Questions about NAS-OS and Networks

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makarai

New Member
Aug 8, 2022
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Hey all,

Hope everyone is having a great week so far.

I have been reading STH for some time but never had anything to contribute as most people here are much more knowledgeable than me, In fact, I have 0 IT background. So, this is my first post on this lovely forum, I hope I don't break too many rules.
I am a physicist, so naturally, I have had to deal with the internet and large datasets for quite some time, and somehow homelab-ing became a relaxing hobby for me (last 6 years).

Now, I am sitting in front of my home lab and wondering if I did a decent job. And with quite a few questions: Which I don't really know how to ask in an organized way, so I am just throwing them out in an unsorted manner, but first I’d like to give a short insight into my home stuff. I employ a good mix of retired gaming machines and purposefully bought things.

Topology:


Hardware:
Firewall:
  • Opnsense 22.7_4-amd64
  • Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3550 CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 cores, 4 threads)
  • Biostar H61MHV2
  • 8064 MB of RAM
  • 120 GB SSD
  • Intel X520-DA2 82599ES (SFP+)

Switch:
  • TP-Link T1700G-28TQ (pretty old, looking at the beefs tho, if its necessary)

VM-System:
  • Proxmox 7.2-7
  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12/24-Core Processor
  • Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 500GB SSD + a 4 TB HDD
  • Intel Corporation 82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection (rev 01) DAC

Jellyfin/Emby/Plex (Docker Host):
  • Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
  • Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz
  • ASUS Z170-DELUXE
  • Nvidia - GP106GL [Quadro P2000]
  • Intel Corporation 82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection (rev 01) DAC

NAS:
  • TrueNAS Core 12.0-U8
  • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v5 @ 3.50GHz
  • Supermicro X11SSM-F
  • 48 GB ECC RAM
  • Intel Corporation 82599ES 10-Gigabit SFI/SFP+ Network Connection (rev 01) DAC
  • Case: X-Case RM424 Pro-EX V2 24 - 12Gb Expander back plane
  • HBA: LSI 9300-8I PCI-Express 3.0 SATA SAS 8-Port SAS3 12Gb/s HBA Single (Flashed into IT mode)
  • Storage Configuration: (This is my downfall / mess) zpools
    • Volume01 -> 12x3TB WD Reds -> ZFS RaidZ2 -> Legacy Encrypted (Full)
    • Volume02 -> 1x8TB Random hard drive -> single drive empty
    • Volume03 -> 3x10TB -> ZFS RaidZ1 -> (Full)
    • Private -> 2x4TB -> ZFS Mirror -> (50% Full important stuff)

Overall, it looks like this. Perfect cable management holds everything in place!
Not included in the diagram are the 100 IOT devices, PIKVM , vlans etc.
(Lamp turns red when one of my servers goes down, and yellow when a service fails, controlled via HA)

1660046247715.png


Questions:

General:
  1. Is it ok to have my media server and the actual storage of the media on separate machines?
  2. How can I make sure that each machine performs to its full potential?
  3. Is my hardware on the firewall good enough to deal with 10Gbit/s? If it is, how can I test this, besides iperf-ing through the firewall, I achieve about 7.0-8.0 Gbit/s on speed test sides that can handle it.
  4. Any glaring issues you guys see?

NAS (main problems, i’d say):
  1. Tho, my Truenas system has been rock solid , I like to change it somehow. I have been reading about mergerFS and snapraid and for me, it seems the better solution for Volume 1-3, but with that, I would need to change the OS.
    1. What I would like to know is how would be the best way to change the OS and can I incorporate decent encryption: Here is what I am debating:
      1. Proxmox -> Ubuntu VM (mergerFS / Snapraid) (pass-through HBA with drives) (maybe you could give me some input @IamSpartacus)
      2. Proxmox handles all drives -> Ubuntu VM (gets bind mounts)
      3. Purely Ubuntu (merger FS + Snapraid)
 
Last edited:

Bjorn Smith

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2019
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r00t.dk
Is it ok to have my media server and the actual storage of the media on separate machines?
Yes, no problem - unless you plan on streaming "many" streams at the same time. I have this and run my media server in a kubernetes cluster - and it works perfect. Before this I was just running a VM, but I have always had my media on a separate machine.

Is my hardware on the firewall good enough to deal with 10Gbit/s?
Yes I would think so - but probably not if you expect 10gbps VPN - but purely "firewall/routing" - I don't see any issues - but you can always test it with iperf as you suggest.
NAS (main problems, i’d say):
I would keep on using Truenas - there might be more ideal solutions out there, where you can mix storage with other concerns - but for pure storage - I think its hard to find a better solution than Truenas.
I would probably consolidate the drives into fewer bigger ones - its a lot of drives you have going there.