Hi, I wanted to start selfhosting and I’d like to have your opinion on something that I’m struggling to decide.
I don’t plan to tinker too much with my system, I’ve been a Linux tinkerer myself some time ago but now I’d like to setup something that’s really bulletproof and then leave it running (ofc I know I’ll have to do a bit of bugfixing now and then), not replacing hardware ideally for >= 10 years.
This is why I’m planning to use TrueNAS, and that’s why I’m planning to buy a UGREEN DXP2800: has two 3,5" HDD bays (4TB should be enough for me for the next 8-10 years, so I’ll have two 4TB disks in RAID1 or mirror or whatever is recommended). Only problem I have with this machine is that it only has 1 RAM slot, and I guess 8 GB isn’t enough if I use zfs. So I’ll have to upgrade to either 16 or 32 GB. Now I did my research and from my understanding 16GB seems to be enough, but it would be such a waste having to replace the whole RAM if it turns out it isn’t enough.
For reference, I don’t plan on having more than 7-8 services running: Immich, Nextcloud+office, firefly, audiobookshelf, paperless and a maybe few more if they’re useful. I value responsiveness but it’s ok if some things take longer to process (thinking immich ML, or stuff like transcoding)
I’m very interested to know your opinion:
- is the dxp2800 a good choice?
- should I go with 16 or 32 GB RAM?
And a little extra
- how much ssd space do you recommend for high speed data? is 500gb enough?
Thank you so much!
You’re incredibly wrong on your assumptions here.
First of all, ZFS (the file system TrueNAS specialises for) is best used with at least 3-4 disks. The more the better. A dual disk setup for ZFS (or any other kind of RAID) is super wasteful.
Second, no, 4TB won’t be enough. You think it is today, but soon you’ll be downloading
mediaLinux ISOs and quickly realise that even 16TB is a stretch within a year.My recommendation would be going for at least 4x 4TB, but 3-4x 6TB or even 8TB would be probably preferred. And similarly, I’d rather overshoot the initial purchase rather than realise 6-8 months in that oops, the 2-4 disk system you got isn’t enough… Even if you don’t fill the bays, I’d recommend you go for at least a 4 bay system, but rather, for 6. Sadly, SOHO NASes aren’t designed with easy expandability down the line.
Based on what? I’ve been running ZFS since it was Solaris-only and raidz1/raidz2 are OK, but they come with complexity and performance penalties, and they’re somewhat less portable than a mirror. There are many advantages to simple mirrors: first-response reads, block correction, scrubs, etc.
Portability is not really an aspect one needs to consider when it comes to a NAS. Performance hits? Z1 will have performance issues when running in a simple mirror (especially for writes), but with 4+ disks that reduces significantly.
Sure scrubs will take longer on a multi-disk array, but again for a home NAS, the goal is maximising data storage capacity without a major hit on performance, ideally being able to saturate the most common gigabit LAN connection and have some more bandwidth available for local processing.
Hard disagree, and it is one of the best things about ZFS. You can plunk a ZFS pool on another system and be almost certain it will import. Systems die. Having been through several data-loss incidents, I find it is much preferable to be able to pull 1 disk than have to drag out 2 or three to transplant a ZFS pool.
Regarding the scrubs, I was trying to indicate that ZFS is more than just a raid manager, there are advantages to ZFS on even a single disk.
If that were entirely true, striping would be the most popular ZFS pool arrangement, since you get performance and max storage.
Edit: this was not to say “you’re wrong”, just different approaches to storage.
Hmm, you might be right, but if you’re talking about piracy then no, it’s ok if I don’t have much space for it. I know the piracy community is awesome and I don’t have anything against who decides to pirate, but it’s just not for me, thanks for the warning nevertheless!
About the ZFS waste: yes, it’s definitely a waste, but I’m going to store there critical data I don’t want to lose (mainly pictures and documents). I can’t spend too much right now because I’m still a student and 4 bay systems cost at least 200 more for the same specs, while a more open, custom build has other implications that would be more difficult to control (noise, space, power consumption, heat). I know I’m kind of locking myself in this system, though, but I really think 4TB will be enough, my calculation is this: all the pics+vids I have are <40GB rn. All important files I store are <60GB. That totals 100 GB. Let’s say I collect that many GBs every year (strong assumption): I won’t fill 4 TB in 10 years. If my GF wants to use Immich, maybe she’ll store more pictures, but I doubt it will be more than 100GB/years. But let’s be pessimistic: she uploads 200GB/year. Then it would still take more than 10 years for me & my gf to fill 4TB.
And in case I desperately need more space I can always use both drives and have more backups in the cloud. Or I can buy a DAS and connect it to the ugreen.
Really appreciate your input anyway, it’s precious to me :) Let me know if you think I’m making mistakes !!