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Storage Design

Overview

The storage architecture for TAPPaaS prioritizes scalability, data security, and fault tolerance through ZFS-based pooling. The system accommodates two primary data categories: high-value information requiring robust redundancy, and secondary-tier data that can tolerate greater risk.

Key Design Principles

The framework emphasizes "default setup should cater for 90% of use cases," minimizing complex decision-making for operators.

Growth Mechanisms

  • Expanding existing ZFS pools with additional disks
  • Adding new pools to Proxmox nodes
  • Scaling across multiple Proxmox systems

Redundancy Strategies

  • ZFS RAID configurations
  • Cross-node snapshots and replication
  • Backup systems between local and remote installations

The design remains hardware-agnostic regarding SSD/HDD selection and caching approaches.

Pool Architecture

Pools follow a naming convention: tanka1, tankb1, etc., mounted at /mnt.

tanka Pools ("a" designation)

  • Provide redundancy and high performance
  • Typically use mirrored SSDs
  • Host VM virtual disks and high-availability module replication

tankb Pools ("b" designation)

  • Omit RAID redundancy to conserve resources
  • Accommodate less performant storage
  • Support backup systems, S3 buckets, and logging infrastructure

Additional pools using letters "c," "d," and beyond support specialized storage characteristics as needed.