Hello,

I'm new to Unraid, I have "installed" it on a Terramaster F4-424 Pro instead of TOS6.

I have in the NAS:

• 1xSSD of 1TB

• 4xHDDs of 10TB

The use of this NAS will be only data storage, no services.

I created the USB stick and succeed to boot and got access to WebUI.

Now in terms of storage configuration, I'm a bit lost even after reading documentation and watching Youtube videos (especially this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KgOV8BYSU&list=PLwMvJ82pMgANZ5N5pKOjt4Kpl4fBQheUE&index=3).

i want to use ZFS with RAIDZ1 for data storage on HDDs where all have same size.

My first setup is the following:

• 1 pool for cache on SSD using BTRFS

• 1 pool for data storage on the 4 HDD using ZFS RAIDZ1

I didn't create array as i have 4 HDDs with same size.

If you can confirm I didn't make a mistake, I mean no array?

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

"no array" is fine, actually "zfs within the UNRAID array" would be the worst choice of all.

EITHER use a "ZFS-Raid Pool" OR an "UNRAID Array with parity"

But I would consider to use ZFS instead of BTRFS for the cache SSD too. BTRFS is older and maybe rise some problems later. It star is going down already as you can read here everywhere. So better use the most modern and fancy filesystem, even wihout any RAID stuff.

Thanks a lot for your answer, I will change the SSD file system to ZFS in that case.

I have to add a bit more info:

The type of Array you should choose depends on the type of your expected usage.

The UNRAID array (though beeing "slow") is ultimately great when it comes to "datagraves" that grow over the time like video collections and so on. They are usually written once and read very often.

Here is where the cache comes in, it speeds up the initial writing.

The advantage of this type is that it can grow almost unlimited. You can always add a disk, or replace a smaller one with a newer, larger drive (data will be rebuild from parity then, but it takes ages...)

The ZRAID array is faster, also comes with a buildin cache for reading AND writing (taken from the available RAM). It can also "grow" but you are limited to the size of the smallest disk (adding a newer, larger drive will waste the new free sectors).

This is good if data changes frequently like home directories or something.

Your NAS case is limited to 4 drives, so the "unlimited grow" of UNRAID' array is not really unlimited for you.

Thats why I think, ZRAID will be best for you, but of course, you are free to choose, so analyse your usage before you decide...

Edited March 5Mar 5 by MAM59

Hi MAM59,

Thanks again for the advices.

It will be a pure storage as it supposed to ba as NAS.

It will be used in a small company and we will store all important data like: documents, GIT repository, tools etc.

All server features (GIT, Nextcloud or similar) we need, will be hosted on a separate Hardware in order to keep NAS as storage only.

For GIT, only the data will be on the NAS, the DB will be on the same GIT host. DB will be backup regularly on the NAS.

I'm not sure we need to move to an array as : all HDDs have the same size, 20 or 30 TB will be enough (GIT doesn't consume lot of memory and documents are not so big).

Once NAS storage will be full, it will be time to think about heavier infra as it means company has grown a lot ;-)

19 minutes ago, simxpert said:

It will be used in a small company and we will store all important data like: documents, GIT repository, tools etc.

Then ZFS-RAID will be best for you I think. You may even try the designated SATA SSD as "cache" but there are good chances that it wont be needed and can be used for other issues instead.

But of course, do not forget that you need an external means for "backup". Neither RAID or parity is a substitute for a real offline backup...