Adding storage to server.

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Cronus94

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Hi All,

This may have been asked before so forgive me if it has. I am fairly new to freenas so be gentle.

I have a server that has 4 x 4tb WD Reds set up in RaidZ2 (usuable 7tb) and I'm running out of space (roughly 2tb left). Given the amount of time it has taken me to fill up 5tb im sure it wont take long to use up the last 2tb.

I have heard that it is difficult to add additional storage to an existing pool. So I was wondering, would it be easier to delete the whole pool/ volume add the extra drives and make a new volumes from scratch with the extra drives added and using backups from external drives?

I have 2 SATA ports left on my X11SSM-F and was also looking at adding the M1015 controller (flashing to IT mode) at the same time.

I only use the server for Plex at the moment if interested.
 
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HoneyBadger

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I have heard that it is difficult to add additional storage to an existing pool.
Then you've been misled.

What's difficult (currently impossible*) is changing the vdev configuration - the number of drives in a RAIDZ setup, for example.

Adding a new vdev, on the other hand, is extremely easy. In your case, we need to know what your current drive setup is.

Did you create the pool as a set of two mirror sets, or one larger volume in RAIDZ2? Either way, you can attach more drives and extend the pool - the existing config just offers guidance on how many you should add at a time.

*yes I know you can convert a stripe to a mirror, etc. don't think that will help the OP here.
 

Cronus94

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Thanks for the reply.

Did you create the pool as a set of two mirror sets, or one larger volume in RAIDZ2?

One large volume in RaidZ2.
 

Ericloewe

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I have heard that it is difficult to add additional storage to an existing pool.
You heard wrong. It is extremely easy, but there are restrictions on what you'd want to do.

Now, to provide concrete advice we need to know what the pool looks like. You're probably either using a single 4-wide RAIDZ2 vdev or two mirror vdevs. In the the former case, the simplest option is to add a second four-wide RAIDZ2 vdev. In the latter case, you can simply add another mirror pair.
 

Cronus94

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Thanks for the response.

Now, to provide concrete advice we need to know what the pool looks like. You're probably either using a single 4-wide RAIDZ2 vdev or two mirror vdevs

It's in RaidZ2.

In the the former case, the simplest option is to add a second four-wide RAIDZ2 vdev.

So if I was todo this, would it still appear as a single network drive when looking at network drives via windows pc for example? I.e just an expansion to the pool rather than a whole separate pool.
 

joeschmuck

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@Cronus94 What did you want to do? Did you want to add one or two more drives, how much additional capacity did you want to add? As the others indicated, you can add more capacity but it does come at a price.

1) You could add another vdev of drives, another four 4TB drives would double your storage.
2) You could add another vdev of drives, maybe a pair of 4TB (or larger) drives which would add ~3.5TB of storage but leaves your pool at risk.
3) You could add another hard drive for more by destroying your pool and then recreating your RAIDZ2. This is typically the most cost effective method but also most involved if you have jails and such. It's not hard, just more involved.
4) You could replace each hard drive in your pool with a larger size drive and when the last one has been replaced the capacity of the pool will go up. Typically you do this when you are replacing hard drives for failure, well that is what I do. This also allows you to maintian your data, jails, configuration, everything will just work without interruption.
This may have been asked before so forgive me if it has. I am fairly new to freenas so be gentle.
We are not tuff on people however we do recommend that you learn on your own vice beeing spoon fed everything. The Resources section and the User Guide has a lot of information that you should read. Also the forum rules will tell you to do an internet search for your question, in your case it has been asked and answered quite a bit.

Check out this link:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/
 

Cronus94

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Thanks for the response.

What did you want to do? Did you want to add one or two more drives, how much additional capacity did you want to add? As the others indicated, you can add more capacity but it does come at a price.

I basically want to expand the existing data set. So if I'm looking at my network drive via a windows pc for example, I want that drive to be expanded rather than seeing several network drives. I'll probably add 2 x 4tb drives at the moment (maby more)

You could add another vdev of drives, another four 4TB drives would double your storage.
Would this simply expand the existing pool making it double in size or would it give me two lots of 7tb drives when looking at it as a network drive?

You could add another hard drive for more by destroying your pool and then recreating your RAIDZ2. This is typically the most cost effective method but also most involved if you have jails and such. It's not hard, just more involved.

This is what I'm leaning towards. My jails are stored on a separate ssd drive so I think my jails will be fine, I'll just have to point plex to the location of my data when finished.

