Hello all -

I have a new build I'd like to confirm is setup correctly before I begin adding any data. Below I have 4 6TB drives. 3 used in the array and 1 used as parity. I also have 2 2TB NVME drives. 1 in the same array and 1 as cache.

My thoughts are to use the array for basically everything in my house, NVR, backups of other devices and computers, central storage for photos, etc. The NVME as cache should work to offload the writing to this array, correct?

I wanted a second NVME drive for Docker instances but didn't know If I needed a separate array or if it needed to go in the pool as a separate issues.

I appreciate any insight and education here before I start copying data from my other locations.

Frank

SSDs in the array cannot be trimmed and can only be written at parity speed.

Put both nvme in pool as mirror, it should be enough for cache and dockers.

Thanks - do I just create a new pool call "whatever_pool" and put both nvme devices in it? Do I not need a cache drive at all?

2 hours ago, frank_sp61 said:

Do I not need a cache drive at all

Think of 'cache' as a logical function that you set at the User Share level and associate with a pool. The name of the pool is irrelevant so there is no requirement to have a pool actually called 'cache'

Okay, this is my new config. But I am wondering why the system automatically used btrfs for the NVME pool drives. Is this correct or should I use xfs there as well?

Read here:

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/#multi-device-mode

Pools default to btrfs, multidevice pools can only be btrfs or zfs, from the two, I would recommend zfs.

Thank you, that makes sense. I also noticed per the above screenshot that there are 2 2TB nvme's but only 1 shows that it has space. Shouldn't this say 4 TB instead of 2 TB for the pool? Or is the pool always parity backed up (i.e. uses the other) ?

Also, I read that XFS should be used for the array but am seeing Youtube videos from Space Invader that ZFS might be better?

37 minutes ago, frank_sp61 said:

but only 1 shows that it has space.

It's the stats for the pool, by default, with two devices, a mirror is created for redundancy.

38 minutes ago, frank_sp61 said:

Also, I read that XFS should be used for the array but am seeing Youtube videos from Space Invader that ZFS might be better?

For the typical user, xfs is the recommended fs for the array