Could someone please explain why the 2nd NVME drive here shows blank for Used/Free space? Both appear to be in used based on read/write activity. Thank you.

 

Do you have it set up as a mirror? So 2 512GB drives would be 512GB total but mirrored on each drive(each drive has a copy of the same information).

30 minutes ago, foo_fighter said:

Do you have it set up as a mirror? So 2 512GB drives would be 512GB total but mirrored on each drive(each drive has a copy of the same information).

That's a good hypothesis, let me see if I can clear that out and re-create, maybe there were options (been a while since I created this system) to do either mirroring or striping config (I want striping, not mirroring). THank you for the suggestion.

5 minutes ago, toddishere666 said:

That's a good hypothesis, let me see if I can clear that out and re-create, maybe there were options (been a while since I created this system) to do either mirroring or striping config (I want striping, not mirroring). THank you for the suggestion.

Just click on the pool on the Main tab and check what profile is set.   The default is RAID1.

Nice, thank you! 

 

Both replies are correct here, thanks guys!

 

4 hours ago, toddishere666 said:

Nice, thank you! 

 

Both replies are correct here, thanks guys!

 

 

If you do not want redundancy on the pool you can change the profile to be 'single' and then run a Balance which will then give you 1TB in the pool.

Note that in "single" the whole pool is gone in case any of the 2 drive fails like in raid0. 

50 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Note that in "single" the whole pool is gone in case any of the 2 drive fails like in raid0. 

And because of that, if both devices are of the same capacity, you might as well use raid0 instead, at least it will perform better, and the risk is the same.

Thank you for the additional suggestions, everyone. Yes, I found the balance option earlier and used that to convert to raid1. Also played around with mover to relocate the data onto Array.

BTW aside from speed (using HDD in array vs NVME for Cache), are there any other downsides to storing appdata, domains, system (docker, VM, other?) on the Array rather than Cache? Since array is behind dual parity, that should provide safety in case of failure, allowing for Cache to be raid0 with almost no dangers?

 

I am getting some new NVME from BF sales and will be upgrading this cache soon anyway.

 

@JorgeB about your comment, you said since both are same capacity, may as well use raid0 (striping, no redundancy) with same risk. I don't think that's true if appdata, domains, system shares are stored there (on one of two drives in striped config), right? Or are you suggesting to make copies of those shares on the 2nd drive in the raid0 cache pool?

 

2 hours ago, toddishere666 said:

BTW aside from speed (using HDD in array vs NVME for Cache), are there any other downsides to storing appdata, domains, system (docker, VM, other?) on the Array rather than Cache?

Performance will be terrible for many apps.

 

Just get the appdata backup and VM backup plugins and get them backed up regularly.

  

2 hours ago, toddishere666 said:

you said since both are same capacity, may as well use raid0 (striping, no redundancy) with same risk

Same risk between single and raid0. 

Edited November 29, 20241 yr by Kilrah

3 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Performance will be terrible for many apps.

 

Just get the appdata backup and VM backup plugins and get them backed up regularly.

  

Same risk between single and raid0. 

 

Perfect, thank you for informing me of the backup plugins. I know I asked some newbie questions in this thread, I am a novice user at this time and appreciate everyone's help! It's awesome how many features there are in Unraid and how all these various scenarios and options have been thought of and exist for me to discover. Community support here and via apps helps a lot!