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I am building a home ubuntu server mainly file sharing. I have a 100G SSD drive in which I want to install the system, and I have two 4T HDDs that I want to use as mass storage and mounting point for users' home directory. My question is what you all think it is the best way to format and combine the drives to primarily maximize storage and make it somewhat robust.

I am pretty sure I will use the SSD for the system files, so the question more specifically how to use the remaining two HDDs. I considered:

A) formatting each individually (ext4), and mounting them as two separate drives, and have one storing regular backups. B) Merging those two HDDs using LVM to create a 8T VG. C) same as B but with some RAID 0 (faster?) or RAID 1 (for added redundancy?) D) Having one HDD as the main storage space formatted as LVM in case I want to expand it later, and having the second one as a standard partition to keep backups, cloud storage, non-important files, etc.

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A backup kept in the same box is no backup. A PSU failure, fire or ransomware attack will wipe both your data and the copy. With that out of the way, let's tackle the question.

We can't tell you what's the best way without knowing what your requirements are.

  • Resiliency and availability in case of disk failure, don't mind sacrificing half the space → RAID1
  • Max storage space and performance, downtime is not a problem → RAID0
  • Max storage space, short downtime in case of disk failure → union filesystem (mergerfs?)
  • Max storage space, short downtime in case of disk failure, don't mind having two volumes → two volumes
  • Max storage space, long downtime is not a problem, don't like union filesystems → LVM

All of these strategies assume you have external, independent backup. If maintaining backup this large is more of a problem than possible data loss, SnapRAID can be a reasonable compromise (be sure to read about its limitations). It mixes well with union filesystems too.

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  • This is great. I was thinking of making a compressed backup in the same box but always syncing it with he cloud. I guess for a home server, downtime is not a big issue. performance and storage are better priorities since I use the server to do work.. but I worry that RAID0 could make the system too vulnerable in case of disk failure.
    – ricardo3889
    Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 23:53

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