Storage Suggestions Please?

[felix83]

hi all,

These are my system specs:

• FreeNAS 8.0.2 RELEASE amd64 (8288)
• Gigabyte G41M-Combo with 4 x SATA 3 GB/s
• 2 x 4GB DDR3 RAM
• 1 x SiL 1334 4-ports SATA PCI-card
• 3 x 2TB WD Caviar Green
• 1 x 1TB Seagate
• 3 x 320GB Seagate

I'm currently running my FreeNAS box with a JBOD setup on a ZFS Striped volume. And being an absolutely newbie - I've just realized that I do not have any disk fault tolerance.

I am thinking of re-doing my storage setup and would appreciate some input/suggestion on my proposed setup:

3 x 2TB in a RAIDZ1 volume giving me approx 4TB of storage
3 x 320GB in a RAIDZ1 volume giving me approx 640GB storage
1 x 1TB as a ZFS spare in case one of my 320GB drives fail and I'm able to replace it without any data loss.

Questions:

1. Given the drives I have, would this setup give me the highest amount of storage available while allowing single drive failure without data loss?
2. Am I correct in understanding that if one of my 320GB drives fail - I can replace it with my 1TB drive without any drive failure?
3. Any other comments or suggestions is very much appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

[jgreco]

1) No. That solution would be 3 x 320GB, 1 x 1TB in a RAIDZ1 giving you 960GB. This essentially uses the 1TB as a 320GB drive.

2) Not if you do what I suggest in 1). Otherwise yes.