I stumbled across the Minisforum MS-01 workstation mini PC, and it might be a really good option for a small Unraid server using only M.2 NVMe SSDs.
https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01
Now, it only comes with three M.2 storage slots out of the box, one is PCIe 4.0 x4, the second one is PCIe 3.0 x4, and the third one is PCIe 3.0 x2.
I would use the x8 PCIe expansion slot to add something like the Ableconn PEXM2 to get two additional M.2 slots at PCIe 3.0 x4. That would yield up to 20 TB of raw storage.
For at least the built-in M.2 slots I would need to use a single-sided M.2 due to space constraints, e.g. the Crucial P3 Plus with QLC NAND, but I would then use the same model also for the two SSDs via the PEX card.
But is it even possible to create a RAIDz1/RAID5 using five gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs, but with three of them in a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and only one in a PCIe4.0 x4 slot, while the fifth one would run at PCIe 3.0 x2?
If yes, what would that do to the overall theoretical combined storage speed? (Internal values only; I know that the SFP+ connections would be the real-world bottleneck anyway.) Question 2: is there a possibility that ZFS runs into problems with the RAID, when you have a pool with SSDs using three very different speeds?
Nota bene: I would use the five M.2 SSDs as a ZFS pool, with a cheap external USB flash drive as a dummy array drive. (Afaik Unraid needs an array no matter what.)
https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01
Now, it only comes with three M.2 storage slots out of the box, one is PCIe 4.0 x4, the second one is PCIe 3.0 x4, and the third one is PCIe 3.0 x2.
I would use the x8 PCIe expansion slot to add something like the Ableconn PEXM2 to get two additional M.2 slots at PCIe 3.0 x4. That would yield up to 20 TB of raw storage.
For at least the built-in M.2 slots I would need to use a single-sided M.2 due to space constraints, e.g. the Crucial P3 Plus with QLC NAND, but I would then use the same model also for the two SSDs via the PEX card.
But is it even possible to create a RAIDz1/RAID5 using five gen4 M.2 NVMe SSDs, but with three of them in a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and only one in a PCIe4.0 x4 slot, while the fifth one would run at PCIe 3.0 x2?
If yes, what would that do to the overall theoretical combined storage speed? (Internal values only; I know that the SFP+ connections would be the real-world bottleneck anyway.) Question 2: is there a possibility that ZFS runs into problems with the RAID, when you have a pool with SSDs using three very different speeds?
Nota bene: I would use the five M.2 SSDs as a ZFS pool, with a cheap external USB flash drive as a dummy array drive. (Afaik Unraid needs an array no matter what.)
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram