[NOOB Question] Re: Storage

[aikicoops]

Hi yguys.

I'm new to the "build your own NAS" community, so please bear with me here.

I have cobbled together a NAS out of parts of an old PC, (about 3 years old now).

I have installed a new WD Red 3Tb drive (currently striped) for the moment and installed FreeNAS via a bootable USB. Over the next month, I would like to increase the size of this volume to say 9-12Tb in total. This will only house music and movies at this stage, NO documents at all.
If a drive fails I don't care too much of I lose the data as I have it backed up through CrashPlan (if anyone is wondering about redundancy).

Then in the next couple of months, I will look at getting 3 more drives (to match the size of the original pool) and setup a mirror for the music/movies drives and start adding documents once I have redundancy setup (maybe Raid5? Thoughts please?).

All drives will be WD Reds.
The current system has 16Gb ram, with an intel i7.

As I am learning this as I go I would appreciate the help in setting this up.
Financially I am unable to just go out and Purchase all the drives at once, which I know is ideal.

Thanks for your help in advanced.

Cheers
Coops

 

[Dice]

Welcome onboard.

1. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/zfs-primer.38927/
2. https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/
3. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/
4. https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ll-a-proper-home-freenas-setup-cost-me.28936/

These links provide a basic foundation to make informed decisions on configuration of FreeNAS.
They all piece together, where, in spite of the immediate lack of "this is useful to me" flags - will for sure answer what the forum thinks about all of the questions indicated in your post.

Cheers.

 

[Vito Reiter]

Raid5 (RaidZ1) is a little outdated now due to the size of new drives and rebuild times leading to the possibility of more than 1 disk failure at a time. Now, that is all based on how important your data is and whether or not you have an off-site/off-machine backup. Just remember you can't add 1 disk at a time due to loss of redundancy so each vdev should be created with a good amount of disks. If you want 3 drives, start with a 3 drive RaidZ1 and replace the drives with bigger ones as you go or create another vdev in RaidZ1/2/3 etc. All the documentation listed above will pretty much tell you that and are great resources to get started. Welcome!

 

[danb35]

I have installed a new WD Red 3Tb drive (currently striped) for the moment and installed FreeNAS via a bootable USB. Over the next month, I would like to increase the size of this volume to say 9-12Tb in total.

That is certainly possible, if you don't care about your data. You'll have no redundancy, of course, and each disk you add to the pool increases your risk of total pool failure, with resulting total data loss.

Then in the next couple of months, I will look at getting 3 more drives (to match the size of the original pool) and setup a mirror for the music/movies drives

...but this wouldn't work. You can add a single disk to mirror a single disk (though you have to use the CLI--maybe some day before the heat death of the universe, the FreeNAS devs will get around to adding this quite simple feature into the Web GUI), but you can't add a set of three disks to mirror an existing set of three disks. You could buy a second disk now, mirror it to your existing disk, and add pairs of disks as needed (to expand your pool while retaining redundancy). But you'll never be able to convert that pool to RAIDZn. You'd need to back up the data, destroy the pool, and rebuild it as whatever flavor of RAIDZ you want (we tend to encourage RAIDZ2 as a minimum for modern-capacity disks, though there are a few dissenters).

each vdev should be created with a good amount of disks.

Somewhat true if you're using RAIDZ (presuming that "good number" means "suitable number", not "large number"), but mirrors are often a better solution for home use, as they allow much easier incremental expansion. There are pros and cons both ways.

 

[Stux]

but you can't add a set of three disks to mirror an existing set of three disks.

Sure about that? If you have 3 disks each a stripe in a pool, ie 3 vdevs, you can attach another disk to each vdev one at a time, and the end result will be 3 mirrors in a pool.

If you are planning on ending up with 6 drive RaidZ2 vdev, and you only want to start with 3 drives. Then partitition each drive in half, and make the raidz2 vdev with the 6 partitions. That will get you roughly raidz1 reliability.

Once you get your extra 3 drives, use 2 drives to replace the partitions on the first disk. Then use your 2 disks (the first disk is now avialable) to replace the next disk. Then use that next disk to replace one of the partitions on the 3rd disk. Then offline, wipe and replace the last disks partitions with the last disk.

You never lose full redundancy and you end up with a 6 drive raidz2, without having to backup/restore your data.'

Alternatively, use RaidZ1 now, and when you get your 3 extra disks, set those 3 disks up as 6 way RaidZ2, replicate your data to your new pool, and then use your old 3 disks, in the same way as the above method.

 

[Dice]

Then partitition each drive in half, and make the raidz2 vdev with the 6 partitions. T

Meanwhile technically possible, question is whether it is advisable to a FreeNAS newbie.

 

[danb35]

Sure about that? If you have 3 disks each a stripe in a pool, ie 3 vdevs, you can attach another disk to each vdev one at a time,

Ah, yes, that should be do-able. I was thinking of a single three-disk striped vdev. In that case, I don't believe you'd be able to add disks as mirrors.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I was thinking of a single three-disk striped vdev

If you add 3 disks to a pool one by one, you'll always end up with three vdevs of type stripe, each comprised of a single physical disk. Each vdev can then be turned into a mirror.

EDIT: in fact, you'll get 3 single-disk stripe vdevs even if you add all 3 at once.

 

[Stux]

Ah, yes, that should be do-able. I was thinking of a single three-disk striped vdev. In that case, I don't believe you'd be able to add disks as mirrors.

A 3 disk vdev would be a triple-mirror :), only way to stripe in ZFS is to stripe across vdevs.

 

[danb35]

I don't believe you'd be able to add disks as mirrors.

Indeed, I was wrong here. Did a bit of testing, and turns out @Robert Trevellyan and @Stux are right. Good to know, and thanks for the pointers.

 

[Jailer]

Interesting. While it wouldn't grow your pool you could add some redundancy a disk at a time. Only thing is I wouldn't go recommending this pool layout to a novice until something gets added to the GUI to accomplish it. Well if it gets added:

some day before the heat death of the universe

 

[danb35]

So, on further review, this is wrong:

...but this wouldn't work. You can add a single disk to mirror a single disk (though you have to use the CLI--maybe some day before the heat death of the universe, the FreeNAS devs will get around to adding this quite simple feature into the Web GUI), but you can't add a set of three disks to mirror an existing set of three disks.

You can build a pool of three striped disks, and later come back and add mirrors to those striped disks (one at a time or all at the same time). But to add the mirrors (especially to do it "right", i.e., the FreeNAS way) involves a good bit of CLI-fu. It should be relatively simple to implement this in the GUI, and it's a longstanding feature request, but that ability still isn't present.

 

[Stux]

it's a longstanding feature request, but that ability still isn't present.

You got a bug report# for that? :)

 

[danb35]

https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/23391
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/3703
https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/3128

The latter two are marked as duplicates, but no reference to the bug they supposedly duplicate.

 

[Stux]

Added my 2c

The bug says there's no demand for the feature...

 

[Ericloewe]

The latter two are marked as duplicates, but no reference to the bug they supposedly duplicate.

Probably a Corral ticket.

 

[danb35]

Probably a Corral ticket.

Since they were filed in September and December of 2013, that doesn't seem likely.

 

[Ericloewe]

Since they were filed in September and December of 2013, that doesn't seem likely.

Don't forget that most 9.10 open tickets were moved to 10/Corral and later locked down when that crashed and burned.