New/Old hard drives with media on them

[Walt Thayer]

The freenas config site trying to add hard drives, says mounting this drive will erase the contents. do i have to erase the contents of my hard drive before I mount them, if so could I move the hard drive one by one to my windows machine copy and paste it back to the FreeNAS? and then configure the NAS to be JBOD or raid after all drives have been put back in place? I have 16 drives by the way

 

[Yell]

yes, BUT you will have NOT fault trolerance and lose ALL data if ANY disk fails

IHMO the ZFS way is to buy new drives But who have so mutch money to spare.

But here are two options.

A) Create a ZFS Mirror with 2 Drives -> move Data -> add TWO empty disks (same size or larger) to the Mirror -> rise and repeat till all your disks are in the mirror sets

B) Create a degrated Mirror (like A) or a Raidz (search this forum for "quick dirty") -> move your data and PRAY that the disk isnt failing or having bad blocks
(done this with a raidz2 and one missing, and gues what happend? Lucky i used Raidz2 with double parity)

 

[Walt Thayer]

yes, BUT you will have NOT fault trolerance and lose ALL data if ANY disk fails

IHMO the ZFS way is to buy new drives But who have so mutch money to spare.

But here are two options.

A) Create a ZFS Mirror with 2 Drives -> move Data -> add TWO empty disks (same size or larger) to the Mirror -> rise and repeat till all your disks are in the mirror sets

B) Create a degrated Mirror (like A) or a Raidz (search this forum for "quick dirty") -> move your data and PRAY that the disk isnt failing or having bad blocks
(done this with a raidz2 and one missing, and gues what happend? Lucky i used Raidz2 with double parity)

When you say mirror sets do you mean a bunch of dev configs? Also I have a 2tb drive and a 500gb drive. the 500gb drive is ready to be formatted and copy data. once everything is copied back to the 2tb drive (after the process of moving and copying) could i use a JBOD array and raid 5 the 2tb to the JBOD array? both are going to be equal in size once finished.

 

[Yell]

This sounds like it aint work, keep in mind ZFS was designed as enterprise solution.

I'm not sure if i understand you,
so your want something like this?

raidz
-2TB Disk1
-2TB Disk2
-JBoD Array of 4x500GB
I'm a freebsd noob myself, but i say it wont work and nobody should do this even with Linux's mdadm raid.


---------------------

Best solution for 2x 2TB and 4x 500GB would be splitting them in two pools
Mirror 2x 2TB
Raidz 4x500 TB (speed wont suffer a little bit, because the recommandation is 3 or 5 disks)
Mirror create 2x 500GB -> add 2x 500GB
---------------------
if you dont mind losing data in case of harddisk fault's, you can use zfs strip /raid 0/JBoD

 

[Walt Thayer]

I'm not sure if i understand you,
so your want something like this?

raidz
-2TB Disk1
-2TB Disk2
-JBoD Array of 4x500GB

No I want something like this
2tb (1)
raid 5 with
JBOD
250gb (2)
500gb (1)
200gb (4)
raid 0 with
160gb (1)
JBOD
80gb (2)
the rest with JBOD config consist of 120gb or less to make one drive

 

[Yell]

No I want something like this
2tb (1)
raid 5 with
JBOD
250gb (2)
500gb (1)
200gb (4)
raid 0 with
160gb (1)
JBOD
80gb (2)
the rest with JBOD config consist of 120gb or less to make one drive

This setup still doesnt make sense, because if you add a single disk(vdev) to and existing Mirror/Raid and this one fails you lose all your data.
(BTW how much sata/IDE connectors does your mainboard have oO with this many drives?)

