ADRASTEA: The unRAID Monster

[Schwiing]

Build’s Name: ADRASTEA (my "Jupiter" network has moons as server/workstation names)
Operating System/ Storage Platform: unRAID 6.7.2
CPU: Dual E5-2687W
Motherboard: ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16
Chassis: Rosewill RSV-L4412
Drives: 7x 8TB EMAZs (Shucked Elemets), 2x Samsung 850 1TB EVOs, 2x NVMe Sabrents (2TB, 256GB)
RAM: 128GB DDR3 ECC
Add-in Cards: LSI 9211-16i, Mellanox Connect X2, P2000
Power Supply: Corsair RM750x
Other Bits: APC Netshelter 24U Rack

Usage Profile: Hosting Linux ISOs for family/friends, backup, automation, etc.

 

[zer0sum]

Curious why you chose Unraid and not FreeNAS?

How are you going to configure the disks and lay them out optimally?

 

[Schwiing]

FreeNAS was definitely considered but I love how easy unRAID is to configure and use. It's such a breeze.

I currently have 2x parity drives (8TB each) and 5x Data drives (also 8TB). I plan to add a few more as I go.

For the SSDs, my nvme drive is the cache for all incoming data, and the other 2x SSDs are appdata drives for docker, in raid 1.

 

[zer0sum]

Have you done any speed testing to see if you can saturate a 10Gbps link through your Mellanox card?

I've got a sort of similar setup, and I'm trying to decide on NAS software

 

[Schwiing]

I've only done some real-world testing with local data transfers and I'm almost always limited by my disk speed. Maybe I should consider doing NVMe -> NVMe

 

[StevenDTX]

Have you done any speed testing to see if you can saturate a 10Gbps link through your Mellanox card?

I've got a sort of similar setup, and I'm trying to decide on NAS software

You will never saturate a 10Gb link writing to the unRAID array. You probably could with a cache pool, but the array itself is only as fast as your slowest drive.

 

[zer0sum]

You will never saturate a 10Gb link writing to the unRAID array. You probably could with a cache pool, but the array itself is only as fast as your slowest drive.

I'm just getting my head around UnRaid

What happens when you have a 1-2 NVME drives as cache, and what sort of speeds would you predict?
I have Mellanox CX3's and they are 10/40/56Gbps cards

 

[StevenDTX]

I'm just getting my head around UnRaid

What happens when you have a 1-2 NVME drives as cache, and what sort of speeds would you predict?
I have Mellanox CX3's and they are 10/40/56Gbps cards

I can write to my NVMe cache all day long at around 900MB/s.

However, I dont use cache for user shares. I would prefer to have my data on the protected array at all times. Its not protected if its sitting on cache waiting for the mover to invoke.

The only thing I use cache for is to host the docker image and the docker appdata. I then use CA backup to backup the appdata weekly.

 

[zer0sum]

I can write to my NVMe cache all day long at around 900MB/s.

However, I dont use cache for user shares. I would prefer to have my data on the protected array at all times. Its not protected if its sitting on cache waiting for the mover to invoke.

The only thing I use cache for is to host the docker image and the docker appdata. I then use CA backup to backup the appdata weekly.

Hmm, if cache can be configured on a per share basis that could work for me.
Although one of my main use cases is storing lots of virtual machine disk images.
How does the cache handle constantly changing 10-100GB qcow2 and vmdk files?

Sorry for sidetracking your thread @Schwiing

 

[StevenDTX]

Hmm, if cache can be configured on a per share basis that could work for me.
Although one of my main use cases is storing lots of virtual machine disk images.
How does the cache handle constantly changing 10-100GB qcow2 and vmdk files?

Sorry for sidetracking your thread @Schwiing

Don’t know. I don’t trust unraid to run VMs. My unraid is virtualized on ESXi.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great as a NAS and media server. I just have read about way too many vm issues.

 

[StevenDTX]

and yes, cache can be configured per user share.

 

[Spartacus]

Don’t know. I don’t trust unraid to run VMs. My unraid is virtualized on ESXi.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great as a NAS and media server. I just have read about way too many vm issues.

What kind of VM issues? I've been running it a while and had no problems.