Upgrading my setup with more disks

[Jaxcie]

Hello!

I currently run a small NAS at home with 2x4TB disks in RAIDz1, but I am running out of space. I am also thinking of using a (really old) PC for offsite backups.
My NAS is used for storing my music collections, as well as recordings of my livestreams. So there is no need for any extreme performance.

My current spec are as follows:
A2SDi-2C-HLN4F with Intel Atom Processor C3338 and 2xSamsung 8GB DDR4 ECC
2x4TB Seagate Ironwolf
Fractal Design Node 304
Corsair CX550M 550W
24gb SSD as cache drive
16Gb SATAdom systemdisc

To achive this I have some questions:

First:
I (think I) want my home storage NAS to have at least two discs reduncancy, the thought of one disc failing and then another failing before I get another disc makes me cringe. So I have this idea:

1. Get 4 more 4TB drives
2. Create a RAIDz2 pool with the new drives
3. Move data over from old pool
4. Add HDDs from old pool to new pool

My case have 6 3.5" slots, and my motherboard supports 8 SATA connections (1 for systemdisk. 1 for cache and 6 available for storage)

Is this a reasonable approach or should I just get 2 bigger drives and mirror them instead?

The following are the ideas I've had so far:

# of drives	Name	Size of each disk (TB)	Usable ZFS size	Price
4 (+2 reused)	Seagate IronWolf ST4000VN006	4	14TiB	4400 SEK
2	Seagate Exos X16 ST16000NM001G	16	14TiB	6000 SEK

Secondly:
Should I try to get the same drives as the ones I already have, or should I try to "spread" the MTBF by using different brands/model#? I will offcourse double check that any drive I chose CMR.

Thirdly:
I have a superold Dell optiplex 745 that I thought I'd use for offsite storage. As it is super old I installed Truenas to make sure it worked at all, which it did. As it will only be used to backup storeage I don't think the abysmal performance it may have will affect anything?

Thanks in advance for any help for my inquires!
/Jaxcie

 

[artlessknave]

Should I try to get the same drives as the ones I already have, or should I try to "spread" the MTBF by using different brands/model#? I will offcourse double check that any drive I chose CMR.

no. the pool will run at the speed of the slowest drive, and there are basically 2 brands, seagate or WD, and WD are sh*^ers who think sneaking SMR in is a good idea.

I have a superold Dell optiplex 745 that I thought I'd use for offsite storage. As it is super old I installed Truenas to make sure it worked at all, which it did. As it will only be used to backup storeage I don't think the abysmal performance it may have will affect anything?

holy cow is that ancient. p4!?!?! as you havent given it's specs (isn't that kind of important?) it's very difficult to say; depending on what you have in it, the MAX ram could be below TrueNAS min specs. eg. IIRC, P4 can only address 3.5 RAM and being 32 bit would be incompatible.

if you do have the min specs it should work as a backup but...you might want to keep an eye for something better.

Dell Technologies Official Site | Dell St. Lucia

Visit Dell.com to see our technology solutions, services & support. Find our Premier Login, find a Dell Partner, or Book a Sales call today.

www1.la.dell.com

RAIDz2

you cant change a raidz, so if you make your pool a 4 disk raidz2, and you only have 6 bays, you will not be able to expand in the reasonable future. I would suggest mirrors.

2x4TB disks in RAIDz1

this is not possible. raidz1 requires 3 disks minimum. if you have mirrors, you can just extend your pool.

 

[Jaxcie]

thanks for the reply!

no. the pool will run at the speed of the slowest drive, and there are basically 2 brands, seagate or WD, and WD are sh*^ers who think sneaking SMR in is a good idea.

Ok, so basically go with same drives to avoid spending monkey on perfomance I won't get.

holy cow is that ancient. p4!?!?! as you havent given it's specs (isn't that kind of important?) it's very difficult to say; depending on what you have in it, the MAX ram could be below TrueNAS min specs. eg. IIRC, P4 can only address 3.5 RAM and being 32 bit would be incompatible.

if you do have the min specs it should work as a backup but...you might want to keep an eye for something better.

