Critique this build

[jonxxon]

Hello. I am interested in building my first machine to run TrueNAS as a general-purpose budget file server. Ultimately, my goal is to achieve three RAIDZ2 vdevs, each with a width of 12. I’m starting with six drives and one vdev, and I want to use ZFS expansion to build out the first vdev before proceeding with the second vdev, and so on. The drives will be 20TB SATA.

I’ve found some gear locally that I can get just outside my budget.

X10DRI-T, 2xE5-2699 V4, 256GB ECC RAM, 1200W PSU.

• I will need some way to connect the 36 drives. Can you specify the type of hardware I need if I want to expand it (as described above)?
• Do you see any issues with the build above? What considerations can you see that I should decide about?
• Will I need anything else apart from a case?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[swc-phil]

@jonxxon

as a general-purpose budget file server.

IMO, you should be more specific about your applications.

@jonxxon

I will need some way to connect the 36 drives. Can you specify the type of hardware I need if I want to expand it (as described above)?

@VersionZero is notorious for interconnecting many drives in different cases. Perhaps he could help.

[manna]

@jonxxon

I will need some way to connect the 36 drives. Can you specify the type of hardware I need if I want to expand it (as described above)?

You will want an HBA (host bus adapter). Usually something from LSI is the best (it does get branded under other names sometimes though so you have to do a bit of research) you probably want a few that are 16e or 16i. E for external connections and I for internal. The 16 is the number of drives you can connect. Make sure that the one you use is flashed to IT mode. You can buy it preflashed or you can flash it yourself, but you want it flashed.

You also might want to use a JBOD (just a bunch of disks) also referred to as a disk shelf. This will allow you to connect a ton of disks all in one enclosure. Some of them have slots for up to 60 drives, so lots of room for expansion.

[SmallBarky]

What are you planning to do with this storage server and how will you back up all the data? You asked a pretty basic question on attaching all those drives so I’m assuming you don’t have much experience with storage servers.

You don’t want this server to be the only source of your important data. I will just point you to the basic articles and posts. If you already know that, just skip it.

Stick to CMR and not SMR hard drives
SMR vs CMR ServeTheHome

WD Red SMR vs CMR Tested Avoid Red SMR

BASICS

ZFS Primer

iX Systems pool layout whitepaper

TrueNAS Comprehensive Solution Brief and Guides

Special VDEV (sVDEV) Planning, Sizing, and Considerations

Special VDEV (sVDEV) Planning, Sizing, and Considerations

This resource was originally sourced from a Suggestion thread here: https://forums.truenas.com/t/suggestion-better-svdev-planning-oversight-tools-in-gui/394/ Why consider a sVDEV? A sVDEV has the potential to significantly speed up the operations of a HDD pool by putting small files and pool metadata into a faster special VDEV (sVDEV), which usually consists of SSDs. You can also designate specific datasets to reside on a sVDEV by setting record size in the dataset configuration page to equal…

[jonxxon]

@swc-phil

you should be more specific about your applications

I will store 200TB of PDFs and 220TB of video that gets served by an application using metadata about the files. I’m unsure what will happen with the remaining 300TB of data.

@manna

E for external connections and I for internal

Does this mean that I would use 16i, assuming the disks are mounted in the same enclosure? And 16E is for JBOD?

@SmallBarky

how will you back up all the data

A family member has a copy of the data in another location. By making this machine, I will help him to back it up. When I get more cash, I will buy a second machine in a different location. I will physically seed the initial data and use ZFS Replication to transfer updates of the data over a fibre connection.

[etorix]

@jonxxon

I will need some way to connect the 36 drives. Can you specify the type of hardware I need if I want to expand it (as described above)?

SAS HBA and expanders, expanders possibly (preferably) being integrated to the chassis.
So you should find the chassis first. Maybe a complete storage server, refurbished?

[manna]

@jonxxon

Does this mean that I would use 16i, assuming the disks are mounted in the same enclosure? And 16E is for JBOD?

Yes exactly!

This is what an E card looks like. As you can see it has the ports on the back.

This is what an I card looks like. And it has its ports where they are accessible from inside the case

I do agree with Etorix though. With this many drives I would find out what chassis you can get, including any more expansion you will want before buying parts to go into the chassis. Maybe you can find a good deal locally on a used JBOD.