Currently utilizing Unraid, I have decided to transition to TrueNAS for enhanced storage capabilities. I currently have 12 drives of diverse sizes that I intend to repurpose for this endeavor.
My current storage utilization within Unraid accounts for approximately 50% of my 90TB array, which comprises the following:
4 x 14 TB
1 x 10 TB
5 x 8 TB
2 x 6 TB
Additionally, I have four 1TB SATA SSDs that I plan to utilize for caching in my forthcoming TrueNAS system employing ZFS. Therefore, I seek guidance on an optimal layout for a future TrueNAS system incorporating ZFS with my existing 12 drives. I am eager to minimize the need for substantial investments in new drives if possible. I appreciate any assistance that anyone can provide.
414 Z2
58+110 as Z2 either as seperate pool or as second vdev in pool above
26 ignore for now
You are unlikley to need any caching - so ise the 4 * 1TB as a seperate pool of 2 way mirrors for apps, vm’s and suchlike
It depends on what you are storing. If it’s all media, there are a couple of options. The apps/VM pool is straightforward, two mirrors of two 1TB SSD each, for 1.8 TB of storage.
Cache is ARC, which is memory. L2ARC only makes sense in certain circumstances, as a general rule a homelab does not benefit.
If you can tolerate the risk, the permutations are either two wide mirrors, and eat the loss by pairing up a 10TB and 8TB drive for a total of 58TB, or two Raidz1 vdevs comprising of the 14TB and 8TB disks (74TB). If you added the 10TB disk to the 8TB vdev then that would up it to 82TB, and that would leave the 6TB drives for a separate pool. RaidZ1 can get risky with those drives sizes though.
There are more complex options including special vdevs that can make sense but have significant drawbacks if you don’t know what you need. It might make sense to leave the 6TB disks and two 1TB SSD free to play around with different options.
Not a good starting point for ZFS. You’d rather want same size sets of same capacity drives—but not necessarily the same capacity across sets.
And you have not described your uses.
What do you mean by “caching”? With ZFS, it’s probably NOT what you think… and the most likely situation is that you do not need any.
Need to escape * as \* when typing, otherwise it ends up as italic…
The alternative is a mirror stripe: (14+14) + (14+14) + (10+8) + (8+8) + (8+8) + (6+6).
