[New User] Drive Setup & Design


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Hello, 

 

I am planning my build, and am wondering if I should use my M2 1TB SSD has a cache drive, or a 250GB SSD drive? 

 

Machine:

  1. Ryzen 1800x (8Core 16 Threads)
  2. 32GB Ram
  3. Nvidia 980 TI
  4. 12 TB Easystore HDD
  5. 4TB Random HDD
  6. 3TB Random HDD
  7. 1TB M2 SSD
  8. 256GB SSD
  9. 80GB SSD -- pretty old
  10. 2TB Random HDD

 

Goals:

  1. High-Mid end gaming VM (Nvidia 980 TI passthrough) (Steam... witcher3, sc2, etc)
  2. Mid-range gaming VM (For my daughter, something for minecraft, roblox) . -- can this share my 980ti?
  3. Docker Containers (I do a lot of development, and have hass.io home assistant)
  4. Crucial media backup (Family videos/photos)
  5. Plex server

 

 

On average, the machine is idle weekdays, except for the plex server few hours at night. Gaming is probably 4-5 hours on the weekends. 

Hassio is running 24/7

 

 

Questions:

  1. How should I set up the drives?  I believe I should have my 12TB as the parity? I just bought this. 
  2. Should the M2 SSD 1TB be the cache, or a smaller 256 SSD? 
  3. Can two VM's use the video card?
  4. What the best way to backup my family videos/photos that has the highest chance of not being lost?

 

 

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3 hours ago, Awesomeb said:

Questions:

  1. How should I set up the drives?  I believe I should have my 12TB as the parity? I just bought this. 
  2. Should the M2 SSD 1TB be the cache, or a smaller 256 SSD? 
  3. Can two VM's use the video card?
  4. What the best way to backup my family videos/photos that has the highest chance of not being lost?

1 - With the drives you have, the 12TB drive MUST be the parity drive as parity must be as large or larger than the largest data drive.  No data drive can be larger than the parity drive(s).  Your 4TB, 3TB and 2TB drives can be added to the array as data drives and the 12TB parity drive will allow you to add new drives or replace existing drives with any drive up to 12TB in size.

 

2 - Depends on how you intend to use the cache drive.  If you want to use it for caching writes to the array and you commonly transfer large amounts of data, the 1TB M.2 SSD would likely be the best cache drive option.  If you are not caching writes for any shares (the Mover later moves them to the array) and only want to use the cache drive for hosting shares such as appdata (docker containers), system, etc., the 250GB SSD is plenty for this.  The 1TB could then be added as an unassigned device and used for hosting VMs.  Of course, how you use them is up to you.  I have a 250GB SSD as my "cache" drive with no caching; all writes go directly to the array. This cache drive is also the initial landing spot for downloads. I also have a 500GB SSD (soon to be 1TB) as an unassigned device on which I host VMs. I also use it as the landing place for MakeMKV and  HandBrake conversions before I move the files to the array.

 

3. Yes, two VMs can have the same video card assigned to them, but, of course, they cannot use it simultaneously.  The first VM you start will "own" the video card until you stop the VM, then, the other VM can use it.  If you want to run the VMs simultaneously, you'll need two video cards.

 

4. Cloud backup, backup to another server, external USB drive (automatic backup via Unassigned Devices plugin and User Scripts).  I do all three.

Edited by Hoopster
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