Help with Ryzen + HDD +SSD Cache Install

[AsankaG]

Hi All,

Just need some help with a new install that I'm about to do. The spec is as follows:

• Ryzen 3600
• MSI B450
• 32Gb DDR4 3000MHz
• 2x 240GB SSD
• 4x 1TB HDD
• 2x Gigabit NIC

I would like to setup this server with HDDs on ZFS10 and SSD acting as cache + boot drives (if possible).

I've seen a few guides but they seems to be old and none of them looks into this specific issue/build.

Appreciate if you guys can point me in the right direction to get this build done.

Thanks in advance,
Asanka

 

[kappclark]

Just got the same board for a new Proxmox build - will be interested in this thread ..

I think I will go with the Ryzen 2200G - going to use ZFS this time, with M.2 device to boot.

 

[paradox55]

What's the question specifically?

You can add cache drives to ZFS. I wouldn't recommend it since iirc L2 Arc also uses RAM and the bigger the cache drive the more it uses. You'd probably want something like bcache. You can also configure the LVM's to use cache. ZIL/SLOG might be helpful for you though.

Another downside is unless you know what SSD you have it could be a crap one. Speedtests run fine, but the garbage collection on some SSD's is crap. Basically this means after a while with sustained transfers your speeds go down to 20MB/s-50MB/s instead of the 500MB/s+. If you -do- have one of those ssd's I wouldn't bother with using it as a cache drive.

 

[AsankaG]

Just got the same board for a new Proxmox build - will be interested in this thread ..

I think I will go with the Ryzen 2200G - going to use ZFS this time, with M.2 device to boot.

You might want to be very careful with what you're going to get.
With the 1st M2 slot in use, SATA ports 5-6 gets disabled.
With 2nd M2 slot in use, all PCIe slots except the x16 one gets disabled.

the 3600 was able to boost 4ghz on all cores for short periods of time i was watching so that seems good. I want to undeervolt a bit as vcore was at 1.4v or something like that

 

[AsankaG]

What's the question specifically?

You can add cache drives to ZFS. I wouldn't recommend it since iirc L2 Arc also uses RAM and the bigger the cache drive the more it uses. You'd probably want something like bcache. You can also configure the LVM's to use cache. ZIL/SLOG might be helpful for you though.

Another downside is unless you know what SSD you have it could be a crap one. Speedtests run fine, but the garbage collection on some SSD's is crap. Basically this means after a while with sustained transfers your speeds go down to 20MB/s-50MB/s instead of the 500MB/s+. If you -do- have one of those ssd's I wouldn't bother with using it as a cache drive.

Thanks for this. Ended up scrapping the cache idea as the SSD given to me were WD Greens. SO just using them as Boot Drives.

 

[kappclark]

You might want to be very careful with what you're going to get.
With the 1st M2 slot in use, SATA ports 5-6 gets disabled.
With 2nd M2 slot in use, all PCIe slots except the x16 one gets disabled.

the 3600 was able to boost 4ghz on all cores for short periods of time i was watching so that seems good. I want to undeervolt a bit as vcore was at 1.4v or something like that

Is the losing sata port issue true if you use a nvme-based M.2 ? I double-checked, and that is what was shipped.

 

[AsankaG]

Is the losing sata port issue true if you use a nvme-based M.2 ? I double-checked, and that is what was shipped.

Doesn't have to be NVME. Happens with SATA M2 drives as well.

 

[kappclark]

THX - still getting parts for the build.