storage design questions

[blodsbror]

Hi,

I'm new to FreeNAS, and just had some questions about the possibilities of designing the vdev's/pools. I'm looking to build a backup server with a large amount of storage, that will be used as a backup target (most likely over Samba) for Veaam, and some other backup products.

1. Is it possible/supported to combine disks of different size and make/model in the same vdev.
2. If not, is it possible/supported to combine vdevs of different size and make/model disks in the same zpool.
3. The server I want to build, should be as fast as possible for writes (writing backup data to disk). Is there any recommended disk/udev/pool/cache configuration for getting optimal write speed ?
4. Do people run FreeBSD from a good quality USB drive in production ? I have a commercial version of Nexenta installed/configured on the controller that I'm thinking of using, and I would prefer not to delete this if possible. (if I ever want to revert back).

Many thanks!

 

[danb35]

1. It is possible to combine disks of different size in the same vdev, but in that case, the capacity of the vdev will be determined by the capacity of the smallest disk. Make/model isn't a factor.
2. It is possible to combine vdevs with different capacities into the same zpool.
3. I can't really comment on this.
4. It is recommended to install FreeNAS on a SATA DOM or USB stick. Since FreeNAS will use the entire boot device for the OS, it's a waste to install it on a hard drive.

 

[blodsbror]

Thanks for the quick reply. Is anyone using FreeNAS in 'serious' production, installed on a USB stick ? I assume that it get's loaded and runs entirely from RAM ?

 

[danb35]

If you buy a server from iXSystems, they'll use a SATA DOM rather than a USB stick. Pretty much everyone who's building their own systems is using USB sticks, though, as they're cheaper and much easier to find. The system does get loaded into RAM at boot and runs from there, though any configuration changes get written to the boot device.

 

[blodsbror]

Thanks. By an off chance, can FreeNAS import udev's created from an existing Nexenta box ? If I boot the nexenta box from USB with FreeNAS ?

 

[danb35]

There I really can't help you. There shouldn't be any risk to trying, though--just boot, and try the auto-import button in the web GUI. I think the "official" answer is that any pools used by FreeNAS should be created by FreeNAS.