Force 4096 bytes sector size after RAIDZ is in use (Production System)

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Hey guys! I am very very happy with my FreeNAS server and recently benchmarked it to see my speeds,

SPECS
5x2TB Samsung Green Drives in RAIDZ1 + 40GB Intel SSD as a cache drive
I got 260MB/s for write and 300MB/s for read.

I was wondering though if I can turn on the option to force 4096 byte size after a ZFS Volume is already created. I read that for maximum performance I should have this option on for these newer 4k drives and didn't check it when I created the volume. Is there anyway I can do this without having to backup all my data elsewhere and recreating the RAIDZ? I was thinking exporting it, and re-importing it but I don't want to mess with things unless I'm sure they'll be helpful because this system is in use(and I'm not at it's current location).

Thank you so much for any help!

 

[Milhouse]

You can't add 4K sector support without recreating the volume and destroying your data.

You should always have a backup of your data from which to restore, unless it's not important to you.

If you don't have a backup, and the system is in use, and it's remote, then I'd suggest sticking with 512B sectors - it will be just fine and not worth the hassle of converting to 4K.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Thanks! I'll probably get more drives once they're reasonably priced and possible create a new zfs volume with a raidz2 or 2xraidz1.
If I go with raidz2 option I'll need to offload the data {bestbuys return poilcy is great =] }