RAID Advice for Newbie using TN12

[LazyBoy2]

Hi Everyone.
I am a novice PC builder and NAS user but after amassing shed loads of digital family photos and my wife running out of free google storage I had to decide on paying for google storage that was unique to her or sorting out out something at home for everyone to use. I had an old PC that was lying idle in the loft so after a bit of research I decided to build a NAS. This will be used to store photos (less than 400GB) and serve music to a Sonos Move, the important thing is not to loose the photos so I am also thinking of offsite (Online?) backup.
TrueNAS core v12.005 is now installed on the machine, I have accessed it via the web interface and all seems to be ok. I need to create some user accounts and configure the storage, for info the hardware is:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H (rev. 1.0)
16GB non Ecc Ram
Intel I5 Chip
1x PNY 120 GB ssd system drive With 16GB Ram swap partition.
2x Samsung 870 QVO 1TB ssds for storage.

When buying the drives I tried to balance cost against reliability bearing in mind the light workload of the NAS. Quietness was also important as this machine may be living in the loft and vibration could be an issue.
I had it in mind that I would Mirror the storage drives (RAID 1) for the best data integrity.

So my RAID / Storage related questions are.
1. Is Raid 1 a good (best?) option for me.
2. Can the 1TB vdev (2x 1TB mirrored drives) be expanded after creation without data loss or would any extra drives require another vdev?
3. Can a Second vdev be created without damaging the first one.
4. My plan is just to have 1TB of storage subdivided into folders is this an efficient way to use the storage
5. Any general advice on setting up the storage to allow future flexibility
6. What have I completely misunderstood or overlooked.

Sorry for the long first post just wanted to get all the relevant info in, so if any one is still reading your help and advice would be appreciated.
Cheers
Ian

 

[danb35]

Can the 1TB vdev (2x 1TB mirrored drives) be expanded after creation without data loss or would any extra drives require another vdev?

The vdev could be extended by adding additional drives, but they'd be further mirrors of the two already there (ZFS supports n-way mirrors, for arbitrary values of n). In order to expand the pool, you'd create a second vdev with another mirrored pair of drives. Yes, you can do this without damage to existing data; it's transparent to the users.

thinking of offsite (Online?) backup.

A few options here. The simplest is through the cloud sync feature already included in TrueNAS, which will back up your data to any of a variety of cloud storage providers--I understand Backblaze is popular, but there are many available. But then you're trading one "cloud storage" solution for another.

The better way to go is likely to have a separate, off-site NAS, and back up to that. Obviously that entails a higher up-front cost, though.

1. Is Raid 1 a good (best?) option for me.

With your hardware, it's probably the only viable option. The other choice would be to stripe the SSDs together, but since that gives you no redundancy, that isn't a good choice for important data. Though ZFS doesn't offer "RAID 1" as such, it offers mirrors, which work similarly, but aren't quite the same thing.

4. My plan is just to have 1TB of storage subdivided into folders is this an efficient way to use the storage

Probably, since you can expand the pool if desired or needed. You can use datasets instead of or in addition to subdirectories. Datasets will let you do things like set quotas, different permissions, different snapshot schedules/retention, etc. As a general rule, it's probably good to make a dataset for each shared directory; further datasets would be at your discretion.

5. Any general advice on setting up the storage to allow future flexibility

This is one of the bigger advantages of mirrors vs. RAIDZn. With the latter, expanding capacity requires you buy more drives, ideally as many drives as are in your initial vdev. So, if you have a six-disk RAIDZ2 pool (which I did early on), to expand it, you'd need to either replace all six disks with larger ones, or add another six-disk RAIDZ2 vdev--in either case you need six disks. To expand a two-disk mirror, just add another mirrored pair. The trade-off is that you give up more capacity to redundancy, while at the same time having poorer redundancy.

 

[NugentS]

This is a personal view - but don't use Samsung QVO they are not up to to it. This is based on limited experience of a total failure after only a few weeks of use. It was a R5 array that collapsed with total disk failure of most of the SSD's. They had to be sent back as faulty.

Its a sample size of one - so YMMV. They were being used fairly hard and you are just talking light SMB for your use case

 

[LazyBoy2]

Thank you for your replies.
Nugent, your negative comments are the first i've heard regarding regarding Samsung ssd drives but every manufacturer can have production issues. Fingers crossed it wont be mine that fail. I will probably keep my existing storage and run the NAS for a couple of months before relying solely on it.

DanB, Would further vdev mirrors have to be 2 x 1TBs drive or can they be any size mirror. For instance 2x 3TB ssd drives as hardware costs fall in the future?

The trade-off is that you give up more capacity to redundancy, while at the same time having poorer redundancy.

Could you explain this a bit more I get the 'more capacity to redundancy' part but I am not sure I understand the 'while at the same time having poorer redundancy' part. Could you point me to some info on vdevs and mirrors aimed at newbies.

