Storage Solutions Advice needed on buying NVMEs for NAS

inc0d3r

inc0d3r

Recruit
Hi everyone

Looking to build NAS storage on Lenovo Tiny M920x.

I am looking to add NVMEs for storage. It has 2 dedicated NVME ports, 1 SATA, 1 M.2 A+E wifi, 1 Pcie slot.

For now I am looking to get 2 NVMEs to use in dedicated NVME slots.

Which consumer grade NVME SSDs would be recommended for NAS storage (TrueNAS) ? People recommend commercial SSDs but I know commercial SSDs would be out of my budget.

Would 2 TB x 2 would be a ideal way to start or should I get 4 TB x 2 for longevity.
 
You may want to mention your storage capacity requirements first and then your budget. Also Nvme implies, you need fast data access from your NAS ? What kind of content are you looking to store.
Samsung and WD are reliable when it comes to NVMEs. I think there is quite a bit of information available here on NVMEs and even a tier list so search for those.You will need to describe your use case to arrive at a model.
We have resellers in our marketplace who can source them cheaper.
 
ibose said:
ou may want to mention your storage capacity requirements first and then your budget. Also Nvme implies, you need fast data access from your NAS ? What kind of content are you looking to store.
Samsung and WD are reliable when it comes to NVMEs. I think there is quite a bit of information available here on NVMEs and even a tier list so search for those.You will need to describe your use case to arrive at a model.
We have resellers in our marketplace who can source them cheaper.
Click to expand...
Following are my requirements:-
  1. iPhone Backup (Photos majorly and iCloud drive alternative):- 500GB for 3 phones total - Need fast access speed for these
  2. Time machine Backup:- 500GB - Fast to moderate access speed
  3. Collection of Personal Photos & Videos and documents:- 1 TB - Fast to moderate access speed
  4. Google Drive alternative:- 100 GB - Need fast access speed for these
Summing up above requirements it comes down to ~ 2 TB for starters. With data mirroring / replication I would require at least 2 x 2TB storage.

In future I might plan to stream content as well. For this was thinking of a slow 2.5 inch SSD or 2.5 inch HDD 2TB storage. Don't think I would require replication here.

I am fully not sure if I would go to streaming route but just I case I do I want to keep my options open with respect to no. of storage drives I can add.
 
I don't see a huge price difference between NVMe's and SATA SSDs these days. Just try and stay away from QLC if possible. 2x2Tb should be the minimum that you should be looking at. Also how is this connected to your network?
 
dafreaking said:
I don't see a huge price difference between NVMe's and SATA SSDs these days. Just try and stay away from QLC if possible. 2x2Tb should be the minimum that you should be looking at. Also how is this connected to your network?
Click to expand...
The advantage I see with NVME is in future if I want to add more than 2 NVMEs I can use the PCIe slot for a PCIe to dual NVME adapter and can also use M.2 A+E wifi adapter to NVME to add more drives. This is connected to network via 1 Gigabit ethernet port on M920x. Since I will be mostly accessing it over 5GHz Wifi, I think I am fine with 1 Gigabit ethernet as 5GHz router I have can at max support 866 Mbps data transfer rate. Any suggestions on this are welcome
 
inc0d3r said:
The advantage I see with NVME is in future if I want to add more than 2 NVMEs I can use the PCIe slot for a PCIe to dual NVME adapter and can also use M.2 A+E wifi adapter to NVME to add more drives. This is connected to network via 1 Gigabit ethernet port on M920x. Since I will be mostly accessing it over 5GHz Wifi, I think I am fine with 1 Gigabit ethernet as 5GHz router I have can at max support 866 Mbps data transfer rate.
Click to expand...
You should really look into getting 2.5gbps pcie ethernet card (tp-link is available for ~1.8k on amazon) & a 2.5gbps switch (available from @aasimenator here). For drives you can add any good consumer NVMe drive. A very good budget option is WD SN770 which will give at least 600MB/s write speed even after its cache is filled. For just storage of streaming media you can even get away with 4TB QLC drive like crucial P3/P3 Plus as streaming requires read speeds & though its post cache speed is just 100MB/s but you will never hit that cache speed if copying from hdd or sata ssd & once it is filled then you just need read speeds for streaming which are always fine even on such NVMe ssd.
 
guest_999 said:
You should really look into getting 2.5gbps pcie ethernet card (tp-link is available for ~1.8k on amazon) & a 2.5gbps switch
Click to expand...
I will be accessing my content over wifi. So don't you think I will require to upgrade my wifi router as well to support ~2.5 gbps speeds to take full use of the fast ethernet card. For what use case do you recommend a switch ?
 
inc0d3r said:
I will be accessing my content over wifi. So don't you think I will require to upgrade my wifi router as well to support ~2.5 gbps speeds to take full use of the fast ethernet card. For what use case do you recommend a switch ?
Click to expand...
Getting 1gbps+ speeds on wifi is very difficult & require much more investment, unless you absolutely cannot use ethernet wire to connect nas to some desktop/laptop acting as main download server/plex server, getting 2.5gbps ethernet infra is recommended for future expansion.
 
There is no advantage for your use case with 2.5gbe for iPhone backups, etc. If you regularly transfer big chunks via ethernet then there might be. Then again for that just get 10gbe when you can
 
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