Best NAS software to use for my use case

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N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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Hi all,
So start off with my hardware:
Dual Xeon 32 Core 2.1ghz, 128gb RAM, Dual 10gbe, Quadro P2000 (Plex/Emby Transcoding)
Storage I was thinking of going with:
2x 250gb SSD
2x 128gb SSD Boot Mirror
2x 1tb SSD Docker containers and downloads
18x 8tb HDD's Storage (If I go ZFS, thinking 2 vdev's of 9 drives each in RaidZ2)

Currently I'm using unRAID with Plex/Emby/Sonarr/Radarr/NZBget/LetsEncrypt (might move this to my OPNsense Router)/Hydra/NextCloud/Syncthing Dockers.

I was thinking Proxmox with FreeNAS ontop (liking the idea of ZFS) and then something running Portainer or something for Dockers. I'm battling to get my head around a lot of aspects of this.
I could run FreeNAS baremetal, but was thinking of Plex/Emby Transcoding issues.
Was also thinking about future upgrades if I wanna rebuild FreeNAS or something I can save a snapshot.
But getting my head around how Sonarr/Radarr will download and then pass that data to the storage array is making my head hurt (permission wise)

I could use Proxmox and create a ZFS Pool via Proxmox and then pass that through to OMV or something else maybe?
Or maybe just use OMV itself with ZFS, and Portainer built in?

Just kinda trying to find the best home NAS solution.
I like unRAID that I am currently using, and have it setup well but 2 things:
1) I like to tinker and learn new things
2) I find that pushing 4k high bitrate stuff through unRAID painfully slow with it using only 1 drive at a time. So I'd like to use a raid of some sort, and really like ZFS or better yet OpenZFS.

Any thoughts, and sorry for the ramble.
 

zack$

Well-Known Member
Aug 16, 2018
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When last I checked, proxmox does not pass all drive data to FreeNAS (I had a failing drive that showed no errors when passed through) so I would not recommend this going forward.

You can run ZFS on promox and simply use FreeNAS for setting up shares. In FreeNAS 12 (name change to TrueNAS Core) ZFS on Linux will be supported so that could allow you to migrate to TrueNAS Core (though I cannot validate this).

Also, given your hardware, it's gonna be an overkill for FreeNAS baremetal.

For my part, I currently use ESXI with a FreeNAS VM and it works great.
 

N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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Umm thats a good piece of info about failing drives passed through. Thanks for that.
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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I find that pushing 4k high bitrate stuff through unRAID painfully slow with it using only 1 drive at a time.
Could you elaborate on this? I'm failing to see how a single drive is unable to stream even multiple high bitrate 4K files at a time. Considering that even 5400rpm drives can do 1600+Mbps in total sequential bandwidth, I'm thinking you have some other issue going on. All my 4K content is remux only and I have zero issue with streaming it from Unraid, and I've tested multiple 4K streams from the same HDD.
 

N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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Could you elaborate on this? I'm failing to see how a single drive is unable to stream even multiple high bitrate 4K files at a time. Considering that even 5400rpm drives can do 1600+Mbps in total sequential bandwidth, I'm thinking you have some other issue going on. All my 4K content is remux only and I have zero issue with streaming it from Unraid, and I've tested multiple 4K streams from the same HDD.
I've seen some spikes of up to 115mb/s which is fine for 1 drive, but what if I was pulling other data from the same drive while the family is watching Plex? Or I'm working on something at the same time.
Quickly run into issues with single drive use. I dont see this often but have seen it.
 

N0_Klu3

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Mar 9, 2020
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With RaidZ one each vdev?
Or RaidZ2 too? Feels like that will be a waste of drives.

