rungekutta
Contributor
- Joined
- May 11, 2016
- Messages
- 146
To all ZFS and storage gurus! Need some advice.
I currently run FreeNAS on bare metal, Supermicro X11 with i3 CPU and 6x 3TB WD Reds in a single RAIDZ2 vdev. All HDDs on SATA directly on the m/board and installed in the case (Fractal Design), using all space available. The m/board has 2 additional SATA ports that are being used for the SDOM boot drive and an SSD for ZIL, respectively.
The NAS serves as media storage, backup server for laptops and desktops, and disk for a bunch of VMs running on ESXi on another machine (access via NFS).
All works very well and I’m extremely happy with the setup. However I suddenly find myself using 70% of available space so need to think about expansion options. (This happened quicker than I had anticipated...)
Need some advise of best way forward. Options I can think of myself:
1) Replace the existing 6x 3TBs with something larger, one by one, and grow the existing vdev once all drives replaced. Would have to try and sell the old disks to recover some of the money.
2) Buy or build a separate JBOD case and add a SAS HBA card in my FreeNAS box to connect it up - add disks in a new vdev and maybe stripe together with my existing - or set up as new and additional.
3) Buy a new server altogether with space for more drives, move existing drives over, add a few more, and sell the old case and m/board
Or other options I’m not thinking of..?
Based on this information given, what are your thoughts around pros and cons and best way forward? Looking to spend as little as possible while not pairing myself into a corner immediately.
I currently run FreeNAS on bare metal, Supermicro X11 with i3 CPU and 6x 3TB WD Reds in a single RAIDZ2 vdev. All HDDs on SATA directly on the m/board and installed in the case (Fractal Design), using all space available. The m/board has 2 additional SATA ports that are being used for the SDOM boot drive and an SSD for ZIL, respectively.
The NAS serves as media storage, backup server for laptops and desktops, and disk for a bunch of VMs running on ESXi on another machine (access via NFS).
All works very well and I’m extremely happy with the setup. However I suddenly find myself using 70% of available space so need to think about expansion options. (This happened quicker than I had anticipated...)
Need some advise of best way forward. Options I can think of myself:
1) Replace the existing 6x 3TBs with something larger, one by one, and grow the existing vdev once all drives replaced. Would have to try and sell the old disks to recover some of the money.
2) Buy or build a separate JBOD case and add a SAS HBA card in my FreeNAS box to connect it up - add disks in a new vdev and maybe stripe together with my existing - or set up as new and additional.
3) Buy a new server altogether with space for more drives, move existing drives over, add a few more, and sell the old case and m/board
Or other options I’m not thinking of..?
Based on this information given, what are your thoughts around pros and cons and best way forward? Looking to spend as little as possible while not pairing myself into a corner immediately.
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