Help me understand best practices for all-SSD drivepool (for photo editing)

[svnder]

I'm currently using drivepool as a a sort of DAS for photo storage AND editing. I have 6 (and counting) SATA SSDs in my pool, and I use these to store all my raw photos—all in a duplicated state. I also periodically back these up off-site. I have some concerns about the lifespan of my SSDs with drivepool constantly balancing and I'm looking for any insights as to the exact balancer settings that would be optimal for my use case. Drives are a mix of Crucial MX500s and Samsung 870 QVOs (the latter said to be considerably less durable). None of my editing software is installed on the drivepool, only the raw files with sidecar .XMPs. How should I optimize all my balancer settings for the best performance and drive longevity?

[Shane]

Short answer: There's no one true answer.

Long answer: If you want maximum performance while you're working, you want it to not (have to) balance during those times. If you want maximum longevity, you want it to move files as little as possible. But it might have to balance more often if you're dealing with sufficiently large files compared to the available space on your drives.

For example: you might set DrivePool to only balance at midnight, to prefer to keep files within pooldrive:\work-in-progress\ duplicated on drives A and B, and to prefer to keep files within pooldrive:\completed-projects\ duplicated on any two of drives C, D, E and F; basically this would mean A and B wear faster but C, D, E and F last much longer.

I'd also suggest getting StableBit Scanner (if you haven't already) as it can be used to keep an eye on the remaing life of your SSDs, be set to notify/email about issues, etc, and in conjunction with DrivePool it can automatically evacuate files on unhealthy drives to good ones.