Since 2016, I’ve had a fileserver mostly just for backups. System is on 1 drive, RAID6 for files, and semi-annual cold backup.

I was playing with Photoprism, and their docs say “we recommend placing the storage folder on a local SSD drive for best performance.” In this case, the storage folder holds basically everything but the pictures themselves such as the database files.

Up until now, if I lost any database files, it was just a matter of rebuilding them by re-indexing my photos or whatever, but I’m looking for something more robust since I’ll have some friends/family using Pixelfed, Matrix, etc.

So my question is: Is it a valid strategy to keep database files on the SSD with some kind of nightly backup to RAID, or should I just store the whole lot on the RAID from the get go? Or does it even matter if all of these databases can fit in RAM anyway?

edit: I’m just now learning of ZFS caching which might be my answer.

  • killabeezio@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    9 hours ago

    1. You don’t need zfs cache. Stay away from it. This isn’t going to help with what you want to do anyway. Just have enough RAM.

    2. You need to backup your stuff. Follow the 3-2-1 rule. RAID is not a backup.

    3. Don’t use hardware raids, there are many benefits to using software these days.

    With that said, let’s dig into it. You don’t really need NVMe drives tbh. SATA is probably going to be sufficient enough here. With that said, having mirrored drives will be sufficient enough as long as you are backing up your data. This also depends on how much space you will need.

    I just finished building out my backup and storage solution and ended up wanting NVMe drives for certain services that run. I just grabbed a few 1 TB drives and mirrors them. Works great and I do get better performance, even with other bottlenecks. This is then replicated to another server for backup and also to cloud backup.

    You also haven’t said what hardware you are currently using or if you are using any software for the raid. Are you currently using zfs? Unraid? What hardware do you have? You might be able to use a pice slot to install multiple NVMe drives in the same slot. This requires bifurcation though.

    • ch00f@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Current hardware is an ancient fanless motherboard from 2016. RAID6 is through mdadm. Four of the drives are through a super slow PCIe 2.0 1x card.

      New motherboard (just ordered) is a supermicro H13SAE-MF which has dual nvme slots and a built in raid controller for them.

      • killabeezio@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        Any reason why that board? Not 100% sure what you are trying to do, but it seems like an expensive board for a home NAS. I feel like you could get more value with other hardware. Again, you don’t need a raid controller these days. They are a pain to deal with and provide less protection when compared to software raid these days. It looks like the x16 can be split on that board to be 8/8, so if needed you can add an adapter to add 2 nvmes.

        You can just get an HBA card and add a bunch of drives to that as well if you need more data ports.

        I would recommend doing a bit more research on hardware and try and figure out what you need ahead of time. Something like an ASRock motherboard might better in this case. The epyc CPU is fine. But maybe get something with rdimm memory. I would just make sure it has a Management port like ipmi on the supermicro.

        • ch00f@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          I wanted to get something with a lot of upgrade potential, and this was the cheapest option to get my foot in the door with an EPYC processor.

          Also needed two PCIe slots that could do at least 8x for the hba card and Intel ARC for video streaming.