Creating a degraded VDEV

[madik]

Hello guys,

I am in the process of receiving a hardware for my FreeNAS build, however I have a question regarding a ZPOOL and VDEV creation before i transfer my data to the FreeNAS. I already have a pair of 3TB WD Reds with data on it and 3x brand new 3TB WD Reds. My plan is to create a 5x 3TB RAIDZ encrypted VDEV. The problem I am facing is the lack of another storage where I save my data before creating a 5 disk RAIDZ.
It would be extremely helpful if I would be able to create an encrypted degraded VDEV so i spare a 1 disk with my data. Move the files on the degraded VDEV, and then add the disk for a silvering process of the VDEV.

I found some guides so it should be possible, but these guides are older and OS specific. Also i wish to create a encrypted VDEV which is not mentioned in these guides how to create one. But is this still doable with the latest version of FreeNAS?

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...dz-3-of-4-drives-i-e-to-allow-migration.7748/

I have some possibility of putting some of my data to storage's in my work but they are pretty full unfortunately and storing there 4-5TB of data wont be possible :/
Thank you for every comment!

 

[Nick2253]

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but RAID5/RAIDZ1 is dead: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162

Before you go with a RAIDZ1 array, make sure you understand what that means for your data integrity. At least RAIDZ2 is strongly recommended.

I don't think you'll be able to do something like this from within the web GUI. And FreeNAS doesn't particularly like it when you're doing stuff behind its back. A possible solution would be to create the array using 4x 3TB drives, and one drive sized differently. Then, you can copy the data to the array, and when you replace the other drive, it should resize your array to reflect the 3TB drives.

 

[cyberjock]

I wouldn't try to do what you are doing, encrypted pool or not. It's dangerous. There used to be a guide for trying to do this, but it was deleted because it caused several people to lose their pools. :P

Nic2253 has a good recommendation. Just grab any spare disk and use it to create the pool.

 

[madik]

Alright, thanks for the heads up. Its a good idea to use one perhaps smaller hdd. If the one smaller drive would be lets say 1TB the overall space of the VDEV is gonna be 4TB (4 x 1TB) right? I will try to borrow at least 1TB for this because smaller disk wont be enough. I was a bit afraid of these shell commands from the link i mentioned since i have no knowledge of BSD systems and blindly following these commands is risky. So the swapping is certainly a safer option. Thank you.

I understand that RAIDZ2 is safer option, but for my use the 1 parity disk in RAIDZ1 will be enough. These drives aren't cheap and using another drive to 2nd parity unfortunately isn't an option for me budget vice.

 

[cyberjock]

You are correct. You'll be limited to the smallest disk in the bunch.

Yes, RAIDZ2 is safer. RAIDZ1 is "dead". Had 2 people in the last week lose their pools because they went with RAIDZ1.. :(

Good luck.. hopefully you won't be a statistic.