Replacing HDD. Low on space

[Chris Black]

Just in case..., open Shell (in the left pane) and type
zpool list
then
zfs list

 

[solarisguy]

Let me sum it up like this: I have very good and very bad news for you!

Good news is that you have lots of disk space, however you had made some artificial limits on datasets...

Bad news is that you are 100% unprotected.

I am not sure how comfortable you are with FreeNAS, but please show us a screenshot of your disks and try to import a volume.

 

[Chris Black]

What do you mean by unprotected?

Let me sum it up like this: I have very good and very bad news for you!

Good news is that you have lots of disk space, however you had made some artificial limits on datasets...

Bad news is that you are 100% unprotected.

I am not sure how comfortable you are with FreeNAS, but please show us a screenshot of your disks and try to import a volume.

 

[solarisguy]

All your data is on a single disk = unprotected.

All 1 TB disks are unused. There is no volume created out of these 1 TB disks.

I am unable to offer a detailed help, as I became busy in the real world, but I want to point out that you have several challenges ahead of you

• protecting your existing data;
• managing your existing data (clearly the current setup is not workable, as you have lots of space and you are out of space at the same time);
• creation of a mirror with two 6 TB disks;
• learning more of FreeNAS administration (you thought you had done something, but it is clearly not there).

Ultimately you have less than 1TB of data, I would create a copy. So you would have two copies: one on the 3TB disk, and one just made.
I would place that data off-line = took the disk(s) out of the machine.
Devoted some time to learning FreeNAS using the 6TB and 1TB disks.
In the learning, I would include dealing with scenarios that involve replacing a disk.

P.S.
Ask around in the forum, whether mirroring (Raid 1 equivalent) would be good for you with 2 disks or 3 disks. Also I would use only 6TB disks, and redeploy the remaining disks for off-line backups.

 

[danb35]

Right now, as noted earlier, you're using only your 3 TB disk--the 3 x 1 TB disks are just burning watts and accomplishing nothing. You have no redundancy--if that one drive dies, you will lose all the data that's on it. Contrary to your statement that you're low on space, you're only using about 1/3 of your capacity right now, though you appear to have set quotas on some of your datasets. But still, more storage is always a good thing, right?

So, the question is, what do you want to accomplish? I've been operating on the assumption that you want your data to survive at least one disk failure, because most of the people here are using FreeNAS because they care about their data. If that's the case, your options are very limited. But I could be wrong--if you're just wanting to maximize storage space, and don't care if a disk failure will result in loss of all your data, you have some other options.

You've said that you want to use your existing 3 TB disk, plus your incoming 2 x 6 TB disks. If you want redundancy (i.e., the ability to survive a disk failure), I can only think of two ways to do that, and both have significant drawbacks. First, you could set them up in a three-way mirror. This would be extraordinarily wasteful of space, resulting in only 3 TB (2.7 TiB) of net capacity from 15 TB of disk space--but it would allow your data to survive the failure of any two disks. The other option would be to create a RAIDZ volume using the three disks. This would not be quite as wasteful of space as the three-way mirror, but you'd still only get 6 TB (5.4 TiB) capacity for your 15 TB of disk space, since RAIDZ is limited by the capacity of the smallest disk in the vdev. You'd also need to back up all your data, destroy your pool, and create a new one for the data.

Assuming you do want some redundancy, I'd suggest a two-way mirror of your 2 x 6 TB disks. It gives you the same capacity as the RAIDZ with only two disks, and will still tolerate the failure of either disk. You can then repurpose your 3 TB disk (and your 3 x 1 TB disks) for whatever other application seems good to you. The method I'd suggest for doing this would be, first, to add one of the 6 TB disks as a mirror of your current 3 TB disk (which will involve some tinkering on the command line), and then, when it's finished syncing the data to that disk, using the web GUI to replace the 3 TB disk with the second 6 TB disk.

As to why you don't want to use the volume manager to extend the volume--if you do, you'll result in a pool that has your existing 3 TB disk striped with either a mirror of the two 6 TB disks, or a stripe of those two disks. In the former case, you'll end up with 9 TB (8.1 TiB) of capacity; in the latter, 15 TB (13.5 TiB). In the latter case, it really doesn't matter--all the disks are striped, and when any of them fails, you'll lose all the data on the pool. But in the former case, you have a false sense of redundancy. You're protected against the loss of one of the 6 TB disks, but if/when the 3 TB disk dies, all your data would be lost.

 

[joeschmuck]

The folks above have done you a great service, you now know that your data was unprotected and they are tossing a hand to help you decide where to go from here.

Based on your original posting of wanting to use only the two 6TB Red drives, I'd do the following...

1) Backup all your data to an external device since it's not really that much data, backup your configuration file, and write down any settings you have for your plugins.
2) From the GUI Remove the pool (do not destroy it in case for some reason this gets botched)
3) Turn off your FreeNAS machine and remove all the drives.
4) Install the two 6TB Red drives and power on the machine.
5) Create a new MIRROR pool with the two 6TB drives.
6) Create any datasets you desire, I wouldn't place limits on the maximum dataset size unless you really need them.
7) Copy your data back onto FreeNAS.
8) Reinstall your plugins.
9) Save the 3TB drive in an unaltered state for at least a few months just in case you find out you didn't copy something off, you could place that drive into any machine and boot up FreeNAS to recover the data.

Again, that is what I'd do if I were in your shoes, but I'm not you. There is a faster way to transfer the data but I'm opting on the safest way of doing this because I don't know how careful you are nor what you might do if an error pops up. The safe way preserves your original drive. If you want additional drives as part of this new pool, buy them before you do this and make a RAIDZ1 or RAIDZ2 pool, but use a Mirror if you only have 2 identical drives.

 

[Chris Black]

Thanks a lot guys. As @danb35 said I will go the 2x6TB in RaidZ route. I will keep the extra hard drives for other things.

Thanks @joeschmuck for the step by step I will do that on the weekend.

I feel a whole lot more confident in this process.

I just checked Canada Post and my HDD Reds are coming in today.

I will post back Monday to let you guys know how it went.

 

[joeschmuck]

If you have any concerns, ask before you do something which you will regret later. We do like helping people that are willing to take the time and listen.

 

[danb35]

As @danb35 said I will go the 2x6TB in RaidZ route.

Actually, I said to use the 2 x 6 TB in a mirror. You need at least three disks to create a RAIDZ volume.

 

[Chris Black]

If you have any concerns, ask before you do something which you will regret later. We do like helping people that are willing to take the time and listen.

Will do I just passed by the house and am copying all my files over to an empty HDD. Before going on this quest.

 

[Chris Black]

@joeschmuck I made a backup of my files. Removing the pool would equate to "Detach Volume"

 

[solarisguy]

@joeschmuck I made a backup of my files. Removing the pool would equate to "Detach Volume"

In case that was a question..., yes you were supposed to Detach Volume and leave Mark the disks as new (destroy data) empty

 

[joeschmuck]

Concur.

 

[Chris Black]

Thanks for the help I got it all set up and working perfectly. I feel a whole lot more safe now that I know for a fact it is mirrored. My media Center and Cloud is now set for a few more years of content.