Config Help

[nAnd]

I'm looking to build my first dedicated NAS/Server and need some help with figuring out how to configure it. I'll be using a Ryzen 5 3600 based platform for the machine, and already have a host of storage devices listed below.

240GB Sata SSD

2TB Sata HDD

2TB Nvme SSD

500GB Nvme SSD

Is there any way I could put these in an array together, or is mixing and matching SSDs/HDDs unwise? I don't think my NAS will be experiencing heavy use (this is honestly more of a "Hey! That'd be fun to do!" project than anything else), but I'd still like it to be fairly functional as I plan to set up weekly Windows backups and host a multitude of VMs/servers on it. 

 

My best idea so far (if it's even possible) is to have one pool with a cache and leave the rest as unassigned disks. I'd buy a 4TB HDD for parity data in the pool, and put the 2TB HDD in as the actual storage (I'd probably add another drive fairly soon after to increase capacity). I'd buy another 500GB SSD so I could have a raid 1 cache, and probably just sell the 240GB SSD on ebay for like 10 bucks. Then I'd set my 2TB SSD to be unassigned storage used for VMS and maybe a sort of PLEX cache if that's possible. 

 

The problem is my motherboard only supports two NVME drives (I guess I could buy a carrier card but that's getting pretty pricy for a build I honestly don't really need). I'd also want to have my VMs parity protected somehow, and honestly have no idea if using unassigned storage as a plex cache is even possible. I could always keep the 2TB drive to just my servers and whatnot, but I think that'd leave the drive severely underutilized. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

PS: Sorry for my kind of rambly post. I tend to be someone who thinks out loud and that seems to translate to forums.

[JonathanM]

On 11/28/2023 at 1:10 PM, nAnd said:

My best idea so far (if it's even possible) is to have one pool with a cache and leave the rest as unassigned disks.

Better idea would be to use only spinning rust in the traditional Unraid parity array, and assign the rest of the SSD's in a logical fashion to multiple different pools. forget the term cache for now, just make multiple single drive pools and put whatever data makes sense on them.

[nAnd]

Thanks! I ended up just throwing them in a "cache" pool that operates less like a cache and more like a boot drive. On a different note, do you have any idea how to get folding@home to work with AMD GPUs on unraid? I figured I'd throw my old r9 390x at some proteins since it's doing nothing but provide a display out atm, but I can't figure out how to get it to work.