What are my options? Expand or make a new array?

[jfat]

Hello, I am fairly new to FreeNAS.

I've started off with a 'noob' configuration with a pentium, and 2x3tb disks, striped with no backup. (Don't crucify me, at least I still had a backup of the important files)

Anyway, so I have just made a new setup with a workstation mobo, 16gb ecc ram, xeon and I have 5x3tb disks in total.

So my pickle is, those 5 are made up of the 2 I already had striped for storage. I am not sure on how to make a raidz configuration resulting in using all 5 disks and not have a left over that I have had to copy everything onto then finally onto what would only be a 4 disk array pool.

So what are my options?

(FYI - Currently my data can all fit on one disk-- well I can make it fit since there are disposable files I can re download or live without.)

I thought I could add the other 3 disks to my current striped array to make raidz but when I try to add the 3 disks I get the error:

• You are trying to add a virtual device of type 'raidz' in a pool that has a virtual device of type 'stripe'.

Am I able to add 2 disks to stripe it onto 4 disks then add the final to make the raidz array?

Or will I have to copy it all onto one disk, make a 4 disk array then copy what I have onto the array, and then add the last disk?

Or what other options are there. I dont really want to be stuck with an odd drive in the end.

Any suggestions on a solution to upload all my data to the internet for free (or a small price) to re-download to my 5 disk array afterward?

Thanks in advance!

 

[nojohnny101]

Have you read the manual and the "slideshow for noobs" yet? It seems you lack a basic understanding of vdevs, pools, and so forth. I would recommend staring there. I would hate for you to later regret not doing so by making some mistake that was easily avoidable by taking the time to do research on how FreeNAS works, its limitations, and it strengths.

To answer your question directly, you can not add disks to a vdev once it has been created, you can only add additional vdevs. If you want to end up with a raidzX (raidz2 recommended) then the only way you will get there is to offload your data to some other place, create the raidz2 vdev, then put your data back on it.

 

[jfat]

Have you read the manual and the "slideshow for noobs" yet? It seems you lack a basic understanding of vdevs, pools, and so forth. I would recommend staring there. I would hate for you to later regret not doing so by making some mistake that was easily avoidable by taking the time to do research on how FreeNAS works, its limitations, and it strengths.

To answer your question directly, you can not add disks to a vdev once it has been created, you can only add additional vdevs. If you want to end up with a raidzX (raidz2 recommended) then the only way you will get there is to offload your data to some other place, create the raidz2 vdev, then put your data back on it.

Thanks for the quick reply,

So Ill admit, it has been a bit since I read through the slideshow. I googled for a while to find some thread with my situation and just got a bit overloaded and just needed a straight answer.
I had a feeling I wouldnt be able to, so thanks for the clarification.

So now I just need to work out how to do this... I don't want to end up with an odd disk that isnt used or ends up as cold storage, my only option is to some how borrow storage or offload it online then re-download...
Any suggestions on a website to upload to? Most I look at are like 15gb max and such like that.

(I edited to reword, you answered my question)

 

[pschatz100]

Even after you set up your new disk array, you will still need a backup strategy. Remember, the purpose of Raid is to help prevent data loss due to hardware failure - but protection via Raid is not a replacement for a proper backup. Perhaps you should think through your backup first, then use that to offload your data, then build your raid array for FreeNAS, then reload your data. At the end of the day, you will have a good raid setup and a proper backup.

 

[joeschmuck]

Simple answer to your question is to find a place to store all your data, could be on other computers in your home, removable USB hard drives on other computers in your home, etc... Copy all the data to other locations. It might not be pretty but as long as you have a copy of the data that's what counts.

Next destroy your pool, then install all the hard drives for the new pool, create the new pool, and lastly start moving your files back to the server. It could take you some time to do the work but that is the best option.

I myself will be changing my pool design by going from six 2TB hard drives down to four 4TB hard drives. It gives me the same storage but with two less hard drives. For me the backups will be easy since my data size is small. Nope, I don't have a huge movie library.

 

[jfat]

Thanks for all the replies everyone,
Had a bit of a look through what files I really need to keep and it seems I can fit everything across my main PC drive and external drive, then ill make the new array.
Surprised over the time how much duplicated files I also seemed to have!

 

[joeschmuck]

Yea, I'm sure we all have duplicated a few files or accidentally retained older versions of something on our systems.