HDD tetris...
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Looking for recommendations on getting the best disk performance out of a SUPERMICRO SYS-5018D-MF. The server case can only hold two 3.5" or four 2.5" drives. Mobo has x2 Sata3 ports and x4 Sata2 ports. I need about 1TB of usable storage total. The use case is a general fileserver for about 10 users but it also will be running the Ubnt NVR as a separate vm so I wanted to optimize for disk writes.
I was thinking about going with (4) 2.5" drives in a RAID 10. Any thoughts on a better configuration? -
Best performance will be to ignore the drive bays and get NVMe internal board(s).
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To maximize the use of the hot swap bays....
You likely want two really fast drives in the bigger bays (get an adapter) and put your NVR there. Then put bigger, slower drives in RAID 5 in the smaller, slower bays. that way you get six drives, and maximize the use of the adapter.
All SSD of course.
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But likely that is all overkill. "Best performance" is always too costly. Chances are, 2-4 drives in RAID 1 or 5 is all you need. 1TB is not very big, even for SSDs. Ten users and an NVR don't need any performance at all.
Two SSDs of 1TB, in RAID 1, is adequate. More than adequate.
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@scottalanmiller Thank you for the thoughts. The case limits me to 4 physical 2.5" drives or (2) 3.5" drives. Any recommendations on a SSDs for 24/7 use?
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@i3 said in HDD tetris...:
@scottalanmiller Thank you for the thoughts. The case limits me to 4 physical 2.5" drives or (2) 3.5" drives. Any recommendations on a SSDs for 24/7 use?
Oh, it's one OR the other, not both?
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@i3 said in HDD tetris...:
@scottalanmiller Thank you for the thoughts. The case limits me to 4 physical 2.5" drives or (2) 3.5" drives. Any recommendations on a SSDs for 24/7 use?
Lots of fine options. Obviously enterprise drives are best, but expensive. Comes down to your needs. NVR doesn't tend to get the best drives. and 24/7 operation is of no consequence to SSDs.
Sansung, Intel, loads of others. Decent consumer drives will do the job just fine.
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@scottalanmiller Correct. Small 1u case. Thanks for the replies.
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@i3 said in HDD tetris...:
@scottalanmiller Correct. Small 1u case. Thanks for the replies.
OIC, two big SSDs maybe then. See what the prices are like. Four 330GB in RAID 5 is probably the cheapest.
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All storage on that server is internal so no drive bays. It's far from ideal. And the server doesn't have any hardware raid. Also since some of the ports are SATA-2 they are not suitable for SSDs because they limit the performance to 50% of max. So you are really limited to two SATA SSD drives.
That being said, storing video streams are one of the applications where HDDs are actually very suitable. Depends on how much storage you want but if you need more than a couple of hundred gigs, HDDs should be your choice.
Assuming you want lots of storage I would get two 3.5" drives and run md software raid 1 on those. Something like 2-6TB drives. NAS drives (like WD RED, Seagate Ironwulf) if you are on a low budget, otherwise SATA enterprise drives (Seagate Constellation ES or similar).
I would also get one Supermicro SATA DOM (tiny enterprise SSD that plugs into SATA port) and put the hypervisor and VM's OS on that. Just have a backup in case the DOM ever fails.
https://www.storagereview.com/supermicro_superdom_reviewI wouldn't get SSDs for storage for your use case - unless your needs are very small or your budget is big. But if you have a large budget I would get another server with drive bays.