Your should think abort discarding your low space drives and buy 2 or 3 newer ones (2TB++).
But if you still want to keep the old ones, i would go with the following setup

80gb (2) => Raid0 /Mirror (i dont think raid0 would make sense,because they are slow as hell even after combining them to a raid0)
2tb (1) => buy 1 (Mirror) or 2 (Raidz) more of 'em or use as Single datapool / external drive / Backup Media
250gb (2) => Mirror / Raidz with the 500G (your lose half of the disk)
500gb (1) => Single datapool / external drive / Backup Media
200gb (4) => Mirror (create with 2 and then add 2) / Raidz (less performance, but more space)
160gb (1) => Junk / Single datapool / external drive

As you see you would end up in very little space, that takes quite some engery (think about your monthly bill) and multiple pool that cannot be combined.
Srly buy some 2TB drives and use 3 of em in a single raidZ to store your important data, backup to aother datapool out of the 200-500GB (that would be 1,2TB of space) drives and trash the rest.

Else if you dont mind losing your data, throw all drives in a JBoD and pray that you never have badblocks or a disk error.

 

[Walt Thayer]

I have 18 IDE connections and 8 SATA connections at this time, I am buying more connections later.
at the current configuration I have 8 SATAs connected, and 8 IDE's connected. When finished I will have 40 hard drives configured and running

 

[Walt Thayer]

I have 18 IDE connections and 8 SATA connections at this time, I am buying more connections later.
at the current configuration I have 8 SATAs connected, and 8 IDE's connected. When finished I will have 40 hard drives configured and running 20 IDE's and 20 SATA's

 

[cyberjock]

Read my guide.. it will explain your misunderstanding with vdevs and zpools. :)

 

[JaimieV]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a couple of 2Tb disks and make a 3x2Tb RAIDZ1 than to run all that for a year? You're looking at 200W for the drives alone...

 

[Stephens]

On some level I can relate to people not wanting to toss perfectly working drives, but I don't think it's worth it trying to build a FreeNAS system with scrap drives worth probably $10-$20. There are packages out there which allow you to join a bunch of disparate drives into a pool, but that's not FreeNAS's strength. I'd maybe use them as near line backup storage and just build an appropriate NAS.

 

[Walt Thayer]

Some people (like me) go to school at night have a part time job, and can only afford free. So with this being said I hope to have more support til I can afford it. Thanks.

 

[JaimieV]

It's still a crazy idea in terms of resilience and energy expenditure - you say you can only afford free, but is a 2Tb drive (to go with your existing one, trash the rest) really more expensive than running 18 drives at 100-200W continuous power use? Hidden costs.

 

[cyberjock]

Walt, let's pretend you use your system with your "free" drives, and I opt for a 2TB drive.


Your system will probably use 150W or so. That's a little low, but we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

150W * 24x7 * 365 days a year = 9168Kwh

My system with a single 2TB drive will probably use less than 70W. But we'll assume high at 70W.

70W * 24x7 * 365 days a year = 4293Kwh.

At $0.125 per Kwh that totals a difference of $609 in the first year! So by buying myself a shiny new 2TB drive for, say $100, I just saved myself $500 in electric bills in the first year alone!

So yeah, while you are trying to justify using those drives because they are "free". They are far more expensive than buying even 2x2TB drives in the first year. If you use the system for 3 years, you're saving over $1500 with 2x2TB drives.

And keep in mind that if any of those drives fail, you'll be in a position to buy a replacement. You can't "downsize" the vdevs even if the zpool isn't full. Even small drives such as 250GB drives are around $40, so if more then 2 drives fail in the first year, you could have thrown away all of the drives and bought a 2TB drive even if the electricity was free.

So while free today, right now, 30 days from now you're looking at an extra $95 in electricity if your server runs at 150W 24x7 at 12.5cents/kwh. That power usage could also be impossibly low to achieve depending on what hard drives you use. You may save some KwH by sleeping the drives(nevermind the extra wear and tear with spindle startups) but there's no way it'll be a net gain to reuse those drives for even 6 months.

Just do the math, you'll see your "free" drives are far from free.

I have a friend that is about to upgrade his FreeNAS server from 1 and 1.5TB drives, and I've shown him that he's better off upgrading to 3TB drives and throwing away the old drives(which he'll actually sell and make a little money back anyway) than to add the 3TB drives to his current configuration.

