Hello-
New to FreeNAS, but not to storage servers in general. 'Back in the day', I put together a bunch of linux raid+lvm systems using spare parts and *never* had a problem using old junk.
However, I had a recent *near loss* of all our baby photos (my wife almost killed me!) using "the best desktop backup solution". Nevertheless, I decided it was time to make a *real* NAS using FN for a home backup+file server. I knew I wanted a ZFS based system. I dug through my old hardware and decided I had enough parts to put a machine together. Then I started reading the docs and forums...
SO... New plan. I'm going to build a machine from *mostly* new hardware:
Supermicro X10SL7
Xeon E3-1220V3 (Haswell)
Crucial 2x8Gb ECC UDIMM (yes, I read the ECC threads (and the X10 mem thread) )
4x 4TB WD Reds
My plan is/was to make a 4-disk RAIDZ2 vdev for the pool. But as I considered how to backup the pool, I wasn't sure this was the best plan since ~50% of the pool is primarily used for backup from desk/laptops. The other ~50% will be used for file storage that would be the primary data destination (personal files, pictures, movies, etc). Given that I want to use the pool for both backup and primary storage purposes, what is the best way to allocate the disks?
My first thought was to use a 4-disk (Z2) vdev for all storage and then make another striped vdev that can hold replicated snapshots from the Z2 array. That way, I could continually add disks to the snapshot vdev to to accommodate the growing size. Maybe this vdev will be in the same pool as the Z2 vdev at first, or perhaps it will be migrated to an offsite system if necessary. Is this dumb?
Then, I thought that maybe the best use of the space was to simply make a RAID10 system, ie- 2 striped disks that are mirrored to the other 2 striped disks. Considering that this is meant for a home server and that my storage requirements are small compared to the 16TB in disk space, perhaps this makes more sense from a redundancy/safety standpoint?
I think I have a pretty good grasp of the principles of ZFS, but need a little guidance with the details. I would rather spend some more time planning up front, rather than have to redo the whole system later. If my primary objective is have a 'cosmic-ray' proof storage box, then:
1) Does RAID10 (ZFS-mirrored-stripes) make more sense than RAIDZ2 with replicated snapshots?
2) Do I need to have the snapshot backup vdev (or mirrored array) in another box? Off-site?
Any insight you can offer will be appreciated. I am still learning and open to [constructive] criticism.
Thanks-
-stephen
New to FreeNAS, but not to storage servers in general. 'Back in the day', I put together a bunch of linux raid+lvm systems using spare parts and *never* had a problem using old junk.
However, I had a recent *near loss* of all our baby photos (my wife almost killed me!) using "the best desktop backup solution". Nevertheless, I decided it was time to make a *real* NAS using FN for a home backup+file server. I knew I wanted a ZFS based system. I dug through my old hardware and decided I had enough parts to put a machine together. Then I started reading the docs and forums...
SO... New plan. I'm going to build a machine from *mostly* new hardware:
Supermicro X10SL7
Xeon E3-1220V3 (Haswell)
Crucial 2x8Gb ECC UDIMM (yes, I read the ECC threads (and the X10 mem thread) )
4x 4TB WD Reds
My plan is/was to make a 4-disk RAIDZ2 vdev for the pool. But as I considered how to backup the pool, I wasn't sure this was the best plan since ~50% of the pool is primarily used for backup from desk/laptops. The other ~50% will be used for file storage that would be the primary data destination (personal files, pictures, movies, etc). Given that I want to use the pool for both backup and primary storage purposes, what is the best way to allocate the disks?
My first thought was to use a 4-disk (Z2) vdev for all storage and then make another striped vdev that can hold replicated snapshots from the Z2 array. That way, I could continually add disks to the snapshot vdev to to accommodate the growing size. Maybe this vdev will be in the same pool as the Z2 vdev at first, or perhaps it will be migrated to an offsite system if necessary. Is this dumb?
Then, I thought that maybe the best use of the space was to simply make a RAID10 system, ie- 2 striped disks that are mirrored to the other 2 striped disks. Considering that this is meant for a home server and that my storage requirements are small compared to the 16TB in disk space, perhaps this makes more sense from a redundancy/safety standpoint?
I think I have a pretty good grasp of the principles of ZFS, but need a little guidance with the details. I would rather spend some more time planning up front, rather than have to redo the whole system later. If my primary objective is have a 'cosmic-ray' proof storage box, then:
1) Does RAID10 (ZFS-mirrored-stripes) make more sense than RAIDZ2 with replicated snapshots?
2) Do I need to have the snapshot backup vdev (or mirrored array) in another box? Off-site?
Any insight you can offer will be appreciated. I am still learning and open to [constructive] criticism.
Thanks-
-stephen