Hard Drive Re-deployment?

[RichTJ99]

Hi,


So I am close to ready to buying hardware for my new Freenas server (Supermicro X10SL7-F with Xeon). I think I can / should reuse some of my existing drives (24?!? how did that happen) before I buy other drives as I cant figure out a use for them otherwise.


I have the following hard drives in 5 of my computers:


SSDS (BOOT DRIVES)

180 1

60 1

120 2

250 1


INTERNAL DRIVES

500gb 1

600gb 1

1tb 1

1.5tb 3

2tb 12

3tb 3

4tb 3



EXTERNAL DRIVES

4tb 1

5tb 1

8tb 1


I have two camera servers running 24/7 & they require the most storage, I have a windows 2012 server which primarily handles the nightly backups of the comptuers in my home. Nothing is mission critical but I have copy after copy of data – it is not organized at all. If I see free space I dump things on it. Not a great way to manage it.


I am debating on if I should do a larger 2TB (8 or so drives) for Freenas, or reuse 3 of the 4TB drives and buy 3 more 4TB for a total of 6TB . I would prefer to buy better server hardware & replace drives in the future. I would appreciate any feedback.


Thanks,
Rich



Current drive Locations

HP Microserver NL40 running Windows 7 & is primarily a DLNA server:

180gb SSD (boot)

4x 2tb drives

Esata enclosure:

4tb x1

2tb x1

500gb x1 (Ready to retire)

600gb x1 (Ready to retire)


CCTV Server #1:

60gb SSD (boot)

3tb x2

2tb x2

1.5tb x1

4tb x1 (External)

5tb x1 (External)


CCTV Sever #2:

120gb SSD (boot)

1tb x1

1.5tb x2

4tb x1


Windows Main Workstaiton:

250gb SSD (boot)

2tb x3 (2 drives are intel software raid)

3tb x1

8tb x1 (External)


Windows 2012 Server:

120GB (Boot)

2tb x2

4tb x1 (Hidden Windows Server backup disk)


This gives me the total drives:


500gb 1

600gb 1

1tb 1

1.5tb 3

2tb 12

3tb 3

4tb 3



SSDS

180 1

60 1

120 2

250 1



External

4tb 1

5tb 1

8tb 1

 

[Bidule0hm]

How many drives maximum do you want to put in your server and how many space do you need?

 

[solarisguy]

To [B]RichTJ99[/B]:

How many drives maximum do you want to put in your server and how many space do you need?

Nobody knows your data better than you, but I can see, from the pictures you had posted, that if you envision data growth, you may want to have 6 drives 6TB each, or even 8 drives 6TB each, in RAID-Z2.

As I wrote elsewhere earlier, please reuse your existing disks for backups.

Also, user [B]Bidule0hm[/B] has developed a tool http://biduleohm.free.fr/zfsraidsarc/ for calculating usable space on ZFS pools. You should try it, to learn how much disk space you can really use for any given number of disks, depending on their size.

 

[RichTJ99]

The main functionality for the new freenas box is: centralized data storage, DLNA, VM's (mainly for playing).

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

2tb 12
3tb 3
4tb 3

The most obvious way to go is one or more 6-drive, RAIDZ2 vdevs.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Yep, I immediately thought of 2 vdevs of 6x 2 TB drives + 1 vdev of 6x 3 and 4 TB drives but that's 18 drives and the MB has a max of 14 drives so unless you use a SAS expander or you add a M1015 you can't put that many drives.

With this config you'll have about 5.5 + 5.5 + 8.5 = 19.5 TiB usable (already accounted for the overheads and the 80 % usage rule) ;)

 

[RichTJ99]

To confirm a vdev is a ZFS "raid" group?

So you are saying:
Vdev1 - 6x 1tb drives
Vdev2 - 6x 1tb drives
Vdev3 - 3x 3tb drives + 3x 4tb drives (To confirm this Vdev3 would be a total of 6x 3tb drives (3x of the 1tb would just go away on the 4tb drives?)

How do people typically use the different Vdevs?

VDev1 - CIFS share storage
VDev2 - Media / VM storage
VDev3 - backup storage

Something like that?

If I had all new storage with 10x 4tb drives - would that typically all go into 1 Vdev or does it still tend to get split into multiple Vdevs?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[solarisguy]

@RichTJ99, in order to avoid confusion, when using ZFS, its terminology needs to be followed.

Virtual devices (vdevs) are somewhat similar to a RAID group, and for simple configurations quite similar.

However, vdevs are only building blocks for pools (not zpools, and zpool is a command). Once you have a vdev, you have a pool and create in the pool different datasets. At least one for a pool (the first one will be created for you automagically).

Modifying your example, where each storage entity has very different needs, one could write

• vdev1 (up to 80% utilization) => pool1 => dataset1 used for CIFS accessible storage (for example media files)
• vdev2 (up to 50% utilization) => pool2 => dataset2 used for VM storage
• vdev3 (can be made of relatively slower hardware) => pool3 => dataset3 used for storing backups

You cannot get any part from one vdev and let some other pool use it. Once a vdev is in a pool, it can only be in that one pool (you cannot even remove it from the pool).

You cannot have one pool giving a part of its storage to any other pool.

If you want to use disks from poolB in poolA, you have to destroy poolB (data becomes inaccessible) and reuse the hardware to create a new vdev for poolA (I made some simplifications describing this scenario.)

(Late edit) P.S.
In many scenarios (maybe all?), a disk can be replaced by a larger one.

 

[depasseg]

How do people typically use the different Vdevs?

I usually put some vdevs together to make a large pool.

But sometimes, I add even more vdevs to make a backup pool.

 

[Bidule0hm]

So you are saying:
Vdev1 - 6x 1tb drives
Vdev2 - 6x 1tb drives
Vdev3 - 3x 3tb drives + 3x 4tb drives (To confirm this Vdev3 would be a total of 6x 3tb drives (3x of the 1tb would just go away on the 4tb drives?)

Yes (excepted it's 2 TB instead of 1 TB drives) and yes the vdev #3 is equivalent to 6x 3 TB (you can always replace the 3 TB drives by 4 TB later and the vdev will auto expand to be a 6x 4 TB vdev) ;)

How do people typically use the different Vdevs?

You can do one pool per vdev or just one pool with the 3 vdevs, or whatever other viable solution...

See the link "The ZFS Structure" in my signature if you want more info about the ZFS structure :)

 

[RichTJ99]

Soo, my parts are on hand (no drives yet). I am torn between leaving all drives in place & buying new 4tb or 6tb drives for the freenas box or just grabbing 6 or 7 2tb drives i have on hand to use for now.

Either way the CCTV servers can always use the storage.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Grab some drives, make a pool, try a bunch of stuff, plan to throw it out and start over, or in other words, build a prototype. Do this at least once, then you'll have a much better chance of ending up with what you really want/need in the end.

 

[solarisguy]

Possibly you can re-use the lower capacity drives for backups?