Installation Challenges - How to change to different RAID

[goshen]

hi, I am a new user (just purchased FreeNAS mini and trying to configure)...Need help as everything seem not to be working. Here are the issues:

1. I initially selected automatic for the RAID set up which defaulted to z2RAID. I am however going to be using my FreeNAS mainly for media storage and Plex streaming and TimeMachine Backup, so I want to change to RAID z1 instead to get more storage...how do I do this?
2. Secondly the volume under Storage is not showing any available discs even though I have 4 brand new WD Red 4TB discs installed and all of this shows up under Storage > My Discs but not under Storage > Volumes.

Please help as the setup has been very frustrating for me as a new user. spent over 6hrs yesterday alone.
Many thanks

 

[danb35]

I want to change to RAID z1 instead to get more storage...how do I do this?

Destroy the pool and re-create it as RAIDZ1.

volume under Storage is not showing any available discs

This is because they're already used. The Volume Manager only shows disks that are attached to the system, but not part of an existing volume.

 

[goshen]

Destroy the pool and re-create it as RAIDZ1.

Thanks...How do I "destroy the pool"? Can you please kindly point me to a resource (how-to or video) that I can follow to accomplish this? Very grateful for your assistance.

 

[danb35]

You have read the manual, right? Because it's pretty well covered in there. See chapter 8.

 

[goshen]

You have read the manual, right? Because it's pretty well covered in there. See chapter 8.

Yes, I have...but can you please help confirm that below is the section in Chapter 8 that I need to follow before I do something catastrophic?

Detach Volume: allows you to either export the pool or to delete the contents of the pool, depending upon the choice you make in the screen shown in Figure 8.1l. The “Detach Volume” screen displays the current used space and indicates if there are any shares, provides checkboxes to “Mark the disks as new (destroy data)” and to “Also delete the share’s configuration”, asks if you are sure that you want to do this, and the browser will turn red to alert you that you are about to do something that will make the data inaccessible. If you do not check the box to mark the disks as new, the volume will be exported.This means that the data is not destroyed and the volume can be re-imported at a later time. If you will be moving a ZFS pool from one system to another, perform this export action first as it flushes any unwritten data to disk, writes data to the disk indicating that the export was done, and removes all knowledge of the pool from the system. If you do check the box to mark the disks as new, the pool and all the data in its datasets, zvols, and shares will be destroyed and the underlying disks will be returned to their raw state.

Figure 8.1l: Detaching or Deleting a Volume

Thanks

 

[danb35]

You will need to detach the volume and mark disks as new. This will be catastrophic--it will destroy all data on the volume.

 

[goshen]

I ended up just rolling back the boot to the initial install and decided to leave it as RAID Z2 based on several recommendation from other online users.

Thanks for your assistance