Dell Technologies Official Site | Dell St. Lucia

Visit Dell.com to see our technology solutions, services & support. Find our Premier Login, find a Dell Partner, or Book a Sales call today.

www1.la.dell.com

That is the one! :D

I have installed TrueNAS on it a few months ago and it boots, so I guess it works at least somewhat.
My long term plan is to retire my NAS from home and put it offsite, but that is an exercise for later.

you cant change a raidz, so if you make your pool a 4 disk raidz2, and you only have 6 bays, you will not be able to expand in the reasonable future. I would suggest mirrors.

Ok, I'll go with the larger mirrored drives then, and figure out some fun use of my old pool.

this is not possible. raidz1 requires 3 disks minimum. if you have mirrors, you can just extend your pool.

My bad, I thought raidz1 was mirroring.


Once again, thanks for the help!

 

[artlessknave]

figure out some fun use of my old pool.

you can just extend the mirrored pool with new disks. no need to change anything, or you could replace them in place.

you could, for example, put 2 more 4TB+ drives into the main nas data pool, giving you ~8tb and then put 2x 8TB drives into the backup server, which would give you both more space and 100% backup space, and then you can add disks as space and money dictate.
mirrors are MUCH more flexible than raidz at this time.

 

[Jaxcie]

Ooh that is pretty cool!

If I understand it correctly that means that I just magically get more space and don't have to do anything but add the new mirror to the pool? e.g. no need to reconfigure mountpoints and whatnot

 

[artlessknave]

If I understand it correctly that means that I just magically get more space and don't have to do anything but add the new mirror to the pool? e.g. no need to reconfigure mountpoints and whatnot

it's not magic, it's IT!
but yes, ultimately, that is correct. there is a large number of resources and links in my signature. probably want to give some of them a read.

 

[Etorix]

A2SDi-2C-HLN4F with Intel Atom Processor C3338 and 2xSamsung 8GB DDR4 ECC
2x4TB Seagate Ironwolf
Fractal Design Node 304
Corsair CX550M 550W
24gb SSD as cache drive

Nice little case and motherboard. I worry about the "cache" since you don't have enough RAM for L2ARC and no obvious use case for a SLOG (and I don't know of 24 GB Optane).

With 2 drives you can't have a raidz1 so you must have made a mirror instead, and so you may extend the pool by adding further mirror vdevs. The new vdevs need not be of the same size as the old one, and price per TB is probably better on larger capacities. Shop around for NAS/enterprise drives (WD Red Plus/Pro, Gold; Seagate Ironwolf /Pro, Exos; Toshiba N300, MG) and pick the cheapest option. There's nothing wrong with mix and match… but it's probably not terribly useful.

That said, if budget allows, the best option for reliability would be to migrate everything to a 6-wide raidz2—making the most of your case. From this, expansion would be by replacing all six drives by larger ones, but that's possibly a long time away from now.

 

[pschatz100]

Thirdly:
I have a superold Dell optiplex 745 that I thought I'd use for offsite storage. As it is super old I installed Truenas to make sure it worked at all, which it did. As it will only be used to backup storeage I don't think the abysmal performance it may have will affect anything?

Thanks in advance for any help for my inquires!
/Jaxcie

The biggest concern with an old Optiplex 745 will be that it is limited to 8Gb RAM memory. 8Gb is the absolute minimum for basic tasks, so if all you plan to do is use the system as a backup then you should be OK.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I have installed TrueNAS on it a few months ago and it boots, so I guess it works at least somewhat.

That is a tempting but wrong conclusion. Where I stand the definition of "working" for a NAS is that it reliable stores and serves data. Neither is proven by installation plus booting.

I partially blame YouTube for this. There are numerous videos out there, some from really large channels, that insinuate this. But think about your collection of 10+ years of family pictures. Would you really want to loose that? Or do you prefer a system that is not brought down by a flaky SATA cable, silently corrupting half your data?