Preparing my data for unraid (about disks I should get etc.)

[bikerchris]

Hello all,

 

Hope you all had a good New Year, if you like that sort of thing!

 

So I'm getting closer to moving over to Unraid, but in preparation I need to decide which existing drives I can use and which I should buy. Because chk dsk has occurred during start up on my 'to be' server, I do need to buy at least one new drive in the short term.

 

It seems I have:

 

12.69 TB total storage capacity

4.5 TB of free space

8.14 TB of data

 

The actual question bit:

 

So the E drive is the one misbehaving, a bit odd as some drives are 4 years old, but the one having problems is only 2 years old and has only been used in this machine. Luck of the draw I guess!

 

So far I'm thinking of giving Seagate IronWolf drives a shot, starting with a 4TB model for £88 / $115. Only thought of these as they've been mentioned more positively than other drives. I just wonder, if I would like 2 redundant drives (I hope/think that means I can lose 2 drives), should I think about populating with 4TB drives or 3TB drives?

 

Other info if helpful:

 

Monthly New data: Around 5-10GB worst case (images/video for work)

 

With the eventual new unraid machine, I intend to:

 

data server

video/film network share

virtual OS (1 nos.)

 

I've attached a screenshot, in summary:

 

C Drive: software, NVMe drive (256GB)

D Drive: Older drive I've re-used, only store things I can afford to lose

E Drive: Motorcycle video's I've not used (might try Vlogging when I have a moment), as well as disk images of other computers I have. Prefer not to lose.

F Drive: My company (one man band) files, very important.

G Drive: Movies, older backups of other computers I own

H Drive: Personal files, images, hosting backups, cloud occasional backups, Audio files, very few documents.

 

Backup: I use BackBlaze for online backup and it's run at 2 weekly intervals as very little changes, also because I figure doing so will minimise drive wear.

 

Cloud: I have 1TB of cloud backup that I use for regularly accessed or needed files

Thanks!!! 

[Froberg]

This particular subforum is surprisingly quiet.

Frankly since I'm sitting here configuring a back up server in UNRaid using the LEAST usable drives, it doesn't really matter. (Seagate Archive drives..)

Looking at your capacities I'd say get one very large drive for parity, say a ten terrabyte drive, and then just throw all the drives you want to keep in rotation in as the remainder of the array.

Consider adding second parity when you can, and then just replace the drives as they fail with higher capacity or not, as you prefer.

 

Also - I highly recommend getting some SSD's for anything that you will be running on the server, like services or VM's. That stuff should only run on SSD's for optimal performance, and you'll probably want two so you can raid1 them. Just a thing to consider.

[bikerchris]

On 1/12/2020 at 11:28 PM, Froberg said:

This particular subforum is surprisingly quiet.

Frankly since I'm sitting here configuring a back up server in UNRaid using the LEAST usable drives, it doesn't really matter. (Seagate Archive drives..)

Looking at your capacities I'd say get one very large drive for parity, say a ten terrabyte drive, and then just throw all the drives you want to keep in rotation in as the remainder of the array.

Consider adding second parity when you can, and then just replace the drives as they fail with higher capacity or not, as you prefer.

 

Also - I highly recommend getting some SSD's for anything that you will be running on the server, like services or VM's. That stuff should only run on SSD's for optimal performance, and you'll probably want two so you can raid1 them. Just a thing to consider.

Hi Froberg,

First of all, apologies for the delay - I've had a testing time with family illness. Seems all better now.

You're right this area is very quiet, so thank you for helping me and hope your config of a backup went well!

That's brilliant advice that I will certainly take, one large parity drive and then other normal sized drives for the rest. I would really like to add a 2nd parity drive, better to be safe than sorry.

I will also definitely have at least 1 ssd as I would like a VM or media server like plex.

Very much appreciate your help, thank you!

[Froberg]

Backup server is quite functional, thanks

For my production server I go for NAS drives that are rated for it, but the backup box is only running a few days a month so it matters less in my mind.

