Greetings,
I have ordered a mini-NAS pc with a 512 GB M2 SSD and a set of 4-4TB drives and while I’m waiting on delivery I’m trying to figure out how to set it up, so I can hit the ground running (or limping?). I would appreciate some opinions from the point of expertise.
I have three additional functions that the current mini-pc I’m running does that I would like this server to take over. This is a very low usage home system (one person-aka me), though I spend a lot of PC time. It’s major function will obviously be storage, photos, videos (jellyfin server). Additional tasks will be time-synchronization and DNS cache. I see that the default install includes chrony, so NTP is covered.
Do you think it would be better to install jellyfin app or simply a virtual machine running jellyfin and unbound (dns server)? Other than another virtual server, where would you put the dns cache (I understand that it’s kinda frowned upon putting it in the base TrueNAS install)?
Logical/physical separation of data: Currently I’m at the bare minimum and everything is in one pool on my shoestring previous server, but are there advantages at a technical level to doing something differently (even though I only have the internal capacity of 4 SATA drives)?
Thank you for your suggestions.
Just to clarify, The 512 GB is going to be your boot device / pool and the 4x 4TB are going to be your data drives? How are you planning on setting up your VDEVS, what kind of redundantcy, Mirror, Raid-Z(1,2)?
Apps and VMs are usually recommended to be put on a SSD or NVME pool.
BASICS
iX Systems pool layout whitepaper
Sorry, yes the 512GB is assumed to be my boot device and the 4x4 are the pool drives, using the zraid1 (stripe + one drive for parity).
Though I’m open to other suggestions, I’m just knowledgeable enough about ZFS to be very dangerous.
If you stick with your current pool setup and the hardware, your only choice for expansion is to replace the 4x 4TB drives with larger models one by one and replacing all four, allowing for resilvering between each.
Can you go with two large, 12TB or bigger, HDs and two SSD for apps?
Idea is two HD in a mirror VDEV for data storage and mirror VDEV of SSD for apps, VMs, etc.
Read through the links I posted to get an idea of the basics. The SSD VDEV and pool would have the advantage for random reads and writes for the apps and VMs. You could do it all with your current single pool setup also.
Well, as my current usage is about 6 GB, I suspected that would last me quite a long time…and I just Tuesday ordered all this 
My current ‘solution’ was usb drives…sigh I think I’m locked into the hardware I bought (at least for some year(s)).
…or adding another 4 TB (or larger) drive to the pool. But I’d agree with fewer and larger spinners, and a SSD or two for apps.
I took the OP posts and hardware to mean there weren’t any more SATA ports, so the zpool expansion was off the table.
Yes, I have 4 sata ports…that’s it. Unless I buy a sata enclosure or something…that’s it :0
I do have one more m2 slot (I think) (remember I don’t have this server yet), so that might be an option. I was actually thinking of just shrinking the OS install and using a partition of the NAS SSD for applications (no redundancy really needed imo).
Verify the M2 slots don’t share with the SATA slots.
Boot Drive
It’s your choice if you want to do the sharing of the boot device.
Yes, it may void the warranty chuckle, but I don’t see the technical harm, since we are basically just talking a Linux installation. If an update wipes the whole drive, well I know how to reinstall my VM there easily enough.
Actually, I gave it some thought and I think I can offload the dns cache facility to the router, leaving TrueNas pure and untainted by VMs.