You could add another vdev of drives, maybe a pair of 4TB (or larger) drives which would add ~3.5TB of storage but leaves your pool at risk.

This is what I have heard, I don't want to leave my pool at risk so this wouldn't be an option for me.

You could replace each hard drive in your pool with a larger size
I might do this eventually but I'd rather not at the moment it is not favourable.

I did do a some research and watched YouTube vids but there were a lot of conflicting information.

I'll check out the link.
 
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Ericloewe

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So if I was todo this, would it still appear as a single network drive when looking at network drives via windows pc for example? I.e just an expansion to the pool rather than a whole separate pool.
You can do either, but I imagine you just want to extend your existing pool and be done with it, since that's what ZFS is about.
 

Chris Moore

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Freenas 9.10.2 U6
You should upgrade to a newer version of the software. First upgrade to 10, then upgrade to 11. Don't go straight from 9 to 11 because that has caused problems for others. Unless you have some compelling reason that is keeping you from upgrading.
 
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Ericloewe

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You should upgrade to a newer version of the software. First upgrade to 10, then upgrade to 11. Don't go straight from 9 to 11 because that has caused problems for others. Unless you have some compelling reason that is keeping you from upgrading.
What? 10 is definitely to be avoided at all costs. There's nothing wrong with upgrading from 9.10.2 to 11.x.
 

Cronus94

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Unless you have some compelling reason that is keeping you from upgrading.

I did upgrade a little while after 11 was released however for some reason plex wouldn't see my media when trying to direct it to my media files. So I rolled back in order for plex to see my media files (which worked).
 

Chris Moore

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What? 10 is definitely to be avoided at all costs. There's nothing wrong with upgrading from 9.10.2 to 11.x.
My mistake I was thinking of FreeBSD 10 which is 9.10 in FreeNAS

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk
 

Chris Moore

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I have 2 SATA ports left on my X11SSM-F and was also looking at adding the M1015 controller (flashing to IT mode) at the same time.
I fully support the plan to add a SAS controller, but the M1015 is an older model and the thing I would suggest using at this time is as follows:

SAS PCI-E 3.0 HBA LSI 9207-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID - - Price: US $69.55
https://www.ebay.com/itm/162862201664

Drive Cables: Mini SAS to 4-SATA SFF-8087 Multi-Lane Forward Breakout Internal Cable - - US $12.99
https://www.ebay.com/itm/371681252206
So I was wondering, would it be easier to delete the whole pool/ volume add the extra drives and make a new volumes from scratch with the extra drives added and using backups from external drives?
You do not need to do that, but I would say it is the better option. If you are able to move all your data someplace else and establish a new pool of 8 drives, it would be more efficient of disk space than two vdevs or RAIDz2.

To get a better understanding of how these things work, you should look at these resources.

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/
 

joeschmuck

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So based on your responses here it looks like you would prefer to just rebuild your pool and as provided you can backup your data elsewhere that is precently on your pool then you would have no issues doing the upgrade. It's good that your jails are on a seperate drive, it does make it one step easier. Just make sure you make a backup of your configuration file as well.

You will find out that several of us here will have difference of opinions and I'm going to say some things contrary to what my friends above have said.

1) I don't see anything wrong with using the current version of FreeNAS you are using provided it's behind a firewall and it functions for you. When you upgrade you always take some risk even if it's minor. I can't expalin why Plex stopped working for you but you could delete your Plex jail, upgrade to FreeNAS 11.1-U6, and then recreate the Plex jail. Actually you may just want to wait for FreeNAS 11.2-U1 Stable to come out and do it then, this could be 6+ months away but stability is what everyone wants.

2) Why buy the HBA, you don't need it right now unless you want to add more than two hard drives. Just adding something like this would also add heat to your system, eat more power, and likely provide you no other benefit other than to have more SATA ports. Ask yourself if you need it right now.

3) Lets talk capacity that you want. Just adding the two drives to your system will double your capacity. So I have a few questions:
a) How old are your current WD Red drives? Expect them to last 5 years for planning purposes.
b) How fast will you run out of capacity again, will it be in 2 years?

So I ask these questions because you should plan for the future a bit when it comes to capacity. Here is how I see it. If you do not feel like you will run out of capacity by the time your warranty expires then you are okay. If you feel you will need to add more capacity before the warranty expires then you should plan to add capacity now. Also when I see someone using WD Red drives you should know that these drives typically last much longer than the warranty period, could be 5 years or longer.