Since your capacity requirements aren't exactly huge, I think you could benefit from going with larger drives, look at cost per terrabyte, I believe 8TB is the most cost-effective at the moment, at least in my country. Then again, if you don't see yourself growing the data you could do with 4TB drives instead. It's just important to remember that your parity drive MUST be larger, or as large as, all other drives in the array.

 

If you go with only one SSD it won't be protected by parity, so you should consider backup routines if you care about your plex database or the VM data. You should do that anyway, but doubly so if you only have the one drive. I have 2x256 SSD in my production and 2x128GB in my backup box. Think about what you need to run on SSD's. You do not need any data on SSD drives. If you need data drive for a VM, you can easily assign it a share on the spinning-drive array for data-storage and keep the data protected that way, and just use the SSD for OS only - reducing the space requirements.
Let me know if you have any specific questions regarding that and enjoy unraid!

[bikerchris]

Ah, good to hear @Froberg 🙂 

 

I think my nas will be 24 hour use (biz and media sharing and vm), I have seen a few videos where people have allow HDD's to park, with the downside that access is a bit slower (or may be a lot). Hopefully it's something I can try, and if it's too slow I can set them to 'stay spinning'.

 

I think I can get 1 or 2 8TB drives, although here they are around £150 each...like you say, I should check the price per unit and let that guide me. That is a really good piece of advise, about the parity drives being bigger...I think I'll print that off and put it on my wall so I don't forget!  

 

Wow, you know stuff 🙂 I will definitely do as you say and have two ssd's minimum. Probably a stupid question but can I use NVMe SSD's, as I already have a 256GB (roughly) and it might be cheap to get a matching one? Saying that, may be reliability is a factor with those chewing gum sized HD's? If a Plex DB can fit on that, and share it with a VM, that'll be grand 🙂

 

You're making me look forward to having something other than Windows look after my files, cheers 👍👏

[Froberg]

NVMe works just fine. You should make sure to install dynamix SSD TRIM from community applications. Reliability is only a factor on NVME without adequate cooling as far as I know.

Parking; well there are pros and cons. I let them spin down on my backup box, since that keeps drive temps down in the constrained case I am using for it, but for my production server, they are set to spin down after like five hours of inactivity, but given the apps I am running I have yet to see it happen. There is some debate as to whether or not it's actually more harmful to let them spin down. (Head parking stresses the drives.. )

My thinking on the subject is that my main server has NAS drives designed for 24/7 operation, so I prefer to keep them spun up. My backup box uses regular consumer drives/non-NAS specific drives (basically whatever is cheap..) and are allowed to spin down for thermals and power consumption. I have 6TB NAS drives that have been spun up for 4 years so far, 365, 24/7 without issue.

I have nine docker containers running, including plex, and I am only using like 40-50GB of my cache drive for docker-data. Just remember to keep your mappings in order, so that any storage requirement is not on the cache.

I keep the plex DB on the cache for performance reasons, but for my nextcloud installation all of the actual data resides on hard drives, while the service itself is on SSD.. if that makes sense.

[bikerchris]

Nice one, thank you again mate 👍

 

That's great if they can only spin down after x hours, I'd probably set it to 3 hours or something. I'm hoping to rack mount the new unraid machine in a 4U chassis, then have another 4U above it that'll be my main workstation...but I have to check I've got enough food for winter before doing that 🙂 Kinda stuck then I guess, may be I'll have a think about how I use it - the VM is more for me to play than anything, and only worst case properly use it for work related things. At the moment my 'file server' is only turned on every few weeks, as I keep my regularly accessed files in cloud. 

 

Cheers for explaining your config (in a way I can understand!), so you have unraid running on your main server, then the backup box is just a simple OS? 

 

I keep feeling that it's better that drives stay spun up...but that's only a feeling and not based on anything technical. I do turn my workstation off when not in use, though mainly because I want to minimise the time it's connected to the internet and vulnerable, but also because it has no spinning rust.

 

Before I get the unraid up and running, I might call on you and the community again, you've been really helpful! 👏

[testdasi]

A few things that I haven't seen mentioned.

