Advise me on my drive pool setup

[Vidaeus]

So I am a complete newbie to RAID, FreeBSD and NAS. I have only ever run a a windows PC full of single drives as a fileserver or a Synology DS with a couple of drives in non-RAID. I think I understand what a RAID does and how they work, but not 100%.

I have just built a new machine for my rig and installed FreeNAS but haven't really decided on what to do with my drives. Here are my specs:
CPU: Intel Pentium G3260
MoBo: ASUS B85M-E
RAM: 16GB Geil something 4x4GB sticks
HDDs: 2x WD Reds 3TB (brand new) as well as 2x Samsung 2TB (out of my old Synology DS)

Is it possible to set up both 3TB drives as a RAIDZ1 and then the other 2x 2TB drives as a separate RAIDZ1? This will basically show up as a single 3TB drive and a single 2TB drive and the machine looks after everything else, correct? RAIDZ1 gives me redundancy if one drive from each pool dies as well as increased performance? If one drive dies, can I replace it with any drive of the same size or does it need to be the exact same model?

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Obviously you are mixing up some terms here. What you can do is to create two mirror vdevs, not RAIDZ1. RAIDZ1 is similar to RAID5.

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

One mirror out of the WD Reds and one out of the Samsung HDDs. You basically have the choice between a single pool consisting of two striped mirror vdevs and two separate pools consisting of a single mirror vdev each.

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

Please be aware of the fact that you are starting over using desktop hardware components, which is not recommended.

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-fail-a-guide-to-things-not-to-do.40924/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ll-a-proper-home-freenas-setup-cost-me.28936/

 

[Vidaeus]

So after reading more into ZFS, FreeNAS and how it all works, I have decided that it's not for me. Way overkill for what I need in a basic home fileserver. In particular the file system and the way RAM is used. I have the hardware already, it's not going to change, so I'm going to look elsewhere.

Thanks for the info you've pointed out.