But yeah, if you come in here with a problem, we'll try to help you. But I'm expecting your first "repair" will be replacing old drives that are failing, and you'll quickly find your free drives weren't such a great deal after all when you're spending $100 to replace 2 failed drive when you could have bought a 2TB for that price.

 

[Yell]

Real world example:
measured my energy today

CPU: Core i3 2,9GHz
MB: intel DH55tc
Drives: 6x 2TB WD20ear S/X (X are newer and take more energy WD rates them as 5,30W while writing per drive)
PSU: 300W BeQuite
noname USB PCIe Card
USB Keyboard

= ~ 65w Idle (spinning disks), 84 Peak (writing with 107 mb/s)

so remove 4 drives
= ~40 w Idle
let your drives enter standby (WD rates the X with 0.7)
= ~35W

And the best you get 2 year warranty, if it breaks get a free new one.

On the other hand lets say your old drives are as energy efficient as my WD Green Series (i dont with so ^^):
writing: 5,3W x 18 = 95,4 W
idle: 3,30W x 18 = 59W
standby: 0,7W x 18 = 12 W

and now add the cost and the energy of the expansion card(s)
(think most mainboards are capped with 6 sata + 4 IDE)

 

[JaimieV]

Your system will probably use 150W or so. That's a little low, but we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

150W * 24x7 * 365 days a year = 9168Kwh

Math slip: You've multiplied 24x7x365, so that's seven years of juice.

Even corrected at 1314kWh/year, buying the 2Tb drive still works out as a cost saving.

 

[cyberjock]

Haha. My numbers felt a little high, but I was almost asleep when I wrote that up. But yeah, it's almost always a cost savings unless the "free" drives are 1TB+ each.

 

[Walt Thayer]

On some level I can relate to people not wanting to toss perfectly working drives, but I don't think it's worth it trying to build a FreeNAS system with scrap drives worth probably $10-$20. There are packages out there which allow you to join a bunch of disparate drives into a pool, but that's not FreeNAS's strength. I'd maybe use them as near line backup storage and just build an appropriate NAS.

The way I see it is this....I have drives I can mess around with, I can burn them up if need be to learn how to set this server up. Not wasting money on a 2tb drive if it fails because I told the server to spin down a drive and the PSU don't support that. So in real reference I am cautious at the same time configuring how to use this system. So when I come out at the end I can be a Pro just you like you guys to help out others that are like me now.
BTW I don't pay the electric bill. so while I am still configuring and "burning up drives" I will be better at this in the end. Not that you all need to know this but someone who brings home 700.00 a month and has 650.00 to pay out in bills, can't afford a 2tb drive at the moment. I do like y'all's help a lot. although I don't understand why my drives are coming up as single drives. I bought a 3ware 8 port EIDE PCI-X card, and a 12 port 3Ware SATA PCI-X card. (before starting college) I had 2 PCI EIDE raid cards (that were lying around) that support 4 drives a piece.

 

[JaimieV]

That does put a different perspective on things: if you're using this as a play system, rather than something you expect to store data on, then fine!

Okay, first things first. If this is early on in your FreeNAS experience, you're jumping in at the deep end with a chainmail suit on using so many interfaces, mixing hardware and ZFS RAIDs, and using so many mismatched drives. Also, things you learn from this will largely be of the "don't do this ever again" type. But never mind, as long as it's entertaining and useful for you.

I'd suggest starting with just a trio of drives all connected directly to the mobo and make sure you can RAIDZ1 them safely then share them, as a starter. You can delete the vdev again after. The drives don't need to be the same size, they'll all only be used to the capacity of the smallest of course.

After that...
So each of your JBOD-to-be drive collections is hung off its own RAID card? Ok, that'll make life easier at the FreeNAS end. The reason they're not showing up as collated drives is that you'll need to set each card up with its own drive set before playing with FreeNAS at all - using either the card's BIOS or the appropriate utility software. From what you write the cards are all supported by FreeNAS (you see the single disks) so that's one hurdle already cleared.

If you can't do that drive setup on the cards for whatever reason, then you will have to do it in FreeNAS. Take care you're putting the right drives into the right stripe+mirror sets!