Hello everybody,
I want to ask for some opinions on my current setup and how I pretend to use it for my Media Server:
Current Layout
I currently use an UGREEN DXP2800 NAS running TrueNAS Scale with two 4 TB HDDs in Mirror mode. This is planned to be my “long-term storage” for backups, photos, and so on.
Additionally, I have 1 TB SSD installed in the system. I created two datasets on it: one for Docker containers and the other one for Media, following the TRaSH guides folder layout
My current plan:
My idea is to use the SSD for the torrents and the seeds, and once the file (e.g. the ~~movie ~~ Linux ISO Image) is completed, to move it to the HDDs. From there, Jellyfin would read the corresponding dataset and play the media.
The question:
The TRaSH guides puts a lot of emphasis on hardlinks and atomic moves, and that forces you to operate in one single filesystem. Is it worth it to stick to the TRaSH guide or my current setup would work just fine? What do y’all think?
Thanks in advance and happy self-hosting!
I run deluge torrent with openVPN with pivoxy in a container.
Arr stack and deluge uses proxy if the VPN drops off, all secure communication halts by default.
Arr stack has default download set to SSD, copies files to a rotational disk storage on completion. continues to host the seed from the SSD.
Once in a blue moon, I’ll go back through Deluge and right-click Delete torrent and data for stuff that’s well satisfied and who are really available.
Once a year or so, I’ll go back and make sure that there’s no extra stuff in the download folders.
You’re fine without hard links as long as you have enough space and don’t mind a little maintenance now and then.
TRaSH guides don’t actually force you into using one filesystem. I have Sonarr setup using the guide and it uses 2 separate drives just fine.
One thing I would note is that because of the emphasis on quality above all else, following the guides strictly would fill up your drives fairly quickly. If you were to re-prioritize the config to emphasize small file size, you could probably fit 3-4x as much content on there.
According to the document I linked:
The first requirement is that all your media files and folders be in the same file system. Everything must be contained on a single physical or virtual drive
if it’s still possible to create hardlinks between the SSD and the Mirrored HDDs, I will go that route.
Oh, it’s not hardlinks if you’re going from one drive to another, it just falls back to copying instead
What is your reasoning for using the SSD for torrents? Just put the torrents on the HDD(s). Having them on the SSD has no benefits whatsoever and is a waste of an ssd.
I was considering using the SSD to avoid wear and tear in the HDD because of the nature of the torrent downloads. My idea was using the SSD as a temporary/cache drive for the download itself, and then only executing one transfer move to the HDD once the media is completed. Drive noise was another concern, since my NAS sits in my living room and I want to avoid hearing the drives spinning constantly.
I am using two Seagate Ironwolf HDD, which are NAS certified. Will they suffer if I use them for downloading as well as seeding?
Hdd is a lot tougher than you think unless you are really running a data center.
As an idea, I use an SSD as a “Default Download Directory” within qBittorrent itself, and then qB automatically moves it to a HDD when the download is fully finished. I do this because I want the write to be sequential going into my ZFS pool, since ZFS has no defragmentation capabilities.
Hardlinks are only important if you want to continue seeding the media in its original form and also have a cleaned-up/renamed copy in your Jellyfin library. If you’re going to continue to seed from the HDD, it doesn’t matter that the initial download is done on the SSD. The *arr stack will make the hardlink only after the download is finished.
