First time drive configuration

TrueNAS General
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Hi Folks,

Setting up a new TrueNAS setup. Wanted to understand how to setup the pools. I have the following setup:

  • 1x 120GB SSD for boot
  • 2x 512GB NVME for app drive (planned for mirror mode)
  • 5x 14TB HDD drives for data

From the apps side I might be running MinIO and PostgreSQL databases. They would take around 100GB all together.

My understanding was that I would need to create two pools.

  1. App Pool: Mirror layout
  2. Data Pool: RAIDZ2

I’m confused about “width” and “VDEV” selection.

Other capabilities like “Log”, “Cache”, “Metadata”, “Dedup” are also very to understand.

I have extra space in the NVME drives that would help with improving the overall performance.

I would really appreciate some help with “optimal” configuration for my case.

TY!

2

Yes.

ZFS pools are made up of at least 1 data vDev. Everything else is optional.

In your case, 1 pool of 1 x 2 way, (aka wide), Mirror vDev, and 1 pool of 5 wide RAID-Z2 vDev.

In general, the average home user does not need any of those. And if you don’t understand what they provide & how, they can actually hurt your performance. Or even redundancy.

All can be added later, though in some cases existing data stays where it is. (Until it is changed…)

Partitioning up SSDs or NVMe drives to use in multiple pools, is not supported by TrueNAS.

Part of the problem is that failure of 1 device could end up affecting more than 1 pool. Further, device change out of a partially failing device that is used by more than 1 pool can cause confusion, even data loss if not planned and done perfectly.

All that said, it can be done. But, if it falls apart, the user will likely have to live with the consequences.

Other than the 2 Apps listed, MinIO and PostgreSQL DBs, the “optimal” configuration is use case & App dependent.

For example, some users think 1 disk of redundancy is good for them. Thus, they use RAID-Z1. That’s the risk tolerance part of “optimal”.

Others think that 2 way Mirror vDevs are the way to go, even for general data. This is because they can grow their pool 2 disks at a time. Either add 2 additional disks of any size. Or replace 2 existing disks in a single vDev with larger ones.

In general, I recommend users read up on ZFS. It is not the most flexible file system, volume manager and RAID scheme available. ZFS has its quirks and warts, that you either live with them. Or, find other NAS software that does not have the item(s) you can’t live with.

2 Likes
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Perfect, I’ve got basic configuration up and running. Would probably need some time to get used to the new storage platform.

I would need to transfer some data from old QNAP storage. Is there a way to make TrueNAS move data from other NAS ?

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Some methods of NAS to NAS copying can be problematic due to file & directory / folder attributes. Like preserving owner, group and file permissions.

Some people use an intermediate PC to pass along permissions, using something like RClone, (I think that is the name). I’ve not had that problem, so I can’t advise further. Perhaps someone else will have an idea.

5

I understand that, actually in my case I don’t even want to pass along the permissions.

Wanted to do the “RClone” without additional PC, basically running “RClone” inside TrueNAS just like an external client.

6

Well, you could try RSync. TrueNAS CE, (formerly SCALE), has the RSync client, though easy configuration of the RSync daemon mode was removed a while back.

I don’t know if the QNAP has RSync capability… but if so, this would allow NAS to NAS copies. Either raw, (using a RSync daemon if available on QNAP), or encrypted via SSH, (again if available on QNAP).

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Sure, will give it a try!