extend Storage

[Nuts4Free]

Hello,

my storage for my private NAS is at the end of its capacity. The NAS is used as media and backup server. At the moment I have 1 x usb stick for freenas OS, 3 x 2 TB as RAIDZ1 and 1 128 GB SSD as ZLOG.

Now I have buyed 1 additional 2 TB HDD and 1 6 TB HDD. My idea is to rebuild the RAIDZ1 with 4 x 2 TB HDD and to use the 6 TB HDD as mirror. I need the 6 TB HDD temporarily as backup too, before I can rebuild the new RAIDZ1.

Is that procedure okay or are there any suggestions regarding storage layout and procedure?

Thanks for any hint.

Best regards,
Andy

 

[gpsguy]

Yes, in order to include the new 2TB drive, you'll need to backup your data somewhere (6TB drive), rebuild the pool, and restore your data. I don't understand how you'll use the 6TB drive as a mirror. Will you be buying another 6TB drive to include in the mirror? If you do, I'd create two pools, one with your 2TB drives, the other with the 6TB drives.

One thing to consider is that with larger drives, we recommend RAIDz2 instead of RAIDz1. With just 4 drives, you'd lose half your storage to parity, so you won't gain any more storage over what you have now, but you could suffer the loss of two drives.

Can you afford to buy 2 more 2TB drives? 6 drives in RAIDz2 is one of the sweet spots. Down the road, should you need to upgrade, you could replace the 2TB disks with say 4TB disks (one at a time). Once you'd replaced all your disks, your storage would double. This is easier than having to backup your data (like you need to do now) and start over.

Note: Why did you add the ZIL/SLOG? My guess is that you'd be better off without it. You might consider re-using the SSD for your boot device. After FreeNAS 9.3 was released, a many users have switched to SSD boot devices. They are more reliable than flash drives and their prices have fallen considerably.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Yes, in order to include the new 2TB drive, you'll need to backup your data somewhere (6TB drive), rebuild the pool, and restore your data. I don't understand how you'll use the 6TB drive as a mirror. Will you be buying another 6TB drive to include in the mirror? If you do, I'd create two pools, one with your 2TB drives, the other with the 6TB drives.

One thing to consider is that with larger drives, we recommend RAIDz2 instead of RAIDz1. With just 4 drives, you'd lose half your storage to parity, so you won't gain any more storage over what you have now, but you could suffer the loss of two drives.

Can you afford to buy 2 more 2TB drives? 6 drives in RAIDz2 is one of the sweet spots. Down the road, should you need to upgrade, you could replace the 2TB disks with say 4TB disks (one at a time). Once you'd replaced all your disks, your storage would double. This is easier than having to backup your data (like you need to do now) and start over.

Note: Why did you add the ZIL/SLOG? My guess is that you'd be better off without it. You might consider re-using the SSD for your boot device. After FreeNAS 9.3 was released, a many users have switched to SSD boot devices. They are more reliable than flash drives and their prices have fallen considerably.

I second all of this and especially the part about removing the slog because it's not helping you in any way.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Nuts4Free]

Hello and thanks for your feedback,

I do not want to exchange all my existing hdds for bigger one. It is to expensive and therefore I prefer to extend or rebuild my RAIDZ1with existing hdds. On the other hand, I have only a midi tower and cannot build in more drives.

I know that RAIDZ2 is more reliable but therefore I want to mirror 4 x 2 TB vdevs to 1 x 6 TB. Is that possible, maybe by hand?

Thanks for the hint with ssd and ZLOG. Now I do not know what I should use the ssd for, because USB Stick is used for security reasons Any suggestions?

Best regards,
Andy

 

[gpsguy]

I wasn't suggesting that you replace all your drives now. Just buy 2 more to include in your new pool. My thought was to give you upgrade flexibility down the road.

You can't mirror a 6TB drive with a vdev containing 4x2TB drives.

With a mirror, one normally matches the drive sizes. For example 2x6TB yields a 6TB volume. If you use mismatched drive sizes like a 2TB drive and a 6TB drive, the volume size will be limited to the smaller of the two - in this case 2TB. Now, if you did do that, down the road you could replace the 2TB drive in the mirror and the volume would automatically expand.

 

[gpsguy]

I got interrupted during my reply - what do you mean by the USB drive providing security?

