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

[cyberjock]

I didn't want to add stuff like you are proposing because it's supposed to be the noob guide. RAIDZ and RAIDZ2 are clearly explained in the manual, which should have been read. If you haven't read the manual you probably shouldn't be using FreeNAS.

As for the swapoff, there's alot of odd caveats to using FreeNAS, especially the beta builds. I don't want to fill the guide with lots of "ifs" and "thens". As it was, since 8.3 uses the new ZFS version I was hesitant to discuss the old versus new. Unfortunately, while my slideshow clearly states that it is written for 8.3 only, I'm sure people would ignore that message, so I tried to write in the differences as best as I could. Not to mention people that will upgrade FreeNAS but not upgrade the ZFS pool version.

 

[sy5tem]

very good stuff! thank you

 

[pbrown]

suggestion: instead of dropbox, put the PDF in google docs, unzipped. Then people can use google "quick view", and/or link it into their own google docs space as well.

 

[cyberjock]

I'll check it out. I've never used google docs before, but I'm sure I can figure it out.

 

[cyberjock]

Added Google Docs version of PDF. The Google Docs doesn't like my powerpoint(my guess is the animations).

 

[pbrown]

Thanks! the google docs version is nice quick n easy to read. relative to the other ways, at least :)

Now I'd just need to find different docs on freenas, that focuses on the non-zfs parts.

 

[HWgeek]

Thanks for this guide, great help in sorting out zraid options!

 

[cyberjock]

You are welcome. I noticed that was also your first post. Your time spent creating the account just to thank me will not go unnoticed :)

 

[clarkeshaw]

I read the PDF and I only have one question. Where do I get the manual? Yes, I am a complete NOOB. So far my only guides have been YouTube tutorials.

 

[cyberjock]

I read the PDF and I only have one question. Where do I get the manual? Yes, I am a complete NOOB. So far my only guides have been YouTube tutorials.

doc.freenas.org

 

[NASbox]

Thank you very much for putting this together... very helpful &easy to follow!

Just one thing I want to check that I understood correctly...

If I have a ZPool with one VDEV consisting of 4 3TB drives in RaidZ2 and I later get 4TB drives, I can expand the VDEV by swapping out the drives one by one and resilvering. Did I get that right??

Thanks agaon for the great contribution.

 

[cyberjock]

Thank you very much for putting this together... very helpful &easy to follow!

Just one thing I want to check that I understood correctly...

If I have a ZPool with one VDEV consisting of 4 3TB drives in RaidZ2 and I later get 4TB drives, I can expand the VDEV by swapping out the drives one by one and resilvering. Did I get that right??

Thanks agaon for the great contribution.

Yep! Do them one at a time with a reboot after the last one is resilvered and you will suddenly have a bigger zpool.

 

[unplugme71]

Thank you. Finally have an understanding of zpools!

 

[pwfletcher]

Thank you ... that helps ;-)

 

[JonnyAlpha]

After reading this sticky I finally understand FreeNAS storage methdology THANKS

 

[deadlift]

um the guy who invented l2arc states that removal of the l2arc device shouldn't destroy anything.

It's getting much better, but we have designed the L2ARC to handle errors safely. The data stored on the L2ARC is checksummed, and if the checksum is wrong or the SSD reports an error, we defer that read to the original pool of disks. Enough errors and the L2ARC device will offline itself. I've even yanked out busy L2ARC devices on live systems as part of testing, and everything continues to run.

http://www.brendangregg.com/bio.html
https://blogs.oracle.com/brendan/entry/test

that's an old statement however.
can someone state if that is FreeNAS bug that should the l2arc drop the zpool becomes unviable.

 

[cyberjock]

What?

I'm not sure why you are even posting in the thread for the presentation, but the presentation doesn't say anything about losing data if the l2arc goes offline. In fact, it says:

Failure of the L2ARC will NOT result in a loss of data, but performance of the zpool may degrade because the L2ARC is no longer functional.

 

[deadlift]

doi! my bad confused zil and l2arc... been a long day. thanks for the clear up, keep up the good work.

 

[BillyBob2]

cyberjock, thank you for the guide

Yet another addition for your guide?

actually, this could may be whole a new guide with in it self: (or is it already?)

"Procedure on how to add disks to a VDEV?" what would be the simplest way of doing this?

or is the procedure, backup and then start from scratch?

since I don't have much incite on the subject. Would <Backup, Destroy, Add new Disk(s), rebuild> wizard be relevant?

 

[BillyBob2]

cyberjock, thank you for the guide

Yet another addition for your guide?

actually, this could may be whole a new guide with in it self: (or is it already?)

"Procedure on how to add disks to a VDEV?" what would be the simplest way of doing this?

or is the procedure, backup and then start from scratch?

since I don't have much incite on the subject. Would <Backup, Destroy, Add new Disk(s), rebuild> wizard be relevant?

I had this thought, because I made the stupid mistake of destroying my VDEV in error.
bottom line, I have a backup of my data & the FreeNAS backup file. but that's not enough is it? How do I get my machine backup with the least amount of re-configuring from scratch?