My first FreeNAS build

[Adures]

If you go with the small drives, verify your pool is using an ashift of 12 before putting data on it.

Can you elaborate?

@Robert Trevellyan well maybe. Hovewer i've read a lot of discussions about and there is really no clear-cut proof that consumer drives are worse. I don't want to start another discussion here but it looks like it depends a lot on luck. I've read threads where people were cursing their WD RED's while others said these are the best HD. I will test my luck here. If they die quicky i will know i made a mistake :D

 

[Stux]

Can you elaborate?

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...nt-drive-with-new-one-keeps-bad-ashift.46674/

 

[Adures]

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...nt-drive-with-new-one-keeps-bad-ashift.46674/

Wow thank you. That probably saved me a lot of trouble.

EDIT: @Stux I haven't bought the drives yet. Can i somehow check if they are 512 or 4 kb? You know like a year when they were produced? They are sata II so i know they are not new.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

i've read a lot of discussions about and there is really no clear-cut proof that consumer drives are worse

I didn't say consumer drives are less reliable. While they typically do have a shorter warranty than NAS drives, that wasn't my point. Do you know what TLER is, and why it's important in any RAID application?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Can i somehow check if they are 512 or 4 kb?

You can check that using smartctl. Regardless, FreeNAS has defaulted to ashift=12 for a while now, so you should be fine.

 

[Adures]

I didn't say consumer drives are less reliable. While they typically do have a shorter warranty than NAS drives, that wasn't my point. Do you know what TLER is, and why it's important in any RAID application?

Yes you are right. I've read that HD which support TLER are good to have, but not essential. I'll risk it.

You can check that using smartctl. Regardless, FreeNAS has defaulted to ashift=12 for a while now, so you should be fine.

Will I? It seems like if i put all the 512b drives i will end up with ashift9 pool which will stay like this even if i swap everything with 4k drives. However i've also read an easy solution to that problem and that is when creating a pool i should also put one 4k drive and this will make a ashift=12 pool.


Keeping in mind what i just wrote, can anyone confirm that if i create (i use 6 HD):

RAID-Z2 with all old drives i will end up with ashift =9 pool
RAID-Z2 with 5 old drives and 1 new 4k HD u will end up with ashift=12 pool?

Do i understand that correctly?

 

[Stux]

Try it with the old drives and check the ashift. If it's 12 you're good to go

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

It seems like if i put all the 512b drives i will end up with ashift9 pool

FreeNAS will use ashift=12 regardless of the physical sector size of the drives.

 

[Adures]

ok, thank you all for your help and for answering my questions and doubts. Looks like i will take the old drives. If i encounter any problems i will let you know