• Because HDD's fail in a probabilistic manner, it's always better (statistically) to have fewer larger capacity drives than have more smaller capacity drives. Furthermore, Backblaze stat also suggests newer large capacity drives also seem to have better reliability in general than older low capacity drives. And of course number of SATA ports is a limited resource. Adding all those 3 things, you should definitely aim to get larger capacity drives.
• Avoid QLC NVMe. QLC for SSD is like SMR for HDD. QLC NVMe SSD is like making a Ferrari run on bicycle tires.
• Make sure you google the controller of the (NVMe) SSD before buying. Some (e.g. SM2263) requires special workarounds to be passed through. Some (e.g. Intel 660p) just downright refuses to be passed through.

[bikerchris]

18 minutes ago, testdasi said:

A few things that I haven't seen mentioned.

Hi @testdasi, thank you for contributing, very kind of you.

 

That is all really useful information, if I can stretch to it, I will get many larger drives instead of smaller ones. Just to confirm, but is the description of small, around 1TB? I quite like 3TB drives but again I need to check price per storage unit before purchase.

 

The motherboard I have is quite good and has a good supply of SATA ports, 8 in fact - although I know that some setups don't work well if ports are shared between two different controllers. Here's my motherboard if it helps you to help me 🙂: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/X99E_WS/specifications/

 

The NVMe drives I have is 960 Evo, after a brief web search I couldn't see if it was QLC...hopefully not!

 

Is there a list of approved SSD's, so I can avoid pass through issues?

 

Thank you! 👍

[testdasi]

6 minutes ago, bikerchris said:

That is all really useful information, if I can stretch to it, I will get many larger drives instead of smaller ones. Just to confirm, but is the description of small, around 1TB? I quite like 3TB drives but again I need to check price per storage unit before purchase.

 

The NVMe drives I have is 960 Evo, after a brief web search I couldn't see if it was QLC...hopefully not!

 

Is there a list of approved SSD's, so I can avoid pass through issues?

"Small" = 6TB and under.

In terms of price per GB, 8TB should be similar to 4TB so there is really no reason to get 4TB at all.

10TB / 12TB are just a bit more expensive per GB. Above 12TB needs maybe 6 months to drop to reasonable level (again price per GB!)

 

The 960 Evo is 3D TLC which is what you want. (the "3D" part is important).

 

There isn't an approved list because kernel changes and new models can make it outdated pretty quickly. If you hang around the forum and check out people's signature, you should be able to get a nice short list of NVMe and then you can just msg the person directly to ask about it. Most people are happy to answer.

I know for sure Intel i750, Samsung 970 Evo and Samsung PM983 can be passed through for Unraid 6.8.2 cuz I'm running them right now.

[bikerchris]

4 minutes ago, testdasi said:

"Small" = 6TB and under.

Blimey 😲

 

..and there was me chuffed with my 3TB hehe! Hmm, well it looks like I'm going to have an expensive time with new drives! I will look up the price per GB and go from there...I quite like Western Digital, I guess I should get the NAS version even if I'm use a spacious case?

 

Well that's a relief about my 960 Evo, top banana for confirming 👍

 

Ah thank you for explaining that (about kernels), I'm sure you've had to say it a number of times 🤪 Good on you (and others) for adding the spec of your machines in the sig', kudos to you'dos

 

Really tiny unrelated Q, can I only edit my sig when I've reached a certain post number? Had a look and couldn't see it anywhere in my CP.

[Froberg]

If you like WD I can recommend RED drives for UNRaid. I use them myself. (10 and 6TB versions atm)

Doing quick calculation it looks like your raw data exceeds 8TB used based on your screenshots, so I would recommend - if you want to get started cost-effectively;

 

* Getting a second SSD for the cache/VM drive.

* Getting an 8TB drive for the parity drive. Two for dual partity if you can afford it.

* Keep your remaining drives in the system as is. You have the S-ATA ports for it. It's only some controllers that can cause issues - I am using one myself Marvell/Intel but haven't had any issues - although your mileage may vary.

* Replace any drive as soon as it fails/starts to cause issues or you run out of capacity with another 8TB Drive.

* Replace any other drive as soon as it fails/starts to cause issues with yet another 8TB drive.

