New install & Hardware Raid 10 Question

[MGSteve]

Hi all,

Sorry, another RAID question :/ I'm setting up PBS on a R740XD with 12x 2TB WD Red HDDs, configured in a Raid 10 array to get some semblance of performance. I couldn't get Enterprise SSDs due to the cost, so this is what we're stuck with.

What's the best way to set the filesystem on up this as I've just found out how the garbage collection works and I'm concerned over speeds now! lol.

I know from setting up the VE nodes that ZFS over Hardware Raid is not recommended, but they're going to be using CEPH anyway, but for the backup, what's the best solution here? ZFS sounds the best option due to being able to put the metadata on special disks, which can be SSDs, but is that still advisable with hardware backed RAID 10 drives?

Also, how big do the SSDs need to be for an 18TB Raid array ?

Are there any other suggestions for optimising this setup?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sb-jw]

ZFS sounds the best option due to being able to put the metadata on special disks, which can be SSDs, but is that still advisable with hardware backed RAID 10 drives?

You should definitely put the controller in HBA mode for this! Never use ZFS in conjunction with a RAID.

Also, how big do the SSDs need to be for an 18TB Raid array ?

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/zfs-metadata-special-device.129031/#post-564817

I couldn't get Enterprise SSDs due to the cost, so this is what we're stuck with.

How much storage space do you need? PBS sometimes has a dedup factor of up to 30 and enterprise SSDs are cheaper than they have been for a long time or even better than ever before. Look at e.g. Samsung PM883.