Advice For TrueNas OS & App Data SSD Recommendations

TrueNAS General
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1

Hello Everyone,

I’m planning to build a DIY TrueNAS server for my small office and would appreciate some feedback on the hardware and storage layout.

Intended Use

  • 40–50 users maximum

  • Primarily used for file backup and storage

  • Very light file transfer activity (no heavy workloads, virtualization, or media streaming)

Hardware Configuration

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-10700
Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z590 D (10th/11th Gen) ATX
CPU Cooler: upHere UP2K6 Air Cooler (250W TDP)
Memory: 32GB (2 × 16GB) Kingston FURY Beast DDR4-3200
Storage Pool: 5 × Toshiba MG10ACA20TE 20TB Enterprise HDDs
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P400A
Network Card: Mellanox ConnectX-3 Pro CX314A 40GbE PCIe 3.0
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 850W 80+ Gold Fully Modular

Storage Layout

TrueNAS OS (Mirrored)

  • Samsung 980 250GB NVMe SSD (Motherboard M.2 slot)

  • KingSpec 256GB SATA M.2 2280 SSD (via UGREEN CM302 Expansion Card)

App Data (Mirrored)

  • Samsung PM991e 256GB NVMe SSD (via second UGREEN CM302 Expansion Card)

  • KingSpec 256GB SATA M.2 2280 SSD (via second UGREEN CM302 Expansion Card)

The two UGREEN CM302 (70504) Dual M.2 to PCIe Gen3 x4 expansion cards will each be installed in a PCIe x4 slot. Each card supports:

  • 1 × NVMe M.2 SSD

  • 1 × SATA M.2 2280 SSD

Data Pool

  • 5 × 20TB Toshiba Enterprise HDDs

  • Configured as RAIDZ2

My Question

How much storage is typically required for the Apps pool (App Data) in TrueNAS?

Since this NAS will mainly be used as a backup server with minimal services, will a mirrored 256GB SSD pool be sufficient for App Data, or would you recommend using larger SSDs?

2

0, if you only use it for file sharing. Otherwise 256GB could be fine.

You say very light use, but choose a 40Gbit NIC. Why ?

Also, is this your old gaming PC, that the data of your 40-50 employees will be relying on upon ? But its your data, your choice.

3

I’d say: Skip the SATA SSD part and keep your precious ports for more HDDs if needed. Mirrored boot is not that useful in a home NAS. Do you even need an app pool?

Now if you have “40-50 users” that’s beyond a typical home NAS, but then the consumer motherboard is a weird choice for a business NAS.

4

256GB SSD is more than enough (you may end up with some apps at some point).

I would prefer a low power CPU. 4 cores 25W TDP (file server with 1, 2 small apps), or up to 6-8 core 65W TDP (file server plus 2-4 VMs and 10-20 apps).
Lower watts makes power outages easier to handle/survive (UPS, batteries cost, uptime).

I never liked the rebuild times of any RAID, so I only use mirror HDDs (raid 10 of course OK) for live, recent PC image + Documents backups, and spare HDDs for 2-3 years of old pc image backups that I should never need (keep all document backups for at least 7-10 years, much smaller bkp files).

5

My 2p’s worth

Its a mistake to mirror an NVMe drive with a SATA drive I think. Mirror the NVME with the second NVMe and use that as the Apps pool.

You don’t need a mirrored boot pool. Just make sure you have a regular copy of the config file. Use a SATA SSD for this purpose. There is however no harm in doing so, wether the device auto recovers if the primary boot device fails is down to the motherbaord and BIOS settings. Some do, some don’t.

256 GB is more than enough for an apps pool under normal circumstances.

I will echo a previous comment about 40 users and consumer hardware (baring the Mellanox) being a bit odd

6

Just wondering if this server is acting as a “backup and redundant” server for primary?

7

I could see how mirrored boot would be useful in an office setting to keep downtime minimal if a boot drive fails… but if it isn’t a sata ssd with hotswap, I don’t see the point because you’d still have to shut the system down to replace an nvme.

If you’re going to go nvme for boot, I’d recommend just keeping config backups frequently & maybe keep an nvme with TrueNAS already installed so you could just plug it in & dump the config onto it. Would also allow you to go for an HBA so you can have more drives.

Everyone else already questioned the choice for a consumer motherboard for a professional setting; I’m sure something in the used enterprise world with IPMI & support for ECC could justify the costs if this is going to be used in a business application.

I’m also a bit confused on the purpose of an APPs pool if this’ll just be for office level data storage. For my personal media, Plex has been slowly ballooning in size (somewhere near ~50gigs now in what I’m assuming is metadata/databases/whatever of my media files).