Confused about RAID

[gsjmia]

My single drive 5 year old FreeNAS (built from Enadget build article in 2012) finally gave out and one dataset lost, but I had a completely backed up FreeNAS running on a VM on my landlord's backup Windows server. While I was building a new FreeNAS box, the backup VM then had problems. I also had a USB backup.

So, having learned my lesson, my final config will be two new FreeNAS boxes, plus a newly configured VM on the Windows server FreeNAS, plus the USB. Finally, I will probably go with a Crashplan.

My 3TB of data is very very important. My original thought was to have 3 disks in each box and have them mirrored, but then I read that RAIDZ2 with 4 disks might be better?

Where does ZFS come in, I don't see it as an option during setting up the Vol.

And finally, I saw a reference to a RAID guide written by Noobsauce80 but can't find it, is there a guide available (nothing on google I could find).

Thanks

 

[Nick2253]

My original thought was to have 3 disks in each box and have them mirrored, but then I read that RAIDZ2 with 4 disks might be better?

What do you mean by "have them mirrored"? Do you mean 3-way mirrors in each box? Or do you mean mirroring them between the two boxes? If it's the latter, what you're really talking about is replicating the data between the two FreeNAS boxes.

Depending on what you're actually talking about RAIDZ2 may be better. I would recommend RAIDZ2 over RAIDZ1 in almost every case (if costs allow).

Where does ZFS come in, I don't see it as an option during setting up the Vol.

FreeNAS is ZFS. You have no other option when setting up FreeNAS any more.

I'm really curious what kind of hardware you're using, and I'm worried that it might not be adequate for FreeNAS.

 

[gsjmia]

That is what I thought about ZFS, but some posts seem to indicate that its an option, which is why I was confused.

By mirrored, I was thinking of having the three drives mirrored in each box, and then backed up to the 2nd box, and then backed up again to the Windows VM.

I am agnostic to what kind of RAID/mirror or whatever, just looking for cost effective integrity of data.

My config is:

Asrock E3C226D21
Intel i3-4150
2 X 8 Kingston 1600 DDR3L ECC RAM
FSP 300 W Mini ITX PSU 80+
120 G SanDisk SSD
(?) X 4TB RED Western Digital

Thanks

 

[Nick2253]

3-way mirrors aren't necessarily bad, though it's probably overkill for most uses. Of your three drives, you're only effectively seeing one as "usable" because two of the three are for redundancy.

 

[gsjmia]

If its overkill, can I just have 2 drives mirrored in each box, that seems like enough to me. I don't mind the usable limit, each 4tB is more than enough space.

Do you think mirrored is the best solution?
Would Raidz2 with 4 disks give the same integrity but be faster?

 

[Nick2253]

Mirrors are a good choice. I would recommend mirrors over RAIDZ1, though RAIDZ2 and mirrors are appropriate for different use cases.

 

[danb35]

That is what I thought about ZFS, but some posts seem to indicate that its an option

Prior to the release of FreeNAS 9.3, you could also create and use UFS volumes. With the release of 9.3, 3+ years ago, support for UFS went away and ZFS is all that's left.