Hi,

 

I'm going to be moving from my GEN 8 HP micro server to an SSD based NAS box (something like the Terramaster F8) but can't really justify the one hit spend on the NAS box and the drives, so my plan, if it's feasible, is to buy the nvme M.2 drives, over time and swap the HDDs out of my current HP box and replace with the SSDs - let them rebuild and eventually will have replaced the whole array with SSDs which will then be ready to be switched to the new hardware in due course....

 

Is this process feasible or am I wishing too hard for an easy life? I really don't want to build a whole separate box and copy the data over - I just can't be bothered with the palava of it and want the path of least resistance and effort 

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited October 17, 20241 yr by grizlyadams
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It'll technically work as long as the sizes are OK (often a "2TB" SSD may be smaller than a 2TB HDD and thus not be able to take its place), but SSDs are not recommended for use in the array in the first place, you may get low write performance and accelerated wear due to the lack of TRIM support. 

 

Also if your HP server doesn't pass through the drives "as is" which can be quite common depending on the controller card in use you may not be able to transfer the storage as is to new hardware.

 

I.e. need more details.

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Kilrah

11 hours ago, Kilrah said:

often a "2TB" SSD may be smaller than a 2TB HDD and thus not be able to take its place

That's true, but note that even if they are of the same exact size, it won't work, since Unraid partitions SSDs with a slight smaller partition, though you could get around that by manually partitioning the SSDs first.

Well, that's burst my bubble 😕

I don't want SSDs for speed, I want them for their power efficiency and weight savings and to use them on the move; the server is mounted in an RV and I have to shut it down when I'm on the move, not the end of the world of course, but I just want a large capacity, redundant, NAS that I can just set and leave, and use for all the bits I have on it now and some future (homeassistant) that doesn't hammer the power when off-grid . The current one also generates a ton of heat which is of course just wasted energy. 

The other factor is of course cost - this works, with limitations, and going the all SSD route has a significant cost to get the same array size.

Edited October 17, 20241 yr by grizlyadams
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If the lack of trim support is not an issue, the rest can easily be done, you would just need to create the partitions manually before replacing the device, I can post the command for that, and the capacity is usually not a problem if you choose a device that announces 2TB, and not 1.9x for example.

22 hours ago, JorgeB said:

If the lack of trim support is not an issue, the rest can easily be done, you would just need to create the partitions manually before replacing the device, I can post the command for that, and the capacity is usually not a problem if you choose a device that announces 2TB, and not 1.9x for example.

I'm guessing the lack of trim is an issue in that the drives will degrade over time.  It doesn't mean my want of a low power, low heat, always on NAS device is unobtainable, it just means my route there is different and it will use a different method for redundancy without an array and i'll need to build it pretty much from scratch rather than my planned shortcut. 🙂

One alternative you be to create a raidz pool with the SSDs to replace the array, but for that you would need to get the all at the same time.

12 hours ago, JorgeB said:

One alternative you be to create a raidz pool with the SSDs to replace the array, but for that you would need to get the all at the same time.

that's probably the way I'll go - j̶u̶s̶t̶ h̶o̶w̶ t̶o̶ a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶h̶ t̶h̶e̶ S̶S̶D̶s̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶ b̶e̶ t̶h̶e̶ n̶e̶x̶t̶ c̶h̶a̶l̶l̶e̶n̶g̶e̶. with a PCIe 4 slot NVME ssd adapter. That, or wait and build the new SSD box standalone and transfer the current data to the new one (what I was trying to avoid in the first place of course  )

Edited October 17, 20241 yr by grizlyadams
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