Raid Z2 builds in seconds?

[James Quinn]

Hi everyone - this is my first post ever in a forum. I have always been able to find an answer via Google or a manual but am stumped and need some help.

I built a FreeNAS box using a motherboard with 10 sata III ports (onboard, no seperate raid or HBA controller cards) with 10 X 4tb drives.

Using ZFS Volume Manager I was able to create a RaidZ2 volume which went well except for one issue. When I clicked add volume it only took a few seconds to build? In the past I have used commercial NAS boxes using mostly raid 5 and I remember it took hours if not days to build the volumes?

When I check Active Volumes it shows healthy. I could map the volume from Windows 7 and 8 and it shows the correct amount of storage space.

I don't want to tranfer my data over until I am sure the volume is "correct." As it only took seconds to build I don't trust it is setup correctly. I deleted the volume and built it again with the same results.

I apologize in advance if the answer is here already - I may have missed it as I have limited knowledge of the correct terminology - just a newbie trying to setup a large NAS for my A/V backups. Thank you for your help.

 

[joeschmuck]

This is normal. The file format doesn't require the entire drive to be reformatted into some proprietary odd format. Ten 4TB drives, bet that cost a pretty penny. Also, hope you used ECC RAM, lots of it.

 

[James Quinn]

Joeschumck,

Wow - thank you for the quick reply - it is much appreciated and I can now sleep at night. Unfortunately I did not use ECC Ram. I am using 32gb of non ECC. The main purpose of this build was to have a massive storage box that will only be powered on when I do a backup (home use). I have another FreeNas box which has a good LSI raid controller for Raid 0 (performance only, not for backup purpose) which I use to stream to an Intel NUC with OpenElec (XBMC). There are other commercial NAS units which I use in Raid 5 for additional backup (Drobo and Lenovo). I spent a lot of time backing up all my music, movies, home videos, pictures, etc. so I have multiple backups just in case. Once again thank you, for your help.

 

[joeschmuck]

If you're not running ECC RAM then ensure you run MemTest86+ for 3 full passes periodically. I'm sure you have heard the horror stories of folks not using ECC RAM and loosing all their data so remember you have been warned.