Full NTFS drive to ZFS

[aclark20]

I'm in the process of putting together a freeNAS build to replace a windows machine primarily used as a plex media server.

Old machine has a 500gb drive for the OS, and a single 3tb drive for the media which is ~65% full.

New machine is setup with the OS on a flash drive, and a 500gb SSD for jails & network storage (not a huge need in our house for actual network storage).

What's the most logical way to get the 3TB drive into the new machine? Trying to do "Import Disk" tries to temporarily mount it and copy the data to an existing pool, problem is the existing pool isn't big enough (and I have no plans to make it so).

For right now, I have no problems having the media drive be non-redundant until a later date. So ideally if I could just mount it as a new volume without reformatting, that would great. But it seems there's no method to do this without reformatting it into ZFS?

If the only approach is to go down the "lets make it properly redundant right now" path, I'd probably go 3x3TB. Is it reasonable to make a new pool of 2x3TB, import the volume, then expand the pool to 3x3TB?

 

[gpsguy]

Unfortunately, once you create a 2x3TB vdev (mirrored), you won't be able to add the other 3TB drive and convert it to RAIDz1. If you try doing what you said, you'd end up with a pool comprised of a mirrored set and a single disk striped in. If the latter failed, you'd lose all your data.

With 3TB drives, we recommend RAIDz2, which requires a minimum of 4 drives.

Is it reasonable to make a new pool of 2x3TB, import the volume, then expand the pool to 3x3TB?

 

[aclark20]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking would happen... and any tricks with like 2x2tb & 1x500gb would make my storage pool 1/6th smaller right?

With 3TB drives, we recommend RAIDz2, which requires a minimum of 4 drives.

Can you elaborate a little on why 4x3 is better than 3x3? I don't think I care much about Z2 vs Z1, 1x redundancy is more than enough for the data I have. It's backed up elsewhere, just not in the most convenient manner.

 

[gpsguy]

While you *could* ... let me first ask, are you saying that your have 3 extra disks, the 2x2TB and 500GB drives?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking would happen... and any tricks with like 2x2tb & 1x500gb would make my storage pool 1/6th smaller right?

The concern with large drives and RAIDz1 is whether you run into URE on another disk, while resilvering after a disk replacement. Many of our users think if they have RAIDX, they don't need backups. Or, their pool is so big, they don't have space to back it up anywhere.

Since you already have backups and understand the risk, don't worry about it.

 

[aclark20]

While you *could* ... let me first ask, are you saying that your have 3 extra disks, the 2x2TB and 500GB drives?

In my possession is 2x 500gb system drives, and 1x 3tb storage drive. I don't currently run with redundancy, so going that route involves buying the additional drives.

Since you already have backups and understand the risk, don't worry about it.

Is that a "don't worry about it" go Z1, or don't worry about it, you have a magic solution that lets me import my 3tb into freeNAS without buying additional drives?

Thanks for the help!

 

[gpsguy]

One of your messages said 2x2TB and a 500GB. So are you saying it's really 2x500GB and a 3TB and they are all in use?

Where I was going with this, was, if you had 2x3TB (new), you could combine it with a 2TB (old/empty) drives to create a new RAIDz1 pool. The pool size would be based on the smallest drive. Once you finished copying the data from the 3TB drive to the pool, you could follow the directions in the manual to replace the 2TB drive with the newly freed up 3TB drive and your pool would expand automatically.

In my possession is 2x 500gb system drives, and 1x 3tb storage drive.

Go with RAIDz1 if it's within your comfort zone. It's your decision.

Is that a "don't worry about it" go Z1