Future plans - what should I consider doing?

TrueNAS General
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I am looking at setting up TrueNAS on a Dell R730xd. It currently has 24x 600GB SSDs. I am considering how to expand the server with a JBOD enclosure so I can use 3.5" spinning rust drives.

Is it smarter to use a LSI HBA for the connecting of the JBOD enclosure than using a Dell SAS controller? Is there any “gotchas” that I need to watch out for with the use of a LSI HBA in regards to drivers or compatibility?

I need to keep the power use down as low as possible (I know, spinning rust uses a fair amount of power, not to mention the r730xd). I live in a country where power is quite expensive and I want to find the least power using solution. I know we are talking a few 100w that can be saved but any savings is important.

Thanks for any tips on what I am going to need to do. I need to put in 20+ TB drives to be able to retire my Synology NAS use.

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Expect to use 3-5w per SSD. That’s a lot of SSDs if power use is a concern. Also consider that HDDs may hold ~20TB and still only consume <15W ea. So with very small capacity SSDs, you quickly run into a lot of power to store even low amounts of data.

If you need space and speed, then I’d figure out small file / metadata needs, set aside enough SSDs to cover that, then turn them into a sVDEV. Use the remaining slots to host HDDs instead. No external expansion slot / chassis needed, much lower power load.

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Use an HBA330 Mini. It’s almost the same as an SAS9300, apart from slightly older firmware.