New to unraid , Looking for tips

[Homebrewzero]

I've outgrown my Synology NAS, and I now building a new server and looking to use UNRAID as my NAS homelab server. 

Hardware I have or am planning on getting  
Intel-5 (buying) 
64 GB of ram ( buying )
2 x 1 TB NVME ( already have) 
1 x 256G 2.5 SSD (already have) 
4 x 14 TB HD ( already have) 


I plan on running plex, sonarr,radar,overseer,overseer,calibre,grocy, hydra, NZBget, retroNAS,nextcloud  and probably some game server. 

Do I use the 2 x 1TB NVME drives as a separate storage(1TB) pool for the HDD to run docker and VMs, or do I set them up as a cache? I have an extra 256G SSD from another project, could I use that as an SSD Cache? 





 

[trurl]

1 hour ago, Homebrewzero said:

Do I use the 2 x 1TB NVME drives as a separate storage(1TB) pool for the HDD to run docker and VMs, or do I set them up as a cache?

You can use for docker/VM and for cache.

 

Or you can have separate cache pool.

 

How much do you plan to cache? Mover is intended for idle time. Default schedule is once per day in the middle of the night.

[ConnerVT]

22 hours ago, Homebrewzero said:

Do I use the 2 x 1TB NVME drives as a separate storage(1TB) pool for the HDD to run docker and VMs, or do I set them up as a cache? I have an extra 256G SSD from another project, could I use that as an SSD Cache? 

Yes.  😁

 

But seriously, it is all depending on how you expect the data to be moving in your system.  So as they say, Your Mileage May Vary.  In my system, I have 4 pools, 3 SSD and 1 spinning rust (for my Frigate NVR).  On the SSDs I have the following:

• 2TB NVME - Used for Array Cache, system share (docker.img and libvert.img) and appdata share.
• 2TB SSD - Used for my VMs (domains and isos shares)
• 128GB SSD - Used for transcoding (my very first SSD, I have has forever.  Was sitting in a drawer, unused.  Figured I would use/abuse it until it dies).

 

The two things to keep in mind when deciding how to allocate things is:

• Files where programs run (docker and VM) should be fast access.  So SSD is better than spinning drives (especially if you wish for drives to be able to spin down).  Therefore appdata and domains are best on SSD.
• Cache drive should be larger than the largest amount of data you plan to eventually move to your array between scheduled Mover runs.  Yes, Unraid will write directly to the array once you cache is full, but it sometimes gets confused so I recommend avoiding the situation.

[Homebrewzero]

I would have media( Videos/Music) and possibly network labs( wont be always on)  on my Normal HDD for 4k Streanimng,  SSD would be for VM/Docker Game server that will run 100% of the time. The cache, I'm, not sure what to use it for. 

HDD Storage, and Streaming media 
SSD  Sonarr/Radarr/Plex/NZBGet Nextcloud REtro NAS ... 
Cache, Not sure what should go here. 

Questions, What are scheduled Mover runs?

Cheers, 

[ConnerVT]

https://docs.unraid.net/legacy/FAQ/cache-disk/#the-mover