Storage running out - options?

[Tim1962]

Current situation
Home FreeNAS working well. Basically backup purposes plus some jails and VM

4 * 3TB WD Reds in Raidz2. 90% used. Boot device SSD, Motherboard only supports 5 SATA connections (therefore all used)
Finances could cover any option but would rather not just at the moment!

So... My thoughts would be
1. Swap SSD boot device to USB boot stick and use the spare SATA for a spare 3TB WD Green lying around (unmirrored for TM Backup)
2. Buy a SATA PCIe (Hardware list = 120quid) and stick my 3TB WD Green in (un mirrored etc)
3. Buy bigger disks and swap to expand current storage pool (400quid for not THAT much space (4*4Tb))
4. Stick a USB external drive on the back to offload my TimeMachine backup to (assume usb can cope with that?)

Some other cost effective solution? I never thought I'd be comtemplating needing this much space at home!!!

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

Are you trying to stay within your current case? What is your hardware and FreeNAS version? Off the cuff, it would probably be easy to add another internal drive controller if you have the drive bays and power available. Something like this for the drive controller: https://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-SAS-92...-Bus-Adapter-LSI00301-SAS9207-8i/153121581254

 

[Tim1962]

I'd prefer to keep the case (Don't like waste and it fits perfectly (except expansion I find!!!).). HP ML10 Gen9 tower. FN 1.2 Master nightlies.

I'm not confident about 2nd hand hardware off ebay, is it fairly safe for enterprise type stuff??? That card would fit the budget (if I find it in UK??) (Thanks for quick reply, but just off out for a few hours . )

 

[Tim1962]

ebay uk

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/LSI-SAS921...583097&hash=item41daf9a909:g:U38AAOSwIedbDgf5

Would that be right??? (Right price!)

 

[Elliot Dierksen]

Would that be right??? (Right price!)

Pretty close. The 9211 is PCIe 2.0 where the 9207 PCIe 3.0, but I doubt that would make much difference. You would probably need SAS/SATA fan out cables like this. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAEGB69R9468

The question still remains if you have free drive bays and enough power. I am not real familiar with that system, but I did find this.

HardDrive Bays - 4 LFF Non-hot plug SATA 3.5" drives
Up to 6 LFF Non-hot plug SATA 3.5" drives

Sound like you ought to have 2 bays open, but certainly should have at least 1. Somebody else might have a better option, but the only ones I can think of require you to destroy and recreate your pool. If you backup your data (!!!), you could add the controller card and additional drives. You might even be able to use external optical bay(s) for drive(s). After you have all the drives, you could recreate the RAIDZ2 with the additional drive. That should net you ~= 80% of the drives you add as additional space. I still have some concerns about the power, but you would definitely want to burn in the new config and make sure it doesn't eat itself.

 

[gpsguy]

The OP should have 2 free bays. If his ML10 Gen 9 included a DVD in the top bay, he'd need to remove it and get a converter to allow him to put a 3.5" drive in that slot. The other 5 drive bays are identical. He should have 6 SATA ports on the motherboard.

Sound like you ought to have 2 bays open, but certainly should have at least 1.

 

[Bostjan]

1) The cheapest would be to find unneeded data and delete it. Really. It saved me some money.

2) When I have time I run fdupes to find deduplicated files.

3) Also search for large files and consider removing them.

4) Lookinto consolidaton of VMs. One base VM where others are run from and only diffs are written to the disk.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tim1962]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

AFAICT the HPE ML10 Gen 9 tower has sufficient bays but only has 5 SATA ports (visually and on the data sheet, but I will recheck in the morning )

Its got a 300W power supply ???


I've tried to trim all the files I can
I've only go one VM which if I had enough space to play with I'd aim to loose!!! (Catch 22)

 

[CraigD]

You could add a JBOD, rack mount or tower either works

Have Fun

 

[Tim1962]

Thanks, catching up with the comments...

AFAICT from the manuals and inspection, it says it has 6 SATA ports, but the pictorial image has 5 SATA annotated plus a optical disc port which appears to be the sixth SATA port referred to... Can you get a Standard SATA port and an optical SATA port? And if so can you convert or use them?

 

[Tim1962]

ref JBOD... I certainly have a selection of drives for a potential JBOD (somewhere between 5-10Tb if I cull the small or dead ones)

It has some attractions (free-ish reuse etc) but doesn't it go against the ethos of freeNAS and resiliance? What use case would there be?

 

[Tim1962]

Assuming the answer isn't already in the case (optical SATA port i've missed and can use) my preference is currently for the 9211. That being so, could I ask which is better, direct SATA off the motherboard, or swapping all to the 9211, and can I mix and match where the SATA cables plug into (MBoard or 9211)

 

[diskdiddler]

I would move to booting off USB personally for a start, it's worked for me, near 4 years now. Free up a SATA slot with that straight away.
Also delete data, what data do you have?

"Duplicate Cleaner Pro" is very good for binarily identical files.
"Video Comparer" is exceptionally well designed for videos - but it's not cheap.