AppData Location? - ZimaOS-HD or SSD Raid5

Operating System
1

Greetings All,

I am brand new to ZimaOS. I have been using Synology since 2011, and they are just not powerful enough any longer. So, I am diving into ZimaOS with both feet, rather than Proxmox/TrueNAS/OMV, etc., because it should be simpler (although I will surely make it complicated, shortly). Primary goal is to replace my Plex and ARR stack on Synology. And, then Home Assistant and beyond.

I have the following disk layout:

ZimaOS-HD System (256GB NVMe) 212 GB Available / 238 GB
Main-SSD (3x 1TB SSD’s) RAID5 2.05 TB Available / 2.05 TB
Data-RustX3 (8x 3TB HD’s) RAID5 20.2 TB Available / 21 TB
Data-RustX6 (4x 6TB HD’s) RAID5 18 TB Available / 18 TB
Data-RustX2 (4x 2TB HD’s) RAID5 6 TB Available / 6 TB

My intent was to used the Data-Rust storage for Movies, TV, Music, and whatever. And, the SSD’s for the containers and such.

Should I move “App data”, “App image”, and “User database” to the Main-SSD, or is the 256GB ZimaOS-HD large enough to handle this data? If/when I deploy any VM’s, I would certainly put the boot disks in Main-SSD.

What are the Best Practices for backing up ZimaOS-HD?

Thanks, Doug

2

Nice setup Doug, you’ve got the right idea, just one key piece to tighten up.

I wouldn’t leave things on the 256GB ZimaOS drive long term. It’s fine for the OS, but once you start running Plex, Arr stack, Home Assistant, and databases, it’ll fill up and slow you down.

In ZimaOS there are actually 3 things to move, not just AppData:

  • App Data
  • App Image
  • User Database

Go to:
Settings > Storage > Migrate

…and move all three to your Main-SSD RAID pool (your 3x SSD RAID5).

That gives you:

  • fast container performance (SSD)
  • plenty of space for configs + databases
  • clean separation from the OS disk

Then keep your layout like this:

  • ZimaOS-HD > OS only
  • Main-SSD > apps, configs, DBs, VM disks
  • Rust arrays > media/storage

For backups, don’t stress about the OS. ZimaOS is disposable. What matters is:

/DATA/AppData

Back that up (rsync/snapshots/etc), and you can rebuild the whole system in minutes if needed.

You’re honestly very close, just move those 3 items to the SSD pool and your setup is spot on.