Deciding on which storage configuration - Looking for opinions

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krone6

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Feb 1, 2015
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Hi all,

I've been designing my home network for a while now and am starting to have a good idea on what I want in it. The idea is to have three main servers consisting of Sophos UTM, ProxMox, and UnRAID (all rack mounted with 24 bay Norco-4224 for UnRAID). As far as ProxMox goes I don't need any backups for the drives that store the VMs. I will offload all storage to the unraid server which will be configured in a way to make best use of a failure (such as two drives dedicated to VM backups instead of a giant 20 drive array). For now I plan to run a 10 or less Minecraft server for fooling around in on the side and possibly share out a VM or so to a friend. The rest will be whatever comes to mind at the same, though this will be my performance machine, so I want it to last a while. For now I have the rack and firewall running.

The current options I am thinking of are:

1: Using a single 500GB Samsung 850 EVO
2: Using a Perc 6/i or 6/E card with two 256GB Samsung 850 EVO drives in either raid 0 or 1.
3: Using something like a DS214+ with two 256GB Samsung 850 EVO drives in either raid 0 or 1 with one or both RJ45 ports plugged directly into the server.

Being that Minecraft will be one of the applications I'd like the storage to have a decent amount of IOPS. There will be no HDDs in this either since storage is handled by the unraid server, so this is specifically performance-based for the VMs. Also note I will be using an board with the C204 chipset and ECC ram. I can give exact specs if requested.

Overall what would be everyone's opinion on the storage option for such a server? And I do realize there will be a bunch of single points of failures in my network. I am not a datacenter so it is what it is. Best I can aim for in a home environment is good enough.
 
Hi,
If you want performance and you make Backups then Raid 0 with Option 2.
You can recover it fast if one SSD is damage.
 
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wolfgang said:
Hi,
If you want performance and you make Backups then Raid 0 with Option 2.
You can if recover fast if one SSD is damage.
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I agree, be careful with your work load and which SSD you choose. Would be worth looking into what kind of TBW you need and ensure the SSD you choose can stand up to the task. Sounds like you are headed in the right direction. Good luck!
 
adamb said:
I agree, be careful with your work load and which SSD you choose. Would be worth looking into what kind of TBW you need and ensure the SSD you choose can stand up to the task. Sounds like you are headed in the right direction. Good luck!
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What if I went with a 500GB intel enterprise-based ssd instead of consumer ones? That was another option someone showed me after I made this thread.
 
I think in your case home environment, you need no enterprise class ssd and performance is more I important. But you must now what you need.
 
wolfgang said:
I think in your case home environment, you need no enterprise class ssd and performance is more I important. But you must now what you need.
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There are allot of consumer based SSD's with low TBW's. I have killed them in the past within a year or two. Really comes down to the work load.
 
The TBW is 30% less by the Samsung 850 EVO vs Intel DC 3500.
 
wolfgang said:
The TBW is 30% less by the Samsung 850 EVO vs Intel DC 3500.
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I didn't actually look, I don't know the numbers, I was simply advising to at least check and ensure everything would be aok. Its worth the 5-10 minutes of research and should be done before implementing any solution with SSD's home or enterprise.
 
mir said:
I have also heard that DC 3500 should be avoided for DC 3700 since 3500 uses MLC while 3700 uses SLC
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The 3500 is still leaps ahead of consumer grade drives though and the prices are pretty good. The 3500 is a good drive depending on the workload. Its all about the workload!
 
mir said:
If it's all about workload the 3500 fails utterly. 10000 +- 2000 4k random write IOPS.
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I agree, its not the best performer but its not a bad drive for the price point. Its really intended for read heavy jobs. In our environment we are 80/20 reads/writes so you can see why the 3500 would be a good drive for our workload. Not all workloads are write intensive.
 
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