FreeNas and parity

[IgorekNYC]

Hi,
I have 2x 1tb and 2 x 2tb hard drives. I plan to combine them into one gigantic 6 tb raid 0 because my motherboard does not support raid 5. Using FreeNas and an extra 2 tb drive, can I count on support if one of the drives fail. Sorry for the noob question.

Thanks.

 

[Chris Moore]

gigantic 6tb

That is not gigantic.

raid 0

That is a bad idea.

my motherboard does not support raid 5.

The capability of your system board is irrelevant. FreeNAS uses ZFS (the file system) to manage data redundancy and you are not supposed to use any hardware RAID in conjunction with FreeNAS.

Using FreeNas and an extra 2 tb drive, can I count on support if one of the drives fail.

What support would you expect when you are not configuring a system with the remotest connection to best practices?

You need to read and learn about FreeNAS and ZFS before you begin to think of using FreeNAS.

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/

The 'Hidden' Cost of Using ZFS for Your Home NAS
https://louwrentius.com/the-hidden-cost-of-using-zfs-for-your-home-nas.html

Why not to use RAID-5 or RAIDz1
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

FreeNAS® Quick Hardware Guide
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/freenas®-quick-hardware-guide.7/

Hardware Recommendations Guide Rev. 1e) 2017-05-06
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

Hardware Recommendations by @cyberjock - from 26 Aug 2014 - and still valid
https://forums.freenas.org/threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

Proper Power Supply Sizing Guidance
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

 

[IgorekNYC]

Thanks for a detailed reply. After reading through your links I still don't know if it's possible. I only have 5 sata slots on my motherboard, so I'm sort of limited. I can go up on the size of the parity drive, though.

Thanks

 

[garm]

You need to give ZFS direct disk access, do not use a RAID controller.

There is no parity disk in ZFS, if you decide on using RAIDZ parity happens on all disks.

The drives you have are not suited for RAIDZ, at best you can set them up at mirror pairs.

If you are limited to 5 Sata connections and do not want to invest in a proper HBA, your best bet is to get another two 2TB drives and set them up as RAIDZ2 for a net total of ~ 4.5 TB storage.

 

[Chris Moore]

I only have 5 sata slots on my motherboard,

You can install a SAS controller and connect up to eight SATA drives directly do it or connect up to 256 drives by using SAS Expanders.
Please also read this:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. I don't know what your system board is, but you should post what hardware you are looking at so we can determine if it is compatible with FreeNAS

Please read this:

Forum Guidelines
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/

 

[IgorekNYC]

PS. I don't know what your system board is, but you should post what hardware you are looking at so we can determine if it is compatible with FreeNAS

Please read this:

Forum Guidelines
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/forum-guidelines.45124/

Once again, thank you.

The hard drives I have are 2x1tb Samsung 7200rpm and 2x2 Samsung 5400 rpm. The board I have is gigabyte ma785gm-us2h. 5 sata ports

Thanks.

 

[IgorekNYC]

You can install a SAS controller and connect up to eight SATA drives directly do it or connect up to 256 drives by using SAS Expanders.
Please also read this:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

Thanks for

You can install a SAS controller and connect up to eight SATA drives directly do it or connect up to 256 drives by using SAS Expanders.
Please also read this:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/

Confused about that LSI card? Join the crowd ...
https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/confused-about-that-lsi-card-join-the-crowd.11901/

Damn this is a very appealing idea, but I'm not sure if my 10 year old motherboard can work with modern pcix devices