Mirror Pools with different size drives in each Pool

[celtwave]

I'm pretty good with windows, but a noob in linux etc. While I've read several explanations, I do not adequately understand vdevs, pools or ZFS.

I currently run a 4TB + 1TB HDDs as a spanned volume on windows 10 as a home server and run a backup weekly to secondary drives all over my network. Also, I've have set up a mirrored raid with different drive sizes (1TB + 500GB mirrored to 1TB + 500GB) on a windows PC without issue.

I have FreeNAS running on a PC where I thought I could mirror two sets of drives. A 4TB + 1TB drive pool mirrored to another 4TB + 1TB pool, but FreeNAS gives me the following when I attempt to set this up: "Mixing disks of different sizes in a VDEV is not recommended".

I'd like to not have to buy more drives plus I have extra 1TB drives lying around, but I'm going to run out of SATA connectors on the mobo.

1. can I use this drive combination (4TB + 1TB mirrored to 4TB + 1TB)?
2. how should this be created in FreeNAS (ie two pools, one pool)?

Any suggestions?

 

[anmnz]

A reasonable way to configure those disks for FreeNAS would be one pool with two vdevs. One vdev would be a mirror of two 4TB disks and the other would be a mirror of two 1TB disks. Giving a total of 5TB available space (minus various sorts of overhead).

 

[celtwave]

Thanks for the reply.

So it won't be a 5TB volume but a mirrored 4TB volume and a mirrored 1TB volume. Am i understanding this correctly?

 

[anmnz]

It will be (about) 5TB of pooled storage that you can use as a unit. E.g. you could store one 5(ish) TB file on it (thus filling it up, but that would be bad). Pretty much as if you had a mirrored pair of 5TB disks (but faster in some ways because more spindles).

"Volume" isn't really a ZFS term (despite the FreeNAS UI using it to mean "pool" sometimes) so I'm not going to guess what it means to you. :)

You want to go to the "Resources" section of this forum and read up on pools, vdevs, etc., to get a clear understanding of what's going on.

 

[celtwave]

Excellent! I think I've got it now. And I'm already reading more stuff on pools, vdevs etc as I set it up for SMB.

Thanks again for you help.

 

[Chris Moore]

So it won't be a 5TB volume but a mirrored 4TB volume and a mirrored 1TB volume. Am i understanding this correctly?

No. You are not understanding, or your use of terminology is wrong. FreeNAS uses pooled storage. A storage pool consists of one or more vdevs (virtual devices) and the concept that was being suggested is that you mirror two 4TB drives to make one vdev and mirror two 1TB drives to make another vdev and both of those vdevs would be combined into a single storage pool combining the capacity of the two. Due to storage overhead, you usable space would be less than 4TB.

 

[Chris Moore]

Excellent! I think I've got it now. And I'm already reading more stuff on pools, vdevs etc as I set it up for SMB.

Thanks again for you help.

Here are links to some good resources to get you started:

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

 

[2nd-in-charge]

You create zpool with a mirrored vdev out of the two 4Tb drives:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2-U4.1/storage.html#creating-pools
then extend that zpool by striping another mirror of the two 1Tb drives:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2-U4.1/storage.html#extending-a-pool

your new zpool is 5Tb (less overheads).

I'd like to not have to buy more drives plus I have extra 1TB drives lying around, but I'm going to run out of SATA connectors on the mobo.

You can add 8 more drives with an HBA like LSI 9207-8i.

 

[celtwave]

Thanks Chris. I think anmnz's post addressed this also, I wasn't understanding pool vs volume vs vdev etc.

BTW this is exactly what I was hoping for when I decided to switch from my current file server.

"Volume" isn't really a ZFS term (despite the FreeNAS UI using it to mean "pool" sometimes) so I'm not going to guess what it means to you.

 

[Chris Moore]

but I'm going to run out of SATA connectors on the mobo.

Please share with us the description of your hardware plan. See this post for guidance:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124

 

[celtwave]

I am overwhelmed (in a good way) by the volume and quality of the responses on this forum.

