2 SSD HD in software RAID

[BlazeStar]

I understand perfectly now.

What about my hard drives and my RAID card?

I need to have at the very least 6 SATA slots.

I have 4 X 4TB drives and I intend to do stripped mirror vDevs... any comment on that? I think it's the equivalent of RAID 10 if I'm not mistaken

Then I have 2 X 4TB drivers that I intend to use strictly to make ZFS snapshots... is that a good idea ?

Whitout a RAID card I don't have enough slots.

So if I put it in JBOD mode, will that work or not (allow ZFS to have access to the drive) because I was sure it would but joeschmuck said it might now work

 

[Pitaq]

So, according to CyberJock earlier in the thread, FreeNas should only be run from a USB key. I'm about test FreeNAS for possible use in a small department. We don't use USB - our systems have the USB connectors filled with epoxy. Also, when you're building a 32TB system the cost of an additional SSD or two is not significant.

Questions:
Why is USB required? FreeBSD is quite happy to run on hard disks, and FreeNAS doesn't require a custom version of FreeBSD, does it?
Why does the FreeNAS documentation describe installation to disk? The docs are quite explicit about supporting disks although they indicate that flash media is preferred.
Does the TrueNAS based version of FreeNAS have the same restrictions?

I'm thinking that the best way to test FreeNAS will be to compile it from the sources and install on top of FreeBSD to a mirrored boot disk. Is this likely to be a problem?

I must admit that I'm a little concerned that an application of this type might perform differently depending on the installation media. I'd like to understand that better.

 

[aufalien]

In your case where you have no USB, then sure, install and run of HDD, etc... For example, I have one of these in 8GB flavor in my servers running FreeNAS off of;

http://www.emphase.com/sata-flash-module/sata-flash-module-s3-1/sata-flash-module-s3-41/

I had a few free SATA 3G ports that would have otherwise never been used. If you dl the CD image of FreeNAS, you will be able to do this.

The logic behind FreeNAS off USB is to simply free up drive ports for data use rather then OS use. FreeNAS takes a more embedded approach as a purpose built OS thats doesn't require much to run. Now if it were a general OS that also ran a desktop and graphical apps, etc..., then running it off USB is not the right course. But FreeNAS is a NAS appliance, why waste a drive port on it?

Now the fact that you think you can run FreeNAS off FreeBSD means that you still don't understand what it is and means that you still haven't messed with it.

 

[gpsguy]

Pitaq, I don't think you ever said which RAID card you have. And, even if you put the drives in JBOD mode, it still might not be a good fit for FreeNAS.

What I'd recommend, is the well supported IBM1015 flashed to IT mode. They can be found on ebay for ~$125 USD. You'd need a pair of breakout cables. You can connect 8 drives to this controller. Add your 4Tb drives to it and put a small SSD on one of your onboard SATA ports, to boot off of.