Unless your pool is encrypted (not recommended) someone could pop another flash drive containing FreeNAS and get to your data.

Or, are you just trying to slow down the uninformed. Take out the flash drive and your kids can't get to the dirty pix. :-(

 

[Deleted47050]

Unless your pool is encrypted (not recommended) someone could pop another flash drive containing FreeNAS and get to your data.

Not recommended?

 

[SweetAndLow]

Not recommended?

It's not recommended because most people end up loosing the keys and passphrase. So they lose all there data. If you feel like you can handle this responsibility go for it but be warned if you mess up you can't get your data back.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[gpsguy]

IMHO - not recommended.

While FDE (full disk encryption) might sound good on paper, we've seen a lot of forum members lose their data forever. Of course, one should have backups, but a good percentage of FreeNAS users aren't IT professionals and don't understand that RAID is not a backup.

If one wants to use encryption, we recommend that one read/search the forum on the topic, to get an idea of the pitfalls, before they become the next victim of an inaccessible pool. Read the doc's, understand what's needed to do a disk replacement. Ensure that you have backups of the keys. Test, test, test.

Rather than use FDE, consider encrypting a portion of the data with a product like VeraCrypt.

Not recommended?

On my day job, I've been using FDE products for ~10 years. Yesterday, while working with a vendor on a hardware/software issue, I had to enter the Bitlocker key in 10 times on mobile device. That gets tiring after awhile.

 

[Deleted47050]

Gotcha. I just wanted to make sure this wasn't because the encryption features did not work well or something.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Nuts4Free]

I wasn't suggesting that you replace all your drives now. Just buy 2 more to include in your new pool. My thought was to give you upgrade flexibility down the road.

You can't mirror a 6TB drive with a vdev containing 4x2TB drives.

With a mirror, one normally matches the drive sizes. For example 2x6TB yields a 6TB volume. If you use mismatched drive sizes like a 2TB drive and a 6TB drive, the volume size will be limited to the smaller of the two - in this case 2TB. Now, if you did do that, down the road you could replace the 2TB drive in the mirror and the volume would automatically expand.

At the moment I am at the limit of capacity and I cannot build in more drives without buying a new board, what I not intend. I could replace SSD now, mmmh.

I am not familiar with zfs raid but my thought was to build a new Raidz1 with 4x 2 TB and round about 6 TB usable storage. And that vdev I wanted to mirror to the new 6 TB hdd. I know that the volume size will be limited to the lower one, but I would accept it, when my idea works, what I am not sure anymore.

 

[Nuts4Free]

I got interrupted during my reply - what do you mean by the USB drive providing security?

Unless your pool is encrypted (not recommended) someone could pop another flash drive containing FreeNAS and get to your data.

Or, are you just trying to slow down the uninformed. Take out the flash drive and your kids can't get to the dirty pix. :-(

Yes I want take out usb drive and yes my pool is encrypted and yes I feel safe to handle this. I have a backup of my encryption key and have imported that pool already succesfully.

No recommendation because of lack of knowledge? Mmmmh.

 

[pirateghost]

At the moment I am at the limit of capacity and I cannot build in more drives without buying a new board, what I not intend. I could replace SSD now, mmmh.

I am not familiar with zfs raid but my thought was to build a new Raidz1 with 4x 2 TB and round about 6 TB usable storage. And that vdev I wanted to mirror to the new 6 TB hdd. I know that the volume size will be limited to the lower one, but I would accept it, when my idea works, what I am not sure anymore.

You're using the term 'mirror' but you can't do that with your setup.

Look at zfs replication and put the 6tb in a pool by itself, replicate to it using the built in capability of FreeNAS

 

[gpsguy]

As I said before, you can't create a mirror like you are suggesting. I would add the 6TB drive as it's own volume (just one drive in the pool) and use replication or possibly rsync to backup your 4x2TB RAIDz1 volume to the 6TB drive.

I am not familiar with zfs raid but my thought was to build a new Raidz1 with 4x 2 TB and round about 6 TB usable storage. And that vdev I wanted to mirror to the new 6 TB hdd. I know that the volume size will be limited to the lower one, but I would accept it, when my idea works, what I am not sure anymore.

Looks like pirateghost posted a reply, while I was composing mine.