SOLVED Expanding Volume?

[DavidIrwin]

I am in a slightly tricky situation with my new FreeNAS setup. The 4Tb disks I am installing into it are coming from an existing system and all contain data (which I want to move to the FreeNAS). As a result i have had to:

1. Setup freeNAS installed on 32Gb USB drive (mirrored to microSD card - I was going to do without the USB but advice on here is fairly direct about that!)
2. Install an old 2Tb drive and move the first 1.5Tb of data (this frees up sufficient space on the existing system to remove a 4Tb drive)
3. install the 4Tb drive into the FreeNAS
{this is where I am up to}
4. expand the volume
5. move more data to free up next 4Tb disk
5. install next 4tb disk...
{etc}
I will eventually have 3x 4Tb disks in the freeNAS system with space for a 4th at a later date.

My question is will this process result in the volume using the disks purely in a stripe setup with no resilience, or as I add the 3rd disk will I be able to configure to RAIDZ1?

Also up to a point I will have disks of different sizes (the older 2Tb drive being the first one I have added), I need to manage the data to allow me to remove this disk: Should I therefore create a new volume on the 4Tb disks and copy/move all the data to that volume rather than adding disks of different sizes to a volume?

Thank you

David

 

[Ericloewe]

I am in a slightly tricky situation with my new FreeNAS setup. The 4Tb disks I am installing into it are coming from an existing system and all contain data (which I want to move to the FreeNAS). As a result i have had to:

1. Setup freeNAS installed on 32Gb USB drive (mirrored to microSD card - I was going to do without the USB but advice on here is fairly direct about that!)
2. Install an old 2Tb drive and move the first 1.5Tb of data (this frees up sufficient space on the existing system to remove a 4Tb drive)
3. install the 4Tb drive into the FreeNAS
{this is where I am up to}
4. expand the volume
5. move more data to free up next 4Tb disk
5. install next 4tb disk...
{etc}
I will eventually have 3x 4Tb disks in the freeNAS system with space for a 4th at a later date.

My question is will this process result in the volume using the disks purely in a stripe setup with no resilience, or as I add the 3rd disk will I be able to configure to RAIDZ1?

Also up to a point I will have disks of different sizes (the older 2Tb drive being the first one I have added), I need to manage the data to allow me to remove this disk: Should I therefore create a new volume on the 4Tb disks and copy/move all the data to that volume rather than adding disks of different sizes to a volume?

Thank you

David

The disks will be striped. The most you can do is add mirrors to each of them afterwards.

You cannot remove vdevs (in your case, disks, for all practical purposes) from a pool after they've been added - only if you destroy the pool. You can have several pools.

I recommend you read Cyberjock's guide (link is in my sig), as it explains all the important details.

 

[DavidIrwin]

I've just been through the guide (here) and am starting to wonder whether I will ever be able to get where I want without spending money I don't have :(

Research into alternatives to FreeNAS time I think. I had been led to believe (and this is my fault for trusting advice and not researching myself first) that freeNAS could manage drives like the Synology Hybrid Raid which dynamically expands the RAID pool and type as drives are added.

 

[SweetAndLow]

A decent starter computer for freenas i think runs around $375+disks. Check out the Lenovo TS140 and add more memory so you have at least 8GB.

 

[DavidIrwin]

I have already purchased an HP ProLiant Microserver Gen 8 for this project, and all the RAM I need. My issue is that to use FreeNAS for this I would have to purchase a full set of 4 HDD to put in it (£400) and then I would have 3x 4tb drives I don't need and can't after the migration. I really need a solution which will allow me to progressively add drives.

 

[mattbbpl]

I have already purchased an HP ProLiant Microserver Gen 8 for this project, and all the RAM I need. My issue is that to use FreeNAS for this I would have to purchase a full set of 4 HDD to put in it (£400) and then I would have 3x 4tb drives I don't need and can't after the migration. I really need a solution which will allow me to progressively add drives.

This may not be the advice you want to hear, but you'll want a backup of your data anyway. You could make that purchase, use the "extra" drives as a backup solution, and then be able to sleep at night.

 

[DavidIrwin]

This may not be the advice you want to hear, but you'll want a backup of your data anyway. You could make that purchase, use the "extra" drives as a backup solution, and then be able to sleep at night.

Whilst you are correct in most cases, the setup I am creating is a home media server serving 5 people (at most, although more commonly it is idle 20 hours a day and 1-2 users concurrently the rest of the time) and I do not need the usual "business" levels of protection for the data. I am looking for a solution which is resilient to fault but have no issue with the resilience and performance being degraded should a fault occur during a prolonged repair/rebuild.

In truth most of the media has a backup, they are these funny shiny 12cm diameter discs (some silver some a slightly blue colour) - I admit would be really time consuming to restore but possible none the less! :)