gillycheesesteak
Cadet
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
- Messages
- 2
Hello,
I'm new to FreeNAS, but I'd like to set up a server with it in my home with what I have and can get cheap/free, so I'm looking for some advice on whether this is possible and/or advised.
What I have currently is 5 drives:
2x 1TB
2x 2TB
1x 3TB
I've looked around a lot and I think I've come to understand what I can and can't do, but I wanted to ask anyway to make sure. I want to combine these drives in the way that protects my data but gives me the largest possible usable capacity. My initial thought was to somehow combine each 1TB drive with a 2TB in a RAID 0 format, and then do a RAID-Z across 3x3TB (6TB usable capacity). Another thought in the same thread was to combine the 1TB drives together, and RAID-Z across all 4 "drives", which would waste 1TB on the 3TB drive, but again give me 6TB usable capacity. From my reading it does not seem that this is possible, but if it is, I would like to hear about how to do it.
My other idea that seemed doable, but that it seems to me is inadvisable, would be to create two separate vdevs: the 2TB drives and the 3TB drive in a RAID-Z, and then mirror the 1TB drives on each other, giving me a total of 5TB usable capacity (not as good, but acceptable).
Any thoughts?
I'm new to FreeNAS, but I'd like to set up a server with it in my home with what I have and can get cheap/free, so I'm looking for some advice on whether this is possible and/or advised.
What I have currently is 5 drives:
2x 1TB
2x 2TB
1x 3TB
I've looked around a lot and I think I've come to understand what I can and can't do, but I wanted to ask anyway to make sure. I want to combine these drives in the way that protects my data but gives me the largest possible usable capacity. My initial thought was to somehow combine each 1TB drive with a 2TB in a RAID 0 format, and then do a RAID-Z across 3x3TB (6TB usable capacity). Another thought in the same thread was to combine the 1TB drives together, and RAID-Z across all 4 "drives", which would waste 1TB on the 3TB drive, but again give me 6TB usable capacity. From my reading it does not seem that this is possible, but if it is, I would like to hear about how to do it.
My other idea that seemed doable, but that it seems to me is inadvisable, would be to create two separate vdevs: the 2TB drives and the 3TB drive in a RAID-Z, and then mirror the 1TB drives on each other, giving me a total of 5TB usable capacity (not as good, but acceptable).
Any thoughts?