Only half my storage is available on ZFS

[Spearfoot]

@Spearfoot what do you mean with the first part? Was it sarcastic?

No, not being sarcastic. I just felt like a fool for not getting more information before leaping to conclusions...

 

[crwoo]

Hi, is there a simple answer why i would gain double storage with adding only two drives? And why couldnt i just add the drives to the current raid without backup/restore. I thought there is an option to add more drives

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi, is there a simple answer why i would gain double storage with adding only two drives?

Yes: currently you are using 4 drives in RAIDZ2, which means you're using 2 drives for parity, leaving you 2 drives for data. When you use 6 drives in RAIDZ2, you still only use 2 drives for parity - but you have 4 drives for data, giving you twice as much space.

And why couldnt i just add the drives to the current raid without backup/restore. I thought there is an option to add more drives

Oh, yes, you can expand a pool. You expand a pool by adding one or more vdevs (a vdev is one or more drives). You could expand your existing pool with a mirrored pair vdev, as I mentioned - but that would only give you the space of a single drive in additional capacity. I also suggested adding another 4-drive RAIDZ2 vdev identical to the one you have now, but that would be just as inefficient: you'd still be using half your drives for parity.

No, the most efficient way to expand your pool is to re-create it with add'l drives as I last suggested. I mentioned adding two drives, but you could add three or four if you want to. I use 7 disks in a RAIDZ2 pool (see 'my systems' for details).

 

[joeschmuck]

No, not being sarcastic. I just felt like a fool for not getting more information before leaping to conclusions... :)

The bad part for me is I did read that it was 4TB x4 drives and I did read it was a raidz2 from the output but it didn't sink in. The 13TB initial image got me wrapped around the axles.

 

[zambanini]

just force people to provided basic information about they system the use.