 

Based on your growth estimates and usage that should see you with 4x8TB drives inside some reasonable time-frame, at which point you can retire all smaller capacity drives by removing them from the array entirely, leaving you with only NAS capable high capacity drives.

It will also spread your investment over a longer period of time, allowing you to use your hardware for longer which is better for the wallet, if nothing else - and leave you with fewer spinning drives when finished, with a clear upgrade path for the future. If 12/16TB drives become more cost-benefitial down the line, you can always replace a parity drive with one, and re-add the parity as a data drive.
 

This is pretty much how I started my home-server journey before actually starting to spec them out from scratch.

 

Oh, and in answer to your question; both main server and backup box is running UNRaid - using Resilio sync to keep a working copy. Cost per TB for the low-cost server is much lower. And for my amount of data (near 30TB) more cost effective than online backup solutions. Using Resilio it can also do backup via internet so the backup box can be physically located anywhere without issue, just have to get them to switch it on when it needs to be backed up. But in my case, a 1:1 copy with no versioning is totally fine. If you want versioning and more granular backup levels there are other docker containers for that, like duplicatii which can even handle multiple sources as backup destination. I believe backblaze might be an option, too, if not, there's always amazon and the like. With duplicatii your backups can also be encrypted before transit ensuring your privacy.

 

@testdasi appreciate the heads up on NVME's - I was ill-informed on that one.

[testdasi]

10 minutes ago, bikerchris said:

Blimey 😲

 

..and there was me chuffed with my 3TB hehe! Hmm, well it looks like I'm going to have an expensive time with new drives! I will look up the price per GB and go from there...I quite like Western Digital, I guess I should get the NAS version even if I'm use a spacious case?

 

Really tiny unrelated Q, can I only edit my sig when I've reached a certain post number? Had a look and couldn't see it anywhere in my CP.

There's no need to get "NAS" drives (or "Enterprise" or stuff like that), especially for Unraid.

These labels were created to segment the market when manufacturers realise they can charge more for slightly tweaked products.

Don't get me wrong, there ARE cases in which these drives do have advantages. Unraid (for home users) just isn't one of those cases.

 

In terms of brands, there are really just 3 manufacturers of HDD right now: Seagate, Toshiba and WD (which also owns Hitachi / HGST brand). So they are all considered reputable and there's really little if any clear distinction among the three.

 

So what I do is just to find the cheapest available HDD at the capacity that I want and go for it. Whatever brand / model it is then it is what it is.

• WD Red is rather popular on here but I think it's more because back when 4TB was like 8TB at the moment, WD Red was the most affordable.
• Some on here also shuck HDD out of external HDD and the most affordable ones tend to have WD Red / White label inside, adding to the popularity.
• At the moment in the UK, Toshiba is usually the most affordable for 8TB and Seagate Iron Wolf the most affordable for the 12+TB.

 

And forgot to say, don't buy multiple HDD's at the same time (and if you have to, try to avoid doing it with same seller) in case there's a bad batch. So Froberg's strategy of gradual upgrade is a very good strategy.

 

Signature is in Account Settings. Limetech has never explained why it isn't part of Profile.

[Froberg]

@testdasi Rated for 24/7 operation is nice to have, in my opinion. But it is just that, an opinion. I like the added warranty too, on IronWolf for example. But yes you don't get the benefit of the RAID specific features. I am purely speaking on a reliability and experience with the drives over regular consumer drives for similar loads.

I think removing the hard-drives from the external exclosures, although they're cheaper, I believe you void the warranty doing it? If not, that might be something I need to be doing, too, for my secondary box.

Agree with you on avoiding batches of drives from the same lot/vendor at one time.

[testdasi]

Shucking will certainly void warranty.

A way to somewhat mitigate it is to run Preclear of the external as-is via USB first to weed out the early failure.

Of course, it can fail later too but after the early failures are eliminated, they will fall back to probabilistic pattern i.e. can be mitigated by parity.

 

I personally haven't shucked HDD for years now. Last I checked, the lower cost didn't justify the (statistical) expected cost of replacement without warranty (even with the higher reliability assumption of 8TB+ HDDs).

