How to span a CIFS share across multiple physical HDD's?

[Deepak Agarwal]

Hi Everyone


I have recently built a FreeNAS system for home network file sharing - this has two (2) 2 Tb physical HDD's and two (2) CIFS shaeres. Each of these two (2) CIFS shares is associated with one (1) of the two (2) physical HDD's - just to have clear segregation of files. These shares are currently named 'Share' for Media Content and 'DataShare' for Data Content. Both these shares are on the same volume.

I was wondering if, for example, a year or two (2) down the track, should my storage needs grow and I need to add another physical HDD, it is at all possible for one of the existing shares (say the 'DataShare') to span across multiple physcial HDD's - in this case, the existing physical HDD (that this share is currently associated with) and the newly added physical HDD?

I did try to find this information on the documentation but couldn't find anything along those lines.

Any assistance/pointers shall be highly valued.


Best regards


Deepak

 

[pirateghost]

You say you have a share for each drive yet they are both in the same volume? That's not possible.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

[Deepak Agarwal]

Hi pirateghost


Well, now that you say "That's not possible" - then I must have my wires crossed somewhere!

This is what I did! In my original build, I had a volume definition and I had a CIFS share definition. This share was for the entire physical HDD - there was only one at the time! I then bought another physical HDD, installed it and as per the instructions by 'joeschmuck' (in one of my posts recently)

You need to create a new pool. Go to ZFS Volume Manager an enter a different pool name than the one you already have established. Create the pool of one drive. Now you will have a single drive ready to do as you will. Do not Extend your volume, if this drive fails for any reason, all your data will be lost! Do not do this.

I clicked on the 'Add Volume - Existing data will be cleared' button as it seemed to work!

I do not have access to my system as at this time but now that you mention it it these shares must be on different volumes - because I did exactly as per the instructions! I will check this at home tonight!

Assuming that they are on different volumes, now can these share span across multiple physical HDD's?

Sorry about this confusion but I am still very raw and very new to FreeNAS but I am genuinely trying! I am quite liking it already!


Best regards


Deepak

 

[pirateghost]

You need to read up on how zfs works...

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

[gpsguy]

If you followed joeschmuck's advice, then you have 2 drives (each in it's own pool), with one CIFS share on each of them.

Assuming you wanted to wanted to add storage for your "DataShare" volume, you could add another disk (stripe) to extend the volume. But, we'd strongly advise you not to do it.

Do not Extend your volume, if this drive fails for any reason, all your data will be lost! Do not do this.

My recommendation would be to buy 2 hard disks, say 3-4 Tb each. Mirror them and create a 3rd volume. Copy your "DataShare" data to this new volume. You now have 1.5-2 times the original space, plus you've added a second hard for fault tolerance.

After you verify that the new "DataShare" is working okay, remove the old 2Tb disk that formerly held the data. Wipe that drive and add it as a mirror "Share" for Media Content. For the latter, you'd have to do it from the command line, but it can be done.

With this configuration, you could lose one drive from either volume, without loosing your data. It's much safer than your current setup.

 

[Deepak Agarwal]

Hi gpsguy

Thanks for the information - a big help, no doubt!

From what you've said :-

Assuming you wanted to wanted to add storage for your "DataShare" volume, you could add another disk (stripe) to extend the volume. But, we'd strongly advise you not to do it.

So, in theory you could increase the storage for a share (in this instance a CIFS share) by adding another physical HDD and extending this volume - risky though it might be. Say, if someone chose to do just that (not that I am looking at doing that), could this share on this extended volume then be mapped in Windows as a single network drive?

The options that you have suggested further are also good options which would, in my specific case, would provide 100% redundancy.


Further, just a couple of clarifications for my better understanding, do you think this philosophy (explained below) would be based on flawed ideology :-

In most instances, data reliability would be of a greater concern, wouldn't it. In that event, wouldn't we, as guardians of data - personal or corporate, normally have a dedicated 'Backup' system/process' in place to backup data - be it full, differential or incremental depending upon ones' individual needs? Wouldn't it be correct to presume that one would use the various configurations of RAID to realize 'Fast and Almost Instantaneous' access - to the extent possible - to data rather than as a backup tool? From what I have read - that is what everyone does! In that case, wouldn't one prefer to use RAID 0 or RAID 5? Continuing along that line of thinking, why would you not extend the volume and 'stripe' data - when, from what I understand of these commercial backup systems, they can restore the the data on the failed drive reasonably well quickly?

I am not questioning any of what you have suggested - in fact I am going to do just that - but I thought it might be a good idea to know a trifle more!


Best regards


Deepak