Usable capacity = 20% less that what the system reports. You should have 20% free space to maintain a fast healthy pool.

So lets say you add two drives, this will give you 14.6TB Usable Space minus 20% (2.9TB) equals 11.6TB of true usable space. But maybe you feel you will use all this up in 2-3 years. Well something you can do is purchase and install two 6TB hard drives now and when you run out of space you can simply replace the four 4TB drives and once you replace the last drive then you would have 21TB Usable Space or 16.8TB true usable space. I'mnot saying you should install larger drives now only you can determin what your storage needs will be and what makes the best financial sense to you. What I think I'm trying to say is you could stick at six hard drives and just upgrade the capacity of your hard drives to meet your needs.

Just give it some thought as to what you want, you have several options and we are trying to present them to you. It could be a lot to digest but it's best to make an informed decision. You could just upgrade by adding two 4TB drives and call it complete if all you want to do is double your capacity and you feel it would take you out 3+ years.
 

Cronus94

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Thank you for the very informative response, it really helped.

I don't see anything wrong with using the current version of FreeNAS you are using provided it's behind a firewall and it functions for you
It functions well however looking at adding a firewall is something I've been meaning to read up on.

How old are your current WD Red drives?
Just over a year, so should have plenty of use left in them (in theory).

How fast will you run out of capacity again, will it be in 2 years?
Given the time it has taken me to build up 4.3TB of data, my current storage will probably be used up within a year.
If I added two 4TB drives now I would estimate it should last 5+ years.

From everything you have said I think my best bet is to add two 4TB drives soon and by the time the storage runs out (which should be 5+ years) hopefully 6TB drives will be cheaper and I can replace the six 4TB's for 6TB's.

You have certainly helped and given me plenty to conisder. Freenas is still failry new to me and I am reading a lot and watching plenty of youtube vids, it is proving to be a learning curve but a good one non the less.

Thanks again to all your help (that goes to everyone).:)
 

joeschmuck

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It functions well however looking at adding a firewall is something I've been meaning to read up on.
I would imagine your internet router has a built in firewall, well I hope it does.

Freenas is still failry new to me and I am reading a lot and watching plenty of youtube vids
Be warned that while Youtube videos are great, just make sure they are relevant to the firmware and hardware you are using. Make sure you read the User Guide and the Resources section of this forum. Also I use Google to do searches and I enter things like "freenas add drives to vdev" for example and sometimes need to change the words up to find an older posting that would shead light on whatever I'm trying to do.

Also, since you are adding two more hard drives to your enclosure, just ensure they have good air flow across the drives to keep them cool. If your hard drives are at or below 40C for temperature then odds are they will last a long time. If you run them at 50C or higher then they may die prematurely. I'm not saying 45C is good but it's not horrible. My current drives run at 34C to 36C, the lower temperature has the best air flow. My drives are also 7200RPM so they generate more heat. My old WD Reds ran at 28C to 31C and I had six of them in an enclosure and they ran at 5200RPM.

Best of luck to you.
 

Cronus94

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I would imagine your internet router has a built in firewall, well I hope it does.
Ahh, I thought your original comment meant a firewall on the freenas server itself (my mistake). Yes my router has a firewall lol.

Also, since you are adding two more hard drives to your enclosure, just ensure they have good air flow across the drives to keep them cool.
Of course, I plan on adding Noctua PWM fans.

If your hard drives are at or below 40C for temperature then odds are they will last a long time
Currently my drives operate between 31C-35C, I monitor them regularly.

Thanks again.
 

Chris Moore

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I am reading a lot and watching plenty of youtube vids,
Be careful about the YouTube videos. Some of them are rubbish. If you have questions, come here and ask.
 

Cronus94

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Be careful about the YouTube videos. Some of them are rubbish.
Yeah there certainly are a lot of bad ones from what I have seen. I tend to only use two main youtube channels; "Lawrence Systems" & "FreeNASTeam" they both seem very useful.

If you have questions, come here and ask.
Thanks again
 

Stux

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Seems you’ve made up your mind :)

If it were me I’d be recreating my pool as a 6 or 8 wide RaidZ2 and then restoring the data from backup.

And if I were to fill that up in a couple of years, then it may be time to add another vdev ;)

So much depends on your data usage pattern.
 
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