Thankyou both for your help
Cheers
Ian

 

[NugentS]

@LazyBoy2 my comments are aimed at Samsung QVO drives and no others
If you have 2 vdevs then the resiliency is per vdev. So a RAIDZ1 vdev can lose one drive in the vdev
A mirror of 2 vdevs RAIDZ1 can lose 2 disks BUT only one per vdev. If you lose 2 disks in one vdev you lose the pool
A RAIDZ2 OTOH can lose any two disks without losing the pool

You can use any drive in any vdev (subject to size mixing of disks). If you mirror a 1 TB and a 4TB you get a 1TB Mirror.

Another way of looking: A redundant disk in a vdev is only of use in that vdev. So the more vdevs you have the less overall redundancy you have because redundancy only effects that vdev

A RAIDZ3 has 3 redundant disks which can cover for any failure across the Pool

 

[danb35]

A RAIDZ3 has 3 redundant disks which can cover for any failure across the Pool

"across the vdev" is what I'm sure you meant.

Would further vdev mirrors have to be 2 x 1TBs drive or can they be any size mirror. For instance 2x 3TB ssd drives as hardware costs fall in the future?

Within a vdev, the size of the smallest disk determines the size of the vdev. But additional vdevs can be larger or smaller.

 

[NugentS]

"across the vdev" is what I'm sure you meant.

Oops - yes.

 

[LazyBoy2]

Hi Guys
Thankyou both for the info. I can see that I need to do some more research before I set up my NAS, just to get my head head around vdevs, pools and raidz.
Thanks
for your help
Ian

 

[danb35]

just to get my head head around vdevs, pools and raidz.

In brief, a vdev is a RAID group--it's where all the redundancy happens. For more background, see:

27. ZFS Primer — FreeNAS®11.3-U5 User Guide Table of Contents

www.ixsystems.com

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC for noobs!

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC and other newbie mistakes! I've put together a Powerpoint presentation(and PDF) that gives some useful info for newbies to FreeNAS. I decided to create this slideshow because in the last 5 months I've been on this forum I've seen a lot of people...

www.truenas.com

 

[LazyBoy2]

Hi Danb thanks for the links to the info.
That Cyberjock Slide show is a scary document for a noob (deliberately I Think !!).
I will probably buy 2 more disks (not QVO) and go with Raidz2.
Cheers
Ian

 

[elvisimprsntr]

Another mobo with built in HW RAID support.

Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

GA-H77M-D3H (rev. 1.0) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

Do not under any circumstances use HW RAID with TrueNAS!

Does the Atheros NIC work?

Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

 

[NugentS]

Another mobo with built in HW RAID support.

GA-H77M-D3H (rev. 1.0) Specification | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

Do not under any circumstances use HW RAID with TrueNAS!

Does the Atheros NIC work?

I think.
1. Do not under any circumstances use any form of RAID with TrueNAS (TrueNAS uses Pools which run on top of individual disks)
2. Atheros - probably not (honestly I have no idea) - so LazyBoy2 will likely need to buy a decent network card

For SATA connectors he has:

1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2/3/4/5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices

Use the 2 * 6Gb/s for the datapool and then 1 * 3Gb/s for his boot drive leaving 3 * 3Gb Ports for additional storage later on which will seriously constrain any SSD's he may add later. HDD's will be fine

As for PCIe - at best - depending on the CPU
1 * PCIe 3*16, 1 * PCIe 2*4, 1 * PCIe 2*1 and one PCI slot - so expansion is limited - but then it always will be on a consumer board and consumer chip due to lack of lanes.

 

[LazyBoy2]

Hi all

Another mobo with built in HW RAID support.

The MB RAID has never been used and is disabled in the BIOS and yes this is a repurposed consumer PC that has served me well for 7(?) years or more and I suspect it will serve me well for another 10 as a NAS.

Use the 2 * 6Gb/s for the datapool and then 1 * 3Gb/s for his boot drive leaving 3 * 3Gb Ports for additional storage later on which will seriously constrain any SSD's he may add later. HDD's will be fine

Yes that is how I have connected them.
There is a DVD drive on one of the 3GB ports because this MB does not want to boot from USB.

This is a personal view - but don't use Samsung QVO they are not up to to it. This is based on limited experience of a total failure after only a few weeks of use.

NugentS comments about Samsung QVO ssd has worried me so I am thinking about buying a couple of WD Red SSD drives.
I would then create 1 mirror vdev with the WD REDs in 1 pool for the digital pics and a second Vdev in a second pool with the samsung QVOs (on the 3GB/s bus) to store less important stuff and mount a jail for apps. Does this sound a sensible approach?

The Atheros chip (AR815-B) does work OK. There was an issue after installation with a Network error message but it turned out to be a physical connection problem. Now that is resolved the Atheros NIC works ok.

Regarding the SATA bus speed and the NIC speed, For what I am using this NAS for I really don't think it will be an issue. there will probably be only one user connected to it at a time. It may end up serving a music stream and a Picture stream to a digital picture frame. I am not intending to stream movies or run VMs on it.
I could of course be completely wrong, If there are problems then I might build another NAS unit from scratch at which time these issues will be addressed.
Once again thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply to this thread.

Cheers
Ian

 

[NugentS]

For light use the QVO's may be fine. The scenario I am thinking about had them working quite hard - but they died after only a few weeks.