I have a new QNAP TVS-951x with 5 10TB NAS Ironwolf (3 .5 Inch SATA 6GB/S 7200 RPM 256MB Cache) drives and 2 Samsung 860 QVO 1TB Solid State Drives (MZ-76Q1T0).
My roon library is 4.13 TB (81k tracks - lots of high rez files).
Asus AC 1900 Gigabit Router Cat 6 to NAS & Endpoints
Sonore microRendu endpoints (2)
ELAC - Discovery Z3 endpoint
QNAP Firmware: 4.4.1.1146
I am seeking guidance as to properly setting this up to optimize performance.
I will use this NAS as a VM, VPN, ROON & PLEX server.
I will store all data including 15 TB photos & video.
I am not an IT guy.
Questions:
RAID for 2 SSD’s (Raid 0, Raid 1) what is best
RAID for 5 Ironwolf’s (Raid 5, Raid 6, Raid 10) what is best
Data Volumes 1 for roon library, 1 for video, 1 photos, 1 other data?
How to install Roon core on SSD’s?
Do I need to buy more SSD’s (about 6 TB total) for Roon library ?
Do I use QTIER?
Do I use SSD Cashe?
Thin or tick volumes for data?
How do I copy & move roon library with meta data from my DROBO-FS NAS to the QNAP?
All depends on what you are trying to achieve and how much redundancy you want. Write speeds come into play, but not normally cared about in home systems.
Raid 0 is very fast, no safety net, One drive goes bad you lose everything. Raid 1 is basically the same data is written to both drives, so the total usable volume in your case would be 1 TB for the SSD’s. You can lose 1 drive as the other has the same information (mirrored).
Raid 5 total volume will be N-1 so 40 TB for the 5 Ironwolfs and you can lose 1 drive without losing data. Raid 6 allows you to use lose 2 drives before losing data at the cost of total storage being N-2 or 30 TB.
Raid 10 or really Raid 1 + 0, is a combination of mirrored and striped. It requires an even number of drives, like raid 1 (so you’d need another Ironwolf) and it can only lose 1 drive and retain integrity. It is much faster, and you will only get 30 TB of usable space (yes that is after you buy another drive). Otherwise, you will use 4 Ironwolf drives and have 20 TB of space (save the last for a hot spare?).
So, what is your goal, faster disk access? protection against failures, and to what degree? Maximizing storage?
And also, how are you going to backup the NAS. NAS is not a backup. You still have to backup everything on the NAS to some other storage.
Thank you for answering some of my questions, your explanation helps a lot. Now I get to make a decision. I have been using a Drobo-FS for storage and backing it up to USB drives that I keep in my RV. My Roon core is on a Pentium 7 laptop that has become unreliable. My Drobo is maxed out and I want to rip my 500+ Blu-ray / DVD collection. So I got the QNAP to move to - I was hoping it could replace the Drobo and P7 laptop. As I learn more it is looking like I may need more gear. I like having the NAS for protection against failures and I am looking for top performance. It seems like Raid 6 might be the best way to go, I currently have 15 TB of Data and the video rips will add about 10 TB so I think this will work. The TVS-951x only has 5 bays so Raid 10 is out. I will go Raid 1 on the 2 SSD’s.
One further note to Rugby’s excellent summary: I would always reccomend to use an ‘of premises’ means of backup. This could be a cloud service or, as I do it, another NAS at a friends house.
I run Roon (and some other apps) on an SSD that I have designated as ‘system’ drive, it is not part of the RAID volumes. Roon is a pretty active bit of software when it comes to database management, an SSD gives a significant performance boost here.
If your music is irreplaceable then, yes, the added level of an off-site backup is valuable. Especially if you live in a disaster prone location. Flood, Tornado, Earthquake, Fire, can kill all your backups at the same time if they are in your house.
Thank you for the additional information. Do you have any idea how to set up an SSD systems drive on the TVS-951x? Also is it a good idea to use two SSD’s set to Raid 1 to protect the system and roon data base? Last question is it ok to run Roon & Plex from the same SSD?
My USB drives in my RV are my off premises back ups. We have been having a lot of wild fires in my area so I do this I am also looking into Cloud back ups - but your 2nd NAS at friends is an awesome option!
Maybe i have used the wrong terminology: it is not so much a ‘System’ drive… The way I have configured it is that I have one SSD on which I have created two volumes: System1 and APP. On the System1 volume are all the standard shared folders like ‘Multimedia’ etc. and the user folders.
On the APP volume I have installed Roon and two other apps (OpenHAB and Surveillance Station in a Container).
You could simply add an SSD in your NAS, create a volume on it and migrate the Roon app to this volume.
I have chosen not to configure this as Raid because the SSD is fast enough already and in terms of reliability I would accept that I need to retrieve my backup for the 3 apps that running here.