Selecting SSD's for ZFS special device

Hardware HDD's & SSD's
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Hello Everyone,

I’m currently looking into adding a special metadata vdev to my TrueNAS core server.

A triple mirror would be best but I don’t how to do that on my motherboard with only two M.2 slots. The pcie limit of 20 lanes on standard platforms is really annoying. I would have to accept 2 way mirror as good enough for ssd’s (and keep a validated cold spare)

My question is in relation to selecting nvme drives. I can’t seem to find guides on that. Power loss protection is a must (I have an UPS or are they talking about the capacitors on older/enterprise ssd’s?)

There are a few options that look interesting to me:
WD Blue SN580 1TB
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB
Samsung 980 1TB

Price is about the same (66-78 bucks) for all of them. pcie gen3 or gen4 doesn’t matter. The Crucial has a dram cache. Would that be preferred or would that be detrimental due to the lack of capacitors?

Relavant hardware
Supermicro X11SCH-F
Intel Core i3-9100F (SRF7W)
2x Crucial CT16G4WFD8266 16GB ECC 2666Mhz (32GB total)
Crucial BX500 120GB boot SSD
6x WD Red Plus, 4TB (64MB cache) in RaidZ2 14,4 TiB available main array
APC Back-UPS BX1400U-GR (battery replaced last year)
Intel X520 10gb NIC (added 2023)

Main pcie slot is reserved for a HBA expansion card for when I add a second data vdev.
The pool is currently 53% full

Thank you in advance for your time

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Having DRAM for on-drive cache is what separates the cheap from the mid-range. No idea how that cache behaves in case of power loss.

I had good experience with Crucial and Kingston SSDs, and mixed experience with the two WD-ssds (one of those may have been caused by a bad mainboard though).

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Based on the recommendations in the special VDEV thread I decided to go the enterprise SSD route, so I found a pair of used 960GB Micron 7300 Pro M.2 sticks. At that capacity, they’re available in 80mm length, and they include on board PLP. The Samsung PM983a would also be a great choice, but those are only available in 22110 form factor. Wait, just noticed that you have a SM motherboard that supports 22110 M.2, so you should look for some used PM983 M.2 drives.