NAS upgrade has given me too many options!

[Stuw]

Hi,

I have a QNAP 253BE and it has served me well for years! I have just given it a bit of upgrade and boost today by adding some SSD's. I'm just setting it back up and not sure if I am configuring it in the best way...

The NAS only serves film and music media. The only apps I use are Emby server for films and a Plex server for music. Also have SABNZB+ installed. That's about it. How would you configure my set up?

QNAP 253BE
16GB RAM
2 x 4TB Seagate Ironwolf Hard Drives
QNAP QM2-2S-220A expansion card
2 x 2TB Western Digital Red SA500 SSD's

I have just set up both SSDs as the system (raid 0) and then the HDD also as raid 0 for media archive. My thinking behind this was have the SSD's for system and apps, along with new downloaded content and then HDD as the main media store. Looking in the NAS admin and options now available to me, should I have gone for...

1 x SSD as system and app drive, 1 x SSD for cache and HDD for media archive.

Would this improve things even further? Currently it's now performing loads better on SSD's than previously on just HDD. Would adding a cache make much difference for me? Media files are always large files and the NAS only has 1 or 2 devices connecting to it at the same time.

Also would the expansion card bottle neck having both the cache and system running through it?

Anyways, I thought it was a good time to ask the pro's before I finish up the set up. It wouldn't be a major job to start again and reconfigure the setup.

Let me know what you think.
Cheers
Stu

[Stuw]

Apologies, I have just realised I have added this to wrong forum category. Feel free to move it, admin. Thanks Stu

[ed]

Given your setup and usage, I’d say keeping the SSDs as storage space is a better choice than using one as a cache. Cache drives typically shine in environments with many users or heavy tasks like video editing. For home use with just a couple of devices, the benefits would be minimal.

Also, cache setups usually involve a pair of NVMe SSDs in RAID 1 for redundancy and speed. Using a single SSD as a cache won’t give you the same performance boost and could be less reliable.

So, sticking with your SSDs as storage for system/apps and new downloads is probably the smarter move. You’re already getting great speed, and it’s more suited to your needs.

[Stuw]

Given your setup and usage, I’d say keeping the SSDs as storage space is a better choice than using one as a cache. Cache drives typically shine in environments with many users or heavy tasks like video editing. For home use with just a couple of devices, the benefits would be minimal.

Also, cache setups usually involve a pair of NVMe SSDs in RAID 1 for redundancy and speed. Using a single SSD as a cache won’t give you the same performance boost and could be less reliable.

So, sticking with your SSDs as storage for system/apps and new downloads is probably the smarter move. You’re already getting great speed, and it’s more suited to your needs.

Excellent! Thanks for the great reply. I'll finish off my current set up