System Dataset on extra disc?

[jackydany]

Hi there,

i want to know if i can just change the system dataset "on the fly" to a seperate disc?
I mentioned that my raidz2 is used and the disks wont go to sleep because they are kept busy by the system dataset option i think.

Is it usefull to have the system dataset on a seperate disc?
Is it performance cirtical? or can i just use any spare disc (sata1)?
Should it be mirrored or doenst it matter if the disc drive fails someday?

Thanks

 

[SweetAndLow]

yes you can put it on another disk and yes it should be mirrored. Also usually the benefit of spinning down your disks doesn't out weight the cost of buying new disk sooner because of the extra wear and tear you are putting on them.

 

[jackydany]

Hi,

is it critical if the disc is not mirrored?

I just want the disc to spin down because i dont use them that often and they should spin down because they are not made for 24/7.

 

[Alvin]

At the moment, that will not be a problem. If the disk with your .system dataset dies, it's dead. You will then lose logs and performance data. You will see errors, but FreeNAS will keep functioning. (Of course, that might change in the future. It depends on what the .system disk is used for.)

 

[jackydany]

Should i be concerned about performance for this disc? Or doesnt it matter at all?

Thank you a lot

 

[Ericloewe]

Actually, it's quite likely that the system will crash if the .system dataset goes unavail.

 

[jackydany]

Ok, so mirrored... but what about performance?

is it nessesary to get ssd or will an old ide do the job as well? :D

 

[SweetAndLow]

Performance most likely isn't an issue. But I also suspect if your hardware supports ide then it isn't suitable to run FreeNAS but you can figure that out on your own. A ssd is $30 and for someone that is so concerned with power usage I'm amazed that you want to use old power hungry hdd for this.

 

[jackydany]

Hi,

no there is no IDE support on my board, i just wanted to know about performance.

Also, i am not concerned about powercomsuption, i want the disks to spin down because of lifetime / failure etc of the disks because they are not NAS-ready (desktop disks)
and i have a spare 40gb sata disk laying around with no use. so i dont need to buy 2x ssd = 70€

 

[SweetAndLow]

Spinning them down is going to decrease their lifespan faster than leaving then running. Starting up and shutting down require the most worth and wear and tear on the drives. Once they are up and spinning there is very little wear and tear being done. What drives do you have? You don't need dedicated nas drives that is just wording they put on the box so you will spend more. There are done minor difference but nothing that can't be worked around.

 

[Bidule0hm]

It's not because it's desktop drives that they will fail if you let them on 24/7. I agree with the bad effects of power cycling or spin up/down cycling the drives, we currently discuss about that in this thread for example ;)

 

[jackydany]

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

I know that spinning down / up all the time decrease lifetime, but the discs will be down for more than 12 hours per day i think if not even more.
Sometimes i think they will be down for the whole day.
Isnt it better to let them spin down in this usecase?

Thanks

 

[Ericloewe]

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

I know that spinning down / up all the time decrease lifetime, but the discs will be down for more than 12 hours per day i think if not even more.
Sometimes i think they will be down for the whole day.
Isnt it better to let them spin down in this usecase?

Thanks

It's hard to tell without doing a controlled experiment.