Low Power SFF 1U TrueNAS Backup Server

[iadityaharsh]

I have recently purchased Supermicro AS-5019D-FTN4 for building a low power backup system for my primary TrueNAS Box. This Barebones can accommodate 2x SATA SSDs alongside 1x Full Length, Half Height PCIe Card and 1x on-board M.2 NVMe Gen-3 stick.

This server appliance will primarily contain all ZFS replication of my most valuable datasets and run 1x VM of Proxmox Backup Server (to create an off-site replication to a zvol that will be added to the VM)

For the PCIe AOC I will be adding 1x Asus Hyper M.2 x16 Gen-3 Card which will provide me with total 5x M.2 NVMe Gen-3 slots (after Bifurcation) giving me room for 5-wide RAIDZ2 pool. And 2x SATA SSDs in MIRROR.

Use Case (in detail):

1. SATA Pool (MIRROR):
   a. Contain ZVOL for PBS VM Storage (current setup utilises 400GB)
   b. Target for 2TB (for future headroom)
2. NVME Pool (RAIDZ2):
   a. Contain shares for Local NAS requirements.
   b. Contain ZVOL for PBS VM OS (64GB is sufficient)
   c. Contain ZFS Replication of Critical Datasets.

Any suggestions on the M.2 NVMe Gen-3 sticks and SATA SSDs? I would like cheaper options without sacrificing too much on the performance. Performance isn’t the utmost priority (as this is just another Backup node), but power consumption and cost is.

[TryTwiceMedia]

The Samsung EVO series has the same rated write endurance as their Pro line.

Since it is a lower performing drive, that may be possible at the price point.

Sasmsung’s entry level “Enterprise” SATA SSD’s are rebadged “Pro” SATA drives of old and the price reflects it.

Not a Samsung fanboy by any means, but their products are consistent.

Since this is your backup server and will invariably be neglected in your environment since your product lifecycle is not under SOP, I would recommend avoiding used enterprise drives. With that in mind, still stick a label on the front of the box that says something to the effect of:
“Replace: 5x (capacity) NVME drives and 2x 2TB SATA SSD’s in (current year +3)” to stay within the bathtub curve of drive failure.