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Question about what to put on RAID and what to put on NVME (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by ch00f@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You may be confused about the terminology:

RAID = many disks that help prevent data loss

NVME = Just an SSD

A collection of drives that are joined to a RAID group prevent data loss. An NVME drive is just a drive, which has no data loss prevention. If that drive dies, the data dies.

If those docs say anything about SSD, it's because their code is slow, and it will seem less obvious by using a faster disk.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I understand all of that. Sorry I didn't explain it well.

I have a RAID6 for data and a single HDD for system files. I'd like to move the HDD to an NVME/SSD. I suppose I could make another RAID with an additional NVME, but I've found it easier to deal with booting off a traditional drive.

My solution for redundancy for the NVME is to just backup the bits that I need every night. These are usually just a few hundred megabyte database files. I'm curious if that's a typical solution.

edit: to clarify, it's a software raid with mdadm.

[–] farcaller@fstab.sh 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I just made a mirror out of two NVMes―they got cheap enough not to bother too much with the loss of capacity. Of course, that limits what I can put there, so I use a bit of a tiered storage between my NVMe and HDD pools.

Just think in terms of data loss: are you going to be ok if you lost the data between backups? If the answer is yes, one NVMe is enough.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I'm only serving one timezone, so if I can swing nightly backups at periods of low activity, I'd only be out 1 day which isn't that big.