[Solved]Recommended config/disk order for my hardware

[Starlord]

Hello! My problem isn't really a technical one so much as a planning one. I already have unraid doing everything I want/need I just want to make sure I'm using my setup to its fullest.

So I have a bit of a different setup. It's all ssd and its a mixture of 7 1tb pcie nvme ssds of varying brands (intel, adata, and 1 samsung) and 4 sata ssds (All sandisk). All are 1tb.

 

The end goal here is I'd like to give unraid all of the sata disks because I plan on adding 4-12 more in the near future. I've got a nice fat docker stack that'll run on it as well. The samsung is already passed through and is the boot disk for my Windows VM. Next NVME I find a good deal on is going to be dedicated to a Pop_OS VM. And then my homelab vms are just simple ones that can run on images on the sata array.

What I'd like to do, is take my 4 intel NVME ssds and essentially store a 3-4tb image that I store my entire game library on and mount it in my windows VM only. Problem is, when I assign them as cache drives it seems to stripe on 2 and mirror on 2 reducing the pool size to just 2tb. I know I can change the raidlevel via terminal with btrfs but is that the best solution to achieve a single mountable disk image across 4 of my fastest drives?

I don't really care about parity just yet. I only have 10gb total data I cant afford to lose and that's already backed up in half a dozen other places. But in the future I'd love to run a FOG server to make incremental image level backups of all of my virtual machines but I need to grow my array first.
Any suggestions? I've attached my hardware profile. And I can start fresh if need be with an entire new config.

rasputin.xml

Edited June 19, 2019 by Starlord
Solved

[testdasi]

If the 4 Intel NVMe is going to be mounted "in my windows VM only", why don't you just pass those through directly to the VM and then use windows storage space to span the disks (i.e. effectively a RAID 0). Windows storage space doesn't float everyone's boat but it beats having an image on top of a btrfs RAID 0 in terms of complexity and risks.

 

To be honest though, you surely are not using your system to its fullest. NVMe drives to store game library is a bit... are you really that rich... you know what I mean?

[Starlord]

50 minutes ago, testdasi said:

If the 4 Intel NVMe is going to be mounted "in my windows VM only", why don't you just pass those through directly to the VM and then use windows storage space to span the disks (i.e. effectively a RAID 0). Windows storage space doesn't float everyone's boat but it beats having an image on top of a btrfs RAID 0 in terms of complexity and risks.

 

To be honest though, you surely are not using your system to its fullest. NVMe drives to store game library is a bit... are you really that rich... you know what I mean?

Well I'd like to have the option to mount the image in my Linux vm as proton gets better and better.
I work in IT and I dont currently have a girlfriend so I do alright but no not that rich lol. I just happened to stumble on an insane deal on most of these drives. The 4x intel NVME ssds and the 2 adatas were grabbed at the same time from a local shop that closed but I got them all on the last day for $190. I've had that Samsung for 2-3 years.

My rationale for storing my game library on those NVMEs is pretty simple. My games library hasn't grown in over a year and is only gonna grow by whatever Cyberpunk uses. So for the most part it's read only other than updates etc and I have a whole 3/4 of a tarrabyte left after I install EVERY game I own. I dont see myself filling that up in the next 5 years unless like... Cyberpunk 2 comes out and is 750gb. I dont plan on picking up more NVME drives other than 1 for pop_os and it's not going to be used by unraid. Sata SSDS are cheap enough now I can pick up 1-2 a pay period to grow the sata array for my constantly expanding media library. My main OS's are already on NVME drives so why not benefit from shorter loading times in games due to the increased r/w over sata ssds

[testdasi]

She-who-must-be-obeyed thought I was a bit harsh with my previous comment so I must have been so apologies.

 

You are highly unlikely to experience significant benefit from using NVMe instead of SATA SSD. I have tested it myself for various games big and small and the biggest diff I have had was about 3% (Witcher 3 with a ton of mods, NVMe = Samsung 970 EVO passed through, SATA = vdisk on Samsung 850 EVO) - which sounds like a lot but it's only 2s.

 

In your case, between the 4 SATA SSD vs 4 Intel NVMe (both cases you mentioned you already have), you are better off using the 4 SATA. Then when and if you have workloads that benefit from NVMe, you have those available for your uses.

 

I'm not too versed in loading games from network drives (I tend to only have 5-6 games that I play frequently installed at any one time) but based on the guide below on the forum, it looks like it's possible to have games on the array. In that case, you might as well have the SATA drives in the array for this purpose. That would allow you to spread your files over multiple disks without having to go the RAID 0 route.

 

Yes, it would be relatively slower but then you can always have your frequently-played games on a passed-through NVMe for best performance. You probably don't care too much if that game you haven't played for 5 years load about 5s slower.

 

 

[Starlord]

7 hours ago, testdasi said:

She-who-must-be-obeyed thought I was a bit harsh with my previous comment so I must have been so apologies.

 

You are highly unlikely to experience significant benefit from using NVMe instead of SATA SSD. I have tested it myself for various games big and small and the biggest diff I have had was about 3% (Witcher 3 with a ton of mods, NVMe = Samsung 970 EVO passed through, SATA = vdisk on Samsung 850 EVO) - which sounds like a lot but it's only 2s.

 

In your case, between the 4 SATA SSD vs 4 Intel NVMe (both cases you mentioned you already have), you are better off using the 4 SATA. Then when and if you have workloads that benefit from NVMe, you have those available for your uses.

 

I'm not too versed in loading games from network drives (I tend to only have 5-6 games that I play frequently installed at any one time) but based on the guide below on the forum, it looks like it's possible to have games on the array. In that case, you might as well have the SATA drives in the array for this purpose. That would allow you to spread your files over multiple disks without having to go the RAID 0 route.

 

Yes, it would be relatively slower but then you can always have your frequently-played games on a passed-through NVMe for best performance. You probably don't care too much if that game you haven't played for 5 years load about 5s slower.

 

 

I didn't read it in a way that seemed harsh to me so no worries!

Loading games from a network share has been "fine" for me but some clients like Battle.net wont even let you install games on a mapped drive. Tried symlinking too but the client still detected it was a network share and refused to install my games.

If I used the sata drives to store my game drive I'd have to move my media library to the NVME drives which seems even more pointless to me lol

What I ended up doing is just re-balancing the raid for the cache. This gives me my 3tb image for windows games (outside of future parity) with 1tb for normal cache stuff left over. I think im happy with this for now. Will mark solved.