First Unraid Server

[venno]

Hi All

 

I have a HP ML310e V2 Xeon server that I have built up with 32GB ECC ram, E3-1241 CPU, 4 bay SSD (4 x 250GB) unit, 6 bay 2.5" HDD (4 x WD Red 750GB), HP 3640 quad NIC card and an LSI PCIE 3.0 HBA card.

 

I have the SSD's and the 4 HDD's using the 2 SAS connectors on the LSI and the empty 2 HDD slots connected to the SAS connector on the motherboard. I am considering to get 2 x 2TB 2.5" HDD to populate remaining spare bays.

 

I have previously been using a Syno NAS (email, docker, plex, sab, sonaar, radar, cctv, contacts, calendar, cloud server) and an HP G8 Microserver running ESXi (mainly linux VM's).

 

My thought is to replace these with the new server running Unraid. My research so far seems to show that all functions can be replicated with the exception of surveilance station (Synology) and that I may have to run a VM of this, which seems to have been tried with varying success.

 

A more initial and basic question I have is regards to disk arrangement and apportioning. Can anyone give a proposal to how best use the SSD's and the HDD's to achieve good speeds for VM and general caching whilst maximising the relatively small amount of disk space I will have at my disposal?

 

Cheers 

[Friis]

Hi

 

Those are some small disks. But the general still applies.

For your 4 HDD:  3 of them set as data and the last as parity.

For your 4 SSD: I would set 2 of them in cache for VMs and the 2 other as data. (Depends how much you are going to use your cache and vms, could go down to 1 cache)

 

For more optimization, what is put on what disk when setting up the shares.

 

 

Well, that is only my opinion, take it if you like.

 

(my setup is 3 x 8TB HDD and 1 x 1TB SDD, so I have 2 data, 1 parity and 1 cache)  [easy to figure out]

[trurl]

Put all SSDs in btrfs raid1 cache pool and HDDs in array then consider a larger parity disk to allow for growth. 

[venno]

Thanks for the advice guys, I have ordered 2 512gb ssd's and will swap out two of the 250's and have one set of 250gb ssd as cache and the set of 500gb as VM/Dockers.

 

I have also ordered 2 x 2.5" 2TB hdd's to populate the remaining 6 bay dock so 1 will be a parity drive and then I will have 5TB left for NAS/storage, although I may dedicate one 750GB drive to an Expenology VM.