 

[Chris Moore]

A controller card like this would allow you to easily add eight hard drives to a system:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-H310-...0-IT-Mode-for-ZFS-FreeNAS-unRAID/162834659601
When used in conjunction with a set of cables like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-M...-Forward-Breakout-Internal-Cable/371681252206

 

[2nd-in-charge]

Probably a useful read if you're going to use those 1Tb desktop drives that you have:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/checking-for-tler-erc-etc-support-on-a-drive.27126/

 

[celtwave]

Motherboard make and model- ASRock Z68 Pro3-M
CPU make and model- Intel i5-2300
RAM quantity- 16GB
Hard drives, 2-4TB WD Red, 2-1TB WD Red, boot HDD 500GB WD Blue
Hard disk controllers- ?onboard sata
Network cards- onboard Realtek RTL8111E

Probably a useful read if you're going to use those 1Tb desktop drives that you have:

The extra 1TB drives are a menagerie of different Manuf. & Models, but I won't be using them now that I have found the solution.

 

[Chris Moore]

Network cards- onboard Realtek RTL8111E

These don't perform well in FreeNAS because the driver support is poor. It might be worth your time to buy one of these because they have integrated video chip on the board so you don't need a video card and they have integrated Intel network controllers so they get good speed over the network:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro...er-board-with-I-O-shield-and-fan/264134007066

It should work fine with the CPU and RAM you already have and give you the flexibility to upgrade to a Xeon CPU and ECC memory later if you choose. It also has IPMI for remote management which also gives you the ability to mount an ISO over the network. You might want to take a look at this video that talks about that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPv_ikws7A0

 

[celtwave]

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://www.ixsystems.com/community...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Yep, I got that from the PPT slide show you recommended. That doc should have a link on the "So you want to make a FreeNAS server" homepage (no such page). It is the single best doc I've seen in all my reading on FreeNAS.

As for your recommendation I have already ordered an Intel NIC. As for the processor and ECC RAM, most of this data is movies and TV shows and I'm not worried about a memory error making it unreadable. I do have a small subset of some business critical data that I will continue to backup offsite once a week. Can't really justify investing any more in resources in this.

You've been an immense help resource on this. I'll probably post again once I can't figure out how to read/write via SMB.

 

[Chris Moore]

I'll probably post again once I can't figure out how to read/write via SMB.

There is a guide called, "Uncle Fester's FreeNAS Beginner's Guide". It is currently being updated with new graphics to bring it from the FreeNAS 11.1 (old GUI) to the FreeNAS 11.2 version with the new GUI. You can find a link to this very informative, step-by-step, guide here:
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/resources/uncle-festers-freenas-beginners-guide.120/

 

[celtwave]

Just updating/closing this thread. While building the NAS the SATA socket came out of the motherboard while trying to unplug a cable. After replacing the socket the connection was no longer reliable so I switched hardware.
I found a Dell T3610 workstation with:

Intel Xeon Processor E5-1603 ( Quad Core, 2.8 GHz, 10 MB)
Boot drive = WD Blue 3.5" 500GB (7,200 Rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Storage Drives = 2xWD Blue 3.5" 1TB (7,200 Rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drives &
Storage Drives = 2xWD Red 3.5" 4TB ((7,200 Rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drives
RAM = 16GB (4x4GB) 1866MHz DDR3 ECC RDIMM

I had to reconfigure / rebuild the chassis to incorporate 5-3.5" drives as the system is built to handle only 2-3.5" drives, this included installing additional fans to move air across the new drive "bays".

When I built a proof of concept for this server (on a different PC with a differnt Mobo) I was able to address the server using \\nas3.

But in this working NAS I can only access the server with \\192.168.100.1\nas3\ (where nas3 is the pool name), even though it is setup just like my test PC was. Hmmm.

My next steps are to create a maintenance plan and a regular off-site back of critical data. Then I'll see if I can load the plex media server add-in. Which means I'll be back on the forum again.

In any case, thanks again for all your help and thanks to all those who have placed the effort into this product and its documentation. Open source at its best.

 

[Inxsible]

What motherboard did you end up going with? Your MB and the one suggested by @Chris Moore were LGA1155 whereas Xeon E5-1603 is LGA2011

 

[celtwave]

What motherboard did you end up going with? Your MB and the one suggested by @Chris Moore were LGA1155 whereas Xeon E5-1603 is LGA2011

I used the proprietary Dell board in the Dell T3610. The Dell standard PS was plenty powerful and there are 5 onboard SATA connectors, though 2 of them are SATA2. The only problem was with the Dell Case. Only 2 3.5" drives.