PBS on Hetzner SX62 server (4x10TB HDD, 32GB RAM) - ZFS or not?

[gag]

Hello all,
Got a SX62 server on Hetzner: Intel Xeon E3-1270 v3 quad-core processor, 32GB RAM, 4 x 10TB hard drives.
No Raid controller card, no way to add SSD.
My first thought here is: mdadm RAID10 + lvm + (ext4 or xfs).
Still not familiar with ZFS, however.
Maybe there is a way to configure it properly in such a small amount of RAM and disk subsystem such bad?
Any opinion would be valuable to me.
Appreciate your help!

 

[flames]

tl;dr yes!

The installation of ZFS is pretty straight forward with Hetzner. The best way just order (free) the iKVM console, install from iso, use PBS installer to select ZFS.
If you have also a separate ssd for the os, then you don't need the console, install PBS to the SSD and create ZFS from PBS GUI.
This two ways lead to a different setup. In first you have only ZFS and PBS is installed and booting directly from the ZFS.

 

[gag]

tl;dr yes!

The installation of ZFS is pretty straight forward with Hetzner...

Thank you flame!
There is no question of how to install PBS on the Hetzner root server. It's pretty straight forward indeed!
The question was whether ZFS would be a good choice in these circumstances: only 32GB of RAM + 4 HDD without SSD cache?

 

[flames]

ah, 32GB is a little bit low, but with zfs raid10 it is ok (raidz equvalents with checksums, like raid5 is bad). yes, for zfs there is a rule of thumb, 1gb ram per 1tb of physical disk space (not usable space, 32gb ram for 40tb diskspace in your case). but for a backup machine i don't see any issues.
i run multiple servers at hetzner, 32gb + 4x 10tb and one with only 16gb + 4x 8tb. even the smaller one is ok, a little bit slower, when deleting a lot of data/garbage collection, but totally usable and more convenient than mdadm.

 

[gag]

Okay, trying ZFS then.
Thanks again for your help,
Have a nice day!

 

[DerDanilo]

You can also setup the machine using mdadm with a raid 10 (Hetzner installer) using only some space of the disks for the OS. Then install PBS via apt and create a ZFS raid 10 using the remaining space (4th or 5th partition). ZFS on partitions won't be as good as native but it allows you to use the Hetzner Rescue system if needed.

Also both bigger SX server support additional ssd/nvme drives. Ask the Hetzner support for details.

 

[gag]

You can also setup the machine using mdadm with a raid 10 (Hetzner installer) using only some space of the disks for the OS. Then install PBS via apt and create a ZFS raid 10 using the remaining space (4th or 5th partition). ZFS on partitions won't be as good as native but it allows you to use the Hetzner Rescue system if needed.

Also both bigger SX server support additional ssd/nvme drives. Ask the Hetzner support for details.

Thank you for the new information!
I think in some cases it's definitely worth a shot.
For now, I've decided to give a chance to a Proxmox ZFS RAID10 pure installation.