Noobish technical questions on storage and related hardware

[nametaken_thisonetoo]

 

Hi all,

Your time is much appreciated! Long time PC builder for gaming on the desktop & HTPC in living room, but this is my first foray into the world of DIY NAS / UnRaid / RAID, etc. I have a few questions that will hopefully help me make the best purchasing decisions for the long term.

 

My use case: Initially UnRaid for a Plex Server and general documents/pictures storage, but I'm also keen over time to mess around with plenty of other UnRaid features, including VM's.

 

My hardware: Pentium G4560 on an ASRock B250 Pro4 Mobo, 16GB DDR4 2133Mhz, no discrete GPU, currently with various random size (2-4TB), speed and branded HDD's, that I will use to build an array. I also have an i5-7600k / RX580 that I can use for upgrades if too many friends end up on my Plex and more oomph is needed.

 

I plan on buying a larger capacity NAS style HDD (probably 8-12TB) to use as my Parity drive, with the idea that over time as the older, smaller random drives in the array fail I will replace them with more of the same model larger capacity NAS drives, eventually ending up completely with storage media specifically designed for NAS use. I would like the NAS HDD’s that I choose to be as flexible as possible in terms of what I can do with them - so good for UnRaid configs, but also the various RAID configs, ZFS, array expandability, and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of or am not aware of right now. So... to help me understand all this a little better, my questions are:

 

1. I have read that some NAS drives (eg. WD Red) only support up to 8 drive bays. Is this a simple as it sounds, in that you can't add more than 8 drives to an array, whether it be for UnRaid, RAID or whatever else? And if so, out of curiosity, why does this limitation apply?

 

2. Assuming 8 drive arrays is a real limitation for certain NAS drives, that seems to put me into, or close to, ‘enterprise’ grade drive territory just for wanting to keep my options open. This seems a bit much – or am I missing something here?

 

3. Can folks provide any drive recommendations that are as cost effective as possible, while also meeting the following criteria (as well as any other mission critical criteria I’m overlooking by all means):
- Good for Unraid as well as various RAID configs just in case
- Functions in an array made up of more than 8 drives so I can grow into that when/if required
- CMR not SMR
- Probably not 7200rpm to maximise energy efficiency and minimise noise(?)
- Can handle ZFS, should I ever decide to switch over to FreeNAS and play around with all that.

 

 

4. The Mobo I am planning to use has 6 onboard SATA ports. I will only be using either 5 or 6 drives to begin with, and for the foreseeable future really, so is it ok to just use the onboard SATA for connecting the HDD’s? Or are there technical reasons/limitations I’m not aware of that make using something like a PCIe SATA or SAS card more appropriate and important to investment in now?

 

5. If I was to use the onboard SATA ports now, and then at some point in the future wish to switch some or all of the drives over to a different controller like PCIe SATA or SAS, can this be done without having to rebuild Unraid arrays or anything like that? I assume I can just power down the server, install the new hardware, and power it back up again - but would just like to be sure?

 

Thanks again for your help folks

 

 

Edited October 3, 2020 by nametaken_thisonetoo

[Frank1940]

8 hours ago, nametaken_thisonetoo said:

1. I have read that some NAS drives (eg. WD Red) only support up to 8 drive bays. Is this a simple as it sounds, in that you can't add more than 8 drives to an array, whether it be for UnRaid, RAID or whatever else? And if so, out of curiosity, why does this limitation apply?

 

As far as anyone has been able to determine, it is a marketing ploy by WD to push unknowledgeable buyers to their WD Red Pro line of drives.  There are a lot of folks who are using more than eight drives in the Unraid arrays.  Virtually no Unraid user is using the much more expensive enterprise grade drives unless they got a real break in the price. 

8 hours ago, nametaken_thisonetoo said:

4. The Mobo I am planning to use has 6 onboard SATA ports. I will only be using either 5 or 6 drives to begin with, and for the foreseeable future really, so is it ok to just use the onboard SATA for connecting the HDD’s? Or are there technical reasons/limitations I’m not aware of that make using something like a PCIe SATA or SAS card more appropriate and important to investment in now?

Many of us are using LSI HBA cards to provide additional SATA ports.  Here is a link to the cards which are currently recommended:

       https://forums.unraid.net/topic/69018-sata-controller-replacement-question-and-advice/?tab=comments#comment-630097

Please note that many LSI are actually RAID cards.  Unraid requires that these cards be in the IT MODE.    A good source for these cards is E-bay.  You can find the cards in both the RAID configuration or reflashed to the IT MODE for a few dollars more.  Remember that on E-bay, you should be buying the vendor and not the product.  (There are a kot of counterfeit LSI cards out there for sale. 

8 hours ago, nametaken_thisonetoo said:

5. If I was to use the onboard SATA ports now, and then at some point in the future wish to switch some or all of the drives over to a different controller like PCIe SATA or SAS, can this be done without having to rebuild Unraid arrays or anything like that? I assume I can just power down the server, install the new hardware, and power it back up again - but would just like to be sure?

 

Unraid tracks the drives by their serial numbers and not by where they are connected.  So you can swap SATA ports and Unraid will put the drive in the proper place in the array.

[Decto]

Hi and welcome.

 

1) To an extent 8 drives is marketing. If you have enough drives spinning with the same workload you could get a resonance which impacts performance / error rate which enterprise drives can better mitigate however it really depends how they are installed (often with damping) and accessed etc. Personally I ignore any such 'advice' and with Unraid you can have as many devices connected as you like up to your licence limit. You don't need any raid specific features with Unraid, desktop HDD are fine. It is common to shuck (remove) drives from external enclosues as this can be quite a bit cheaper... though may impact warranty depending on region

 

2) See 1

 

3) Seems all WD drives are actually 7200rpm despite claiming 5400rpm class performance. Note that all larger drives tend to run warm and need decent cooling, You need airflow across the drives so make sure you case is suitable. WD > 8TB, HGST >8TB, Segate Ironwolf, Iron Wolf Pro, Toshiba

 

4) Onboard SATA Is fine, a SSD cache drive is recommeded so that leaves 4 ports for storage after parity. An Asmedia 2 port PCI x1 card is fine, if you have a X4 then a card based on JMB585 chip will give you 5 slots but expensive so a SAS controller flashed to IT would be better for 8 ports. Early on though, I'd just get the Asmedia for $10 and replace  some of the smaller drives something equal to parity. Use them for backup, cache or unasigned device if you want to.   

 

5) Generally Unraid is hardware agnostic, worst if the Sata controller inpacts naming, you would need to do a new config but retain all the data. With single parity you just need to be really sure which the parity drive is. A post in the general forum would get you guidance for this. Where data is concened better to ask.

 

Given your existing disks, 8TB seems like a good parity size, there is a partity swap upgrade proceedure you can run later if you outgrow 8TB drives.

If you are putting critical files on the server make sure you have a backup strategy. Raid / Unraid is not backup... it is availability and convenience