Better use Hardware Raid + Drive Extend or ZFS + Extend?

[SchlaWiener]

I have installed FreeNas 8.2 on a File server with

• Intel Core 2 DUO 1,8GHZ
• 4 GB RAM
• 6 x 480 GB
• 3Ware Hardware Raid Controller

Now I want to use the space for ISCSI / VMware4 and I am a little bit undecieded how to make the space available.
Redundancy / data safety is not importent since I will only store data that will be backed up daily. So performance is my main goal.

I have two choices:

1.
- Configure a Hardware Raid10 in the Raid Controller
- Create a drive extend.

2.
- Configure a ZFS Raid10 Volume
(if I understand it correctly I have to add a zfs volume as a mirror with two disks, extend the volume with two mirror disk and extend the volume again with two mirror disks to have the same as a hardware raid 10)
- Configure a file extend


So my question is, which solution is the best for performance and if I choose a use a ZFS volume is it a good idea to use as much space as possible for the extend?

 

[cyberjock]

Start with reading the manual. You will then understand why Option 1 isn't a smart decision.

 

[Milhouse]

If performance is your goal...

• Add more memory (at least another 4GB)
• Enable ZFS prefetch (disabled by default <=4GB RAM)
• Forget about hardware RAID (unlikely to bring any worthwhile performance gain, odds on certainty to cause more headaches)

From your description, and with six disks available, it sounds like you want to stripe your data across three 2-disk mirrored vdevs? Sure, should be fine. The multiple vdevs should improve ZFS performance on concurrent reads/writes.