Help with setup

Discussion on setting up QNAP NAS products.
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Neo314
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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

Hi Folks,

I would love some advice on my initial setup. As far as I can tell this would be the correct section to post the question.
I'm going to be setting up a TS-473A-8G which will mostly be a file and VPN server and run an ubuntu VM that will backup a centOS VPS.
It will have 64GB RAM, a 1TB and a 2TB M.2 SSD installed and 4 x 18TB NAS drives. I am planning on using RAID10.

At the moment, I am planning on running QuTS hero with the ZFS file system which is completely new to me.

Can I get any words of wisdom about configuration? I was figuring on running the VM on the 1TB SSD and using the 2TB for cache, but I am not clear as to whether there are any choices I need to make about where to put the OS of the NAS or any choices about the L2ACr and ZIL vs Cache. Are the L2ACr and ZIL just part of the cache and managed by the OS, or are there decisions to be made there?

I also figured on 10% over-provisioning pool just because that appeared to be default.

Any guidance would be most welcome.
Kunzite
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Re: Help with setup

Post by Kunzite »

My 2 cents:
- I would create the system pool on 2xSSDs in RAID 1 (VMs would go there as well). It seems it's highly recommended to have the QuTS system pool on SSDs.
- do you actually need SSD caching? By the way, with your one SSD you'd only get L2ARC.
Of course, for the VMs installed on SSDs you don't need SSD cache. So it's about the data stored on the HDDs.
- I prefer RAID 5 (RAIDZ1) instead of RAID10. Or RAIDZ2, but with 4 drives, I'm not sure it's worth it. Having backups is a must, I would rely on those in the event of a dual HDD failure.
- you can reduce the over-provisioning percentage after setting it. If in doubt, there's no problem setting it to e.g. 20% in the beginning.

Regarding cache: QuTS Hero offers you a choice of a combined ZIL+L2ARC cache, for which you need an even number of SSDs (so at least two mirrored), or separate ZIL and L2ARC caches - ZIL needing at least 2 SSDs (I assume it's actually an even number), and L2ARC needing at least 1.
With one SSD as I said you can only have a L2ARC...

The VPN server is another subject. The consensus on this forum appears to be: don't. Instead, install the VPN server on a separate device, perhaps a router.
There are many instances of NAS units being affected by ransomware, after being exposed to the Internet.
Neo314
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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Re: Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

Thanks for responding.

The VPN server is a question answered in another request I made. It came from a recommendation I questioned. So, yeah, no VPN server. It always seemed like putting the lock on the wrong side of the door to me.

I'm still a bit confused on the SSD use. I assume I cannot run 2 m.2 SSD's in Raid 1 is I have a 1TB and a 2TB. I have 2 m.2slots and no PCI card for more at the moment. So how much SSD do I need? How much is needed for the L2ARC and ZIL? Is this something I can change later if I add more SSD capacity via PCI, or is the decision final at setup? Is there a better PCI for this than the QNAP cards, or a particularly good choice for the PCI card?

A significant portion of what will be on the drives will be encrypted backups and shared file storage. The latter will be mirrored in house periodically and all of it will be put on 8-16 TB HDD's and stored off site at least monthly. That is the backup plan.

Thanks again!
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dolbyman
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Re: Help with setup

Post by dolbyman »

You can combine two SSDs in RAID1 (In fact, I never run single SSD for anything, just too risky) but mixing them will 'waste' the overage on the larger one.
Neo314
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Re: Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

I intended to simply back up the SSD's I assume that is possible as well. A failure would not be mission critical if I can just replace it in my application.
Neo314
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Re: Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

P.S. Kunzite, I meant to ask why Raid 5 or Raid Z2 over raid 10. I chose it for write performance and can spare the amount of storage involved. AM I missing something?
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dolbyman
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Re: Help with setup

Post by dolbyman »

Depending on what you use the SSD's for .. failure would not only need restoring of the data but (if this is the system volume) reinstall of the apps. So redundancy is not only for user data but also program data failure tolerance.

I advise RAID6 (RAIDz2) over RAID10 as the failure tolerance can handle 2 drives guaranteed, but if the RAID10 mirror pair dies during the rebuild all data is toast (again, not a backup but better for uptime).

I run a 8 disks RAIDz2 in my 1288x and write and read both max out my 10GBE Ethernet .. so why bother with 50% storage impact and higher risk of failure in RAID10 ?
Kunzite
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Re: Help with setup

Post by Kunzite »

I see dolbyman already gave you some good answers.

The System Pool is fixed, you cannot move it without wiping out everything and restarting from scratch. I would install QuTS Hero on 2 SSDs in RAID 1; this is how I set up my TS-673A (and 32GB of ECC RAM).
But you can add later SSD caching - provided you have enough free SSDs, of course (as you can only use an SSD for storage or for caching, never for both) . As I said, you need an odd number for ZIL/write cache. Again, do you actually need SSD caching?

As for speed... how's your network? If you only have 1GbE, performance just isn't there; 100 and something MB/s, whatever you do. 2.5GbE is a nice improvement; 10GbE is probably a waste for your 4-bay NAS (you get 10GbE speeds from the number of HDDs). Of course, you cannot get 10GbE without an adapter.
Neo314
Starting out
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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Re: Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

Some speed considerations are for USB3 connected drives to the NAS for backup and to take large volumes off to portable drives and write changes back on later.

I will have all the NAS data backed up off site.
Neo314
Starting out
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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2022 2:56 pm

Re: Help with setup

Post by Neo314 »

I do have 2 1tb ssd's coming, so I could run those in RAID 1 for the OS. Any recommendations for the most cost effective quality M.2 SSD PCI card for my box? I still have a 2tb.

A QNAP card or something else?
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