With FreeNAS and zfs, is it better to have four 2TB disks, or eight 1TB disks. Or does it matter?

[Goofball Jones]

Just wondering. Thinking of building a system. The case has 8 drive bays. I have the motherboard/proc and ECC memory in mind already.

Also, if I just get four 1TB drives at first, then later on buy four more, how easy is it to add to an already configured system? Will it just accept the new drives automagically (lol), or will everything have to start from scratch again?

As you can see, I'm a total noob.

 

[Ericloewe]

I recommend you read Cyberjock's guide to ZFS. Link is on my sig.

 

[mjws00]

It's better to have eight 6TB drives ;)

I'll give you the cliff notes if you continue read the guide anyway. You could infact add the next 4 1TB drives as a second vdev. It's not as "automagic" or flexible as some systems. ZFS lets us add easily, but not subtract or reconfigure. 8 spindles also has more iop and throughput potential, but both are likely limited by your NIC.

Good luck.

 

[DaNilePharaoh]

Just wondering. Thinking of building a system. The case has 8 drive bays. I have the motherboard/proc and ECC memory in mind already.

Also, if I just get four 1TB drives at first, then later on buy four more, how easy is it to add to an already configured system? Will it just accept the new drives automagically (lol), or will everything have to start from scratch again?

As you can see, I'm a total noob.

read Cyberjock's guides, they are very well made and you will gain all the knowledge you need
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Raidz 3, 5 disks
Raidz2 4, 6 disks
is the recommended initial setup

you can increase your storage by adding more vdevs or replacing all drive "one at a time" in your existing with larger capacity drives, your storage will only increase after replacing the last drive in the vdev.
my advice, give yourself sometime to read first and many of the forum gurus ( I don't consider myself one, as I'm a noob too :) ) will help you along the way.

 

[Goofball Jones]

thanks all

 

[diedrichg]

I believe the consensus these days is that it is hard to recommend Z1 when you can go with one more drive on Z2 and get two disk loss vs 1 disk loss on Z1.

 

[DaNilePharaoh]

I believe the consensus these days is that it is hard to recommend Z1 when you can go with one more drive on Z2 and get two disk loss vs 1 disk loss on Z1.

100% true, but in the end of the day its his own choice, based on his specific needs, usage and budget.
I meant the recommended number of drives for each kind of raid, not the recommended raid type.
what I highly recommend regardless of the raid type you are going to use is to have backup on a separate storage of your precious data.
this is what i thought as a "newbie" is the best way to go coz i know i'm going to mess things up somehow in the future :)

 

[Fraoch]

Make sure you understand the implications before making your decision though:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162