Hi,
I've been testing Freenas for my needs and I think I have reached a fairly basic understanding of what I want and my options are. I'm hoping for advice and to check my understanding is correct.
Bit of background:
System is a HP ML10 Gen9 with Xeon E3 1225 v5 and currently 12gb ECC RAM.
I am upgrading the RAM as its obviously important for Freenas. Plan is to end up at 64gb.
The case is limited to 6 drives so I have a plan to move the setup inc RAM and CPU to a Fractal NODE 804 case and Supermicro X11SSM-F Motherboard which should give me more room to expand to 10 drives if required.
Freenas will have two main uses. Time Machine backups from three Macs (about 2tb space needed) and to store video files and video projects. I'd like to edit the video files on the NAS. The Time Machine backups I consider to be entirely replaceable with all important files from those sources backed up in two other locations and remote. The video files will be remotely backed up but my layout needs to also include some sort of local backup for these files as they are large.
In terms of drives I currently have 2x4tb 1x5tb 1x6tb and 1x8tb (this system was previously just setup as JBOD for media files where I didn't need redundancy).
I have two more 4tb drives on the way.
Where I'm struggling to commit is the layout of my pool. Currently in testing I've added all the drives as if they are 4tb as Raid z1. so 5 x 4tb for 16tb useable space. My understanding is that this isn't a very sensible layout in terms of integrity because fo the re-silvering time if a drive failed but performance wise its at a level I'd like to have for the Video work. Due to this issue I was going to have the 8tb drive as second pool for snapshot backups from the 5 disk pool so I had a local backup. I'm 1 4tb drive away from having all the drives to make this work and would end up with the 5tb and 6tb unused.
However looking around I believe I have three main options.
Option 1 - 5 x 4tb raidz1 with the 8tb as backup (16tb space)
Option 2 - two vdevs of 3 x 4tb raid z1 (16tb Space)
Option 3 - 3 mirror vdevs of 2 x 4tb (12tb space)
My understanding is as follows. Option 1 has decent performance but poor integrity (which I believe I am mitigating by having the 8tb and remote backups). Option 2 isn't really a true solution to the above as each vdev is subject to the same issue if a drive fails and if one vdev fails the whole thing fails. Performance would be worse than option 1. Option 3 would have the good performance and lots of advantages in terms of integrity inc a much faster re-silvering and more redundancy.
In terms of growing in size: for option 1 I would need to either exchange each drive for bigger ones or add another vdev which was identical. I believe for option 3 I could start with two mirrored pairs and add from there? These pairs could also be of a different sizes? In terms of growing Option 1 feels very restrictive compared to option 3 if my understanding is correct.
Typing this out makes me think the best option might be:
Pool 1
vdev A) 2 x 4tb mirror
vedv B) 2 x 4tb mirror
vdev C) 2x 5tb mirror (using the 5tb and 6tb drives)
13tb space
Pool 2
vdev A) 1 x 8tb drive
(To backup the important stuff on pool one)
In the future I could either expand one mirror or add more mirrors for expanded storage.
This is my understanding as it is now. Any errors in my thinking? Thanks for any help you can provide. Sorry for the lengthy post.
I've been testing Freenas for my needs and I think I have reached a fairly basic understanding of what I want and my options are. I'm hoping for advice and to check my understanding is correct.
Bit of background:
System is a HP ML10 Gen9 with Xeon E3 1225 v5 and currently 12gb ECC RAM.
I am upgrading the RAM as its obviously important for Freenas. Plan is to end up at 64gb.
The case is limited to 6 drives so I have a plan to move the setup inc RAM and CPU to a Fractal NODE 804 case and Supermicro X11SSM-F Motherboard which should give me more room to expand to 10 drives if required.
Freenas will have two main uses. Time Machine backups from three Macs (about 2tb space needed) and to store video files and video projects. I'd like to edit the video files on the NAS. The Time Machine backups I consider to be entirely replaceable with all important files from those sources backed up in two other locations and remote. The video files will be remotely backed up but my layout needs to also include some sort of local backup for these files as they are large.
In terms of drives I currently have 2x4tb 1x5tb 1x6tb and 1x8tb (this system was previously just setup as JBOD for media files where I didn't need redundancy).
I have two more 4tb drives on the way.
Where I'm struggling to commit is the layout of my pool. Currently in testing I've added all the drives as if they are 4tb as Raid z1. so 5 x 4tb for 16tb useable space. My understanding is that this isn't a very sensible layout in terms of integrity because fo the re-silvering time if a drive failed but performance wise its at a level I'd like to have for the Video work. Due to this issue I was going to have the 8tb drive as second pool for snapshot backups from the 5 disk pool so I had a local backup. I'm 1 4tb drive away from having all the drives to make this work and would end up with the 5tb and 6tb unused.
However looking around I believe I have three main options.
Option 1 - 5 x 4tb raidz1 with the 8tb as backup (16tb space)
Option 2 - two vdevs of 3 x 4tb raid z1 (16tb Space)
Option 3 - 3 mirror vdevs of 2 x 4tb (12tb space)
My understanding is as follows. Option 1 has decent performance but poor integrity (which I believe I am mitigating by having the 8tb and remote backups). Option 2 isn't really a true solution to the above as each vdev is subject to the same issue if a drive fails and if one vdev fails the whole thing fails. Performance would be worse than option 1. Option 3 would have the good performance and lots of advantages in terms of integrity inc a much faster re-silvering and more redundancy.
In terms of growing in size: for option 1 I would need to either exchange each drive for bigger ones or add another vdev which was identical. I believe for option 3 I could start with two mirrored pairs and add from there? These pairs could also be of a different sizes? In terms of growing Option 1 feels very restrictive compared to option 3 if my understanding is correct.
Typing this out makes me think the best option might be:
Pool 1
vdev A) 2 x 4tb mirror
vedv B) 2 x 4tb mirror
vdev C) 2x 5tb mirror (using the 5tb and 6tb drives)
13tb space
Pool 2
vdev A) 1 x 8tb drive
(To backup the important stuff on pool one)
In the future I could either expand one mirror or add more mirrors for expanded storage.
This is my understanding as it is now. Any errors in my thinking? Thanks for any help you can provide. Sorry for the lengthy post.
