the 1Gb connection on the MB after the data has been moved since I don't have the infrastructure or WAN speed to support more than 1Gb. 

* 850W PSU (the estimates I'm seeing online put my config at around half that)

* Attached to a 1500VA APC UPS with nothing else on it.

 

I'm mostly just going to use it as a Plex media server with all the common docker containers for such use. I want to be able to transcode around 10 streams concurrently which is way more than I'll need today. 

 

I'm hoping for something that...

1. Provides a smooth experience in Plex for remote users - I imagine I'll be limited by my upload speed (1Gb Comcast cable), but there's not much I can do about that sans moving it to a commercial datacenter which I don't want to do.

2. Expandable - I want to be able to easily add capacity as drives fill up. I won't necessarily be limited by the room in this case as I'm designing and printing new mounts for the drives that will significantly increase the number I can "stuff" into this case, but still keep them cool enough.

3. Reliable - I don't want to have to babysit and constantly tinker with it after it's setup and working well. Any new features/apps added in the future don't count here!

4. High usable capacity to data protection ratio - I have a bit over 100TB of media today that I plan to move onto it and would still like a good amount of headroom. Most of the data can be easily, if not time consumingly, replaced. I guess I mean I'm leaning more toward parity than mirroring for a protection scheme. 

5. Able to serve me for the next 5-ish years - Yes, I realize that is highly dependent on a number of items, some of which are out of my control, but you know what I mean.

6. Smallish - I'm going to use a Fractal Design Node 804 case that I already have laying around.

7. Fairly low power usage - I realized too late that the CPU I chose has a 125w TDP, but I'll do what I can with the remainder.

8. Fairly quiet 

 

I'm willing to give up...

1. Maximum Speed - It just needs to be faster than my intended use case, but speed is always welcomed!

2. Cost - I don't think I need much more at this point to get it working well.

 

Some thoughts...

1. I'm hesitant to use ZFS because of the varied drive sizes I have today as well as when I need to add more. I'm not opposed to ZFS, just a bit wary of its new-ish implementation here and some of it's (my) perceived limitations. 

2. Multiple pools would probably satisfy my need, but I don't want to have to move things around once space gets tight. I'm doing that now and it sucks!

3. Probably the closest config I have found is here... https://forums.unraid.net/topic/142097-all-ssd-unraid-server/, but my mixed drive sizes has me perplexed.

 

Good afternoon (now) and thanks for sticking it out and losing a good 5mins of your life reading this that you'll never get back!

 

[JorgeB]

If performance is not a priority you can use them all in the array, if it is I would create multiple zfs pools according to device capacity.