Was thinking 9 drive RaidZ2 for 2 reasons:
1) Least amount of wastage unless using 3x vdev or RaidZ (kinda liked the 2 drive failure per vdev as when doing a resilver I can afford to lose another drive)
2) When I move my data I will use those 9 drives to backup my current data, rebuild server and then copy that data back. I can get away with using 6 drives so that isnt too much of an issue.
3) I dont need SUPER speed this is more of a media server.
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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I've seen some spikes of up to 115mb/s which is fine for 1 drive, but what if I was pulling other data from the same drive while the family is watching Plex? Or I'm working on something at the same time.
Quickly run into issues with single drive use. I dont see this often but have seen it.
I see 115mbps as well at times, I still fail see the issue. I can stream multiple 4K remuxes off the same drive with no hiccups. One 4K stream isn't even 1/10th of the bandwidth of the drive. What plex client are you using?
 

N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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I see 115mbps as well at times, I still fail see the issue. I can stream multiple 4K remuxes off the same drive with no hiccups. One 4K stream isn't even 1/10th of the bandwidth of the drive. What plex client are you using?
For a modern 7200 RPM drive it ranges from about 80-160 MB/s.
I use 5400 RPM drives, and I dont know where you get your 1/10th a drives perf from, but I think you have some magical spinning RUST drives if that is the case... You have a unicorn so what works for you sure.
 

IamSpartacus

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Mar 14, 2016
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For a modern 7200 RPM drive it ranges from about 80-160 MB/s.
I use 5400 RPM drives, and I dont know where you get your 1/10th a drives perf from, but I think you have some magical spinning RUST drives if that is the case... You have a unicorn so what works for you sure.
What drives are you using? Here's a screen shot of all 16 of my drives benchmarked (using the DiskSpeed container in Unraid). The top 8 drives are 7200RPM WD Golds, the 8 bottom drives are WD White Label's (shucked drives).

The 7200rpm range from about 250MB/s on the outer parts of the spindles to 120MB/s on the inner parts. And the 5400rpm range from about 210MB/s to 100MB/s.

 

N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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I'm using WD Red's. Like I say running 1x 4k off 1 drive works and works mostly fine.
But now and then if I'm doing something else it might get micro blips, im not talking about not playing or anything like that. Just trying to avoid that and use ZFS as a great filesystem.
 

ttabbal

Active Member
Mar 10, 2016
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Everyone's use cases are different. I don't buy into the "one true way" stuff, there's a best for you, a best for me, etc.. :)

I like the tradeoffs that ZFS makes. I don't need so much storage that "wasted" space for error recovery is an issue for me. I also prefer the easier expansion and increased speeds I get from mirrors. My array is 10x mirror pairs in a large stripe. It's a multi-use setup and I need decent random speeds while also running media streams. It's not the only way, it just works for me.

I had some streaming issues like you mention when I was running 2x raidz2. This was also a long time back, so it's possible the code has improved.

If you want proxmox, I would just use ZFS direct on the Linux host. Then set up containers/VMs as needed. If you really want to use a storage VM, use PCI passthrough to push the HBAs into the VM. That way at least you keep the host from interfering with things.
 

azev

Well-Known Member
Jan 18, 2013
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I think I can relate to op regarding single drive cannot drive multiple 4k stream. My justification for this is that multiple sequential stream of different file is the same file becomes random data from the drive perspective.
 

N0_Klu3

New Member
Mar 9, 2020
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I mean if on unRAID it could pool even just 2 drives together that would make a big difference as files get bigger too.

But as it stands I need to look elsewhere.
Thinking OMV with ZFS support
 

HellDiverUK

Active Member
Jul 16, 2014
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For a modern 7200 RPM drive it ranges from about 80-160 MB/s.
I use 5400 RPM drives, and I dont know where you get your 1/10th a drives perf from, but I think you have some magical spinning RUST drives if that is the case... You have a unicorn so what works for you sure.
I don't know where you got your drives, or what you have them plugged in to, but if you're only getting 80-160MB/s, you need to do some serious troubleshooting.

I see 200MB/s+ off a single drive in unRAID - they're WD Red 10TB in my unRAID box, which is a lowly i5-6500T, connected via 5Gb ethernet.

My Windows box can do 300MB/s sustained from a StorageSpaces Mirror off 12TB Toshiba 7200rpm drives.