If price goes down enough, I would have no problem doing it.

[bikerchris]

@Froberg 😮 Thank you so much for that info!!!! I honestly didn't expect such useful information, I'm actually going to do a PDF of your advice because I will definitely be going that way. Really really appreciate it 👍👍👍👍👍

 

@testdasi Thank you too for confirming what Froberg said, as well as your suggestion about shucking drives - I've heard that said on a youtube video, Byte my bits was his name, or something similar. Seemed like a good egg to me 🙂 Thank you for your help again.

 

Really is invaluable to have this advice people!!!🤝🤝🤝

[bikerchris]

6 hours ago, testdasi said:

Signature is in Account Settings

yeah bizarre, last place I would have looked!

[Froberg]

No worries. Best of luck and keep us posted. Be sure to read up on community application setup and in general have a look at CA applications, there are some tools that might be of use. Dynamix, too.

I use system temp from dynamix, community apps, power control buttons because they're easy and I'm sometimes lazy, mover tuning, appdata backup, appdata cleanup etc. Worth taking a look at least when starting out and get a feel for things.

[bikerchris]

@Froberg Thank you, I might need a bit of luck when the time comes! I'll hopefully have some free time to do a test install and get my head around it, though it seems largely like a GUI system.

 

Thank you again sir 👍 

[Froberg]

Yeah all is done via GUI. In my opinion having tried all open NAS solutions on the market, and some closed ones, it's the best one out there.

KISS principle rules here. 🙂

[bikerchris]

12 hours ago, Froberg said:

Yeah all is done via GUI. In my opinion having tried all open NAS solutions on the market, and some closed ones, it's the best one out there.

KISS principle rules here. 🙂

Oh good good

 

I was thinking about FreeNAS or similar, but it looked like I needed a degree in tech and spare time to understand it (this might not be the case for some, just me!). I was tempted, but I tend to get sucked into tech and it kinda takes over my life, and I don't have time for that these day. 

 

I agree KISS should be applied to everything...unless you're an astronaught or something 😁

 

👍

[Froberg]

Keep in mind, if you're unaware, that with UnRaid you're not exactly running RAID. You need to understand this, as you lose all performance benefits there are with using traditional raid levels like Raid5.

I.E. in most cases you're bound by single-disk performance limits.

There's also inherent in that, a much smaller risk of complete data loss since each disk is a self-contained entity and can be read with anything that can read xfs.

This is also why cache is crucial - as you want lots of speed when you need to quickly transfer a file. You will experience slowdown if you want to transfer files larger than your available cache, as soon as the cache is full. I'm assuming you've already read up on this, but just to be safe I thought I would mention it.

 

FreeNAS is all about data integrity, bitrot and such and has a large overhead requiring a ton of memory. I did not find it as easy to use as UnRaid. I was blown away by the simplicity of unraid and I cannot recommend it enough.

[bikerchris]

Thank you again for that @Froberg , I was aware of some of it, but you have highlighted the need for a good sized cache drive. I'm sure the 256GB NVMe drives will be big enough, my files are rarely more than 1 GB. I prefer being treated as a 'no nothing' than a 'know everything'!

 

I know I should look this up, but will 16GB of RAM be OK for my storage size do you think? I can probably get another 16GB if needed, should be quite cheap as it'll be slow stuff.

 

Thanks again!
 

[Froberg]

Dude I have 16 GB memory for 30TB of data and 9 docker containers - and I'm barely using any at all.

Do not worry about it.

 

Sample pic;

Edited February 2, 2020 by Froberg

[Squid]

1 hour ago, bikerchris said:

but will 16GB of RAM be OK for my storage size do you think?

unRaid is NOT ZFS, which has a recommendation of 1GB memory per 1TB of storage (never could quite understand why a filesystem doing nothing else than being a filesystem has such ignorant recommendations).  As a pure NAS, you can quite easily run 200TB+ all parity protected with only 2GB of memory.   unRaid's memory requirements are more or less based upon the applications that you're going to be